Gaming Review : Assassin's Creed Unity

Bonjour humaine.

This time it's my all time favorite, gaming. Let's get on a plane and take a flight across the globe. We are going to Paris, the city of love. However, it may not always filled with love because it is set in the late 1700s and the early 1800s, during the French Revolution.

Plot;

Assassin's Creed: Unity is a 2014 sandbox action adventure game, and a sequel to 2013's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, the game has the player take on the role of an Initiate as they explore the story of Arno Dorian, who joins the Assassins to investigate the murder of his adoptive father on behalf of his adoptive sister Élise de la Serre, a member of the Templars.

Assassin's Creed: Unity began development in 2010 as Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood wrapped up development. Ubisoft's Montreal-based team, in conjunction with nine other studios from Toronto, Kiev, Singapore, Shanghai, Annecy, Montpellier, Bucharest, Quebec and Chengdu are working on the completion of the game. The creative director is Alexandre Amancio, who also served in that capacity on 2011's Assassin's Creed: Revelations. He was offered the French Revolution game before taking the job of creative director on Revelations. After shipping that game, he was exhausted and took a job in advertising before returning to Ubisoft on Unity in June 2012. Amancio aimed to utilize the then next-generation console technology to push the boundaries of storytelling, and having an engaging love story without making it become a secondary storyline. He cited Ico and Passage as video games that successfully placed romance at the center of gameplay, but noted those were far less complex than an Assassin's Creed game. Travis Stout wrote the single player story, Ceri Young wrote the co-op missions, and Russell Lees scripted the single-player side missions. The historical characters have been mostly relegated to the side missions, leaving Stout to concentrate on writing a story focusing on Arno. French historian Dr. Jean Clement Martin acted as script consultant. According to the series' primary historical advisor Maxime Durand, he aided in ensuring the story did not feel too Royalist despite critiquing the Revolution. The game uses a rebuilt Anvil game engine utilizing the Theatre, Zen and City Lights tools, which respectively improve animation, asset management and volumetric lighting. Quebec professor Laurent Turcot advised developers on the look of 18th century Paris, advising them to look at contemporary paintings and engravings in recreating the past. Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet's paintings were emulated for the appearance of the city's water. Unity has crowds numbering in the thousands, with new animations and behaviors, such as holding hands or chatting to each other, enhancing their believability. When Arno sees crowds from a distance, the civilians' animation rigs are simplified, but as he gets closer, their "bones" increase and their behavior becomes more complex. Amancio explained the game's cast are using English accents because unlike previous games, where accents distinguished characters and reminded players where they are from, it is clear to the player that the characters in Unity are French so using those accents was deemed unnecessary. Unlike previous installments, Unity is set to have three composers for the soundtrack: Chris Tilton, Ryan Amon and Sarah Schachner.

This popular ongoing series takes a leap of faith this year sending it exclusively for the next generation console (Sony PS4/Microsoft XBOX One/PC). Assassin's Creed Unity is the eighth project since the very first Assassin's Creed series back in November 2007. The publishers, Ubisoft, are making some crucial changes in this particular series. So, what's new? There are a few improvisations for the gameplay such as; locations and navigations, memories, customization, and also the all new cooperative play.

Locations and navigation

As the game is exclusive to next-generation consoles and PC, it will enable renderings of Paris to 1:1 scale and crowds numbering in the thousands. Players will able to explore the city's entirety, including seamless interiors and the catacombs, with landmarks like Notre-Dame having a quarter of the building's interior playable. Even empty buildings may have unlockable rooms with treasures inside. When standing on rooftops, a button can display 3D objects like alarm bells to help the player strategize. Haystacks have been largely removed in favor of allowing players to control their descent from rooftops, and the controls for freerunning up and down are now separate. Social Stealth has been improved upon with a special crouching mode activated by button, and combat has been made more tactical to feel more realistic: counter kills were removed. Assassinations in the game are referred to as "black box missions," and harken to the style of gameplay from the first Assassin's Creed. Contextual clues are provided to allow the player to choose and plan their own approach, rather than follow a linear, pre-determined path to the target. Unlike previous games however, an assassination is not deemed successful until Arno has escaped after performing it.

Memories

For memories, instead of the player being given a series of objectives, Ubisoft has developed the Adaptive Mission Mechanic, which gives players several potential paths to complete a mission. For example, choosing to stalk a target will lead to a chase if they detect you, as opposed to causing desynchronization (means you die).

Customization

The Assassins' weapons and appearance are customizable, while experience gained can be spent on four different specialties: "Melee" (offense), "Health" (defense), "Ranged" (navigation), and Stealth. For example, Arno can possess Eagle Pulse, which allows him to sense how many guards are in a location he intends to infiltrate. Like other skills, it can be upgraded with experience points at the player's discretion. He can also unlock a disguise skill to escape pursuing guards. The player will be able to upgrade all of Arno's skills, given his objective is to become a Master Assassin.

There are around 200 choices for Arno's gear, which can benefit gameplay:

• Hoods can decrease a guard's reaction time as well as increase the radius of Eagle Sense.
• Chest items refer to the Assassins' robes, which changing can increase the time you can spend blended in the crowd, and the time it takes for a guard to detect you.
• Arm items change the appearance of the Hidden Blade, increasing melee damage and the Phantom Blade's ammunition, but can also increase the time it takes to revive allies.
• Belts and sashes increase the number of health points and items carried.
• Pants and boots can decrease fall damage and running noises, as well as providing extra health.

Cooperative play

"Assassins do not only embark on their own quests (like Ezio avenging his family), they have to pay their dues to the Assassin council. So players will have to complete what we call Brotherhood missions, in shared experience, to fulfill their duties towards the Assassins."

―Alex Amancio discussing the reason behind cooperative gameplay.

Following the success of Wolfpack in Assassin's Creed III and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin's Creed: Unity is the first game in the series to introduce campaign co-op. Up to four players can take on story-based missions including sabotaging an execution, protecting an emperor or assassinating a target. However, the co-op missions will be optional, all story-based, and can be completed singularly as well.

Co-operative gameplay starts at taverns, where the player can see a "ghost" of a friend who is also playing. Approaching said ghost can establish a request to join the friend on their mission, and both will be loaded to the mission's nearest checkpoint. Amancio expects players will spend a third of their time in co-op mode. Players can unlock skills that will benefit a whole group: these include the Disguise skill, Group Healing, the Assassin Cache for sharing bombs and ammunition, and Communal Sense, which colors targets' locations across the whole map. There are heist missions for the Assassins to steal money. The more an Assassin is detected, the less money will be gained. Amancio commented that the co-op missions will encourage players to work together, thereby avoiding a session from falling apart with gamers who refuse to co-operate.

Originally, this game supposed to be released on the 28th October 2014 but it was delayed by 2 weeks because Ubisoft wanted to launch it alongside Assassin's Creed Rogue which is for the current generation console (Sony PS3/Microsoft XBOX 360/PC). It is downloaded with a patch of 882.2MB due to it's mass improvisation. Over 10,000 AI (Artificial Intelligence) in a map sometimes causes bugs/glitches which is an unfortunate and unavoidable consequences. In fact, bugs/glitches are somewhat normal in the Assassin's Creed series.

Gamespot (gaming reviewers), had some issue to this game. They gave it a rating of 7/10 which basically a bad news because it's pretty low since it is a very popular series. It is said the story about Abstergo is left untouched, the story focus more about Arno and Elise instead of the whole French Revolution, people in France have British accent (lolwut?).

For AngryCentaurGaming (ACG), he didn't touch on what mostly Gamespot had issues on. However, from his perspective, the main problem about the game is bugs/glitches. AI would pop out of nowhere and character models changing on screen. ACG said, the bugs/glitches galore. The bugs makes the gameplay less immersion and interrupts his enjoyment. He gave the game on a "priorities of buying standard" and a "wait for sale", but he also said that if the bugs are fixed this game could be an "instant buy".

For me, the storyline may differ a little from the original series of Assassin's Creed because Assassin's Creed Unity's storyline may seem a little more of a drama and the plot is heavy. But, I think it is cool because it is something new. Again but, the storyline for me is a little short and feels a lot of things are left unsaid and unexplained because I think they are trying to compress everything in one go. Nevertheless, it is worth waiting for. Hands down to it's co-op online gameplay. I'd give it a rating of 9/10 just for it's co-op gameplay.

It is still fresh on sale and you humans should grab it fast because it is selling like hotcakes. RM189 and includes an extra mission "The Chemical Revolution". Buy buy buy. Full recommendation from myself (trust me, I've played it). So? Run to your nearest store now.

Au revoir!