Assassin’s Creed 3. Dithyrambs, essays, jambs. [NO SPOILERS] UPD.
There won’t be any simply because the game is packed to the brim with plots and adventures. Starting to remember one thing, you will definitely have to add a bunch of other events. As a result, the spoiler will simply stretch into paragraphs and walls of text.
The game has 12 chapters. If you gallop across Europe, then you will need one hour to complete each chapter and another hour for all of Desmond’s adventures. Despite the fact that the developers promised to pay a lot of attention to his adventures, the framework of the plot dictates its own principles. The only “spoiler” that everyone already knows about: “Yes! Dez will die."It was clear as day, because they promised us that the bartender would never be disturbed again. Promise fulfilled brilliantly. If he resurrects, which is unlikely, then it will be a stupid piano in the bushes, after which the series of games about the killer may greatly lose in the number of fans.
System Requirements.
The critical condition is the video card and OS. All other requirements for the processor and RAM are quite high, and on the antediluvian E6700 with 3 gigs, the game produces 30-50 FPS in static scenes, and 20-30 during large-scale battles. It is quite friendly to hotkey combinations and windowed mode.
Graphic design.
The graphics in the game are simply breathtaking. We are talking not only about shaders and special effects, but also about the design of natural locations.
The camera works very clearly with post-effects and depth of field. True, the game doesn’t really allow you to just fly around the world. During battles, especially story ones, if you wish, you can take juicy screenshots, but for this you need to replay the missions, because for the first time, it can drag you into the action, and you simply don’t remember about FRAPS.
A special contrast to the battle scenes of the middle of the game is created by the initial fragments in the theater:
In addition, we are spoiled with close-ups, expressive facial animation (Advanced Performance Capture, no less) and gorgeous costume design. By increasing the graphics settings from the console “normal” to “very high”, you can simply enjoy the detail of the rendering. One of the few games where sometimes you don’t want to rush through a faceless world, but just walk around and be amazed at the depth of detail.
Locations.
They are wonderful. Coupled with the protagonist’s ability to somehow climb trees and parkour in cities, you can spend a lot of time on stupid research. The cities of Boston and New York are sometimes filled with very different people. There are a lot of soldiers, and they mostly walk around to the beat of drums and wait for you and Connor to demonstrate the combat system to them. Ordinary residents have a very clear daily routine. Finally, the developers have realized what was promised back in BrotherHood – a truly living world. Just walking down the street, you can witness a variety of events: a street fight, extortion, drunkenness, orphans – thieves (a la “Oliver Twist”)… This, of course, is not a complete list, because I only played for about 20 hours, and I’m too lazy to list. Connor always has a choice: to pass by or get involved, waving a tomahawk or some other cunning weapon prodigy. In rare cases, the game even starts playing itself. For example, when a wounded soldier swings a bayonet. In my memory, such sensitive elaboration of locations was only seen in “Gothic 2: Night of the Raven” and the recent Skyrim.
The gaming zoo has at least a dozen and a half animals. In addition to horses, there are dogs that you can pet, pigs, turkeys, raccoons, beavers, as well as wolves, bears, fallow deer, deer, rabbits, etc. d., which you can hunt and get a good profit from it. At the same time, the model of their behavior is interestingly made, decent animation and high-quality voice acting. A game where you can pet dogs: +5% coolness.
Finishing the conversation about the wonderful graphics, we can’t help but mention that we were also pampered with the change of days and seasons. As promised in interviews and numerous trailers: movement in snowdrifts, on water or through mud has a lot of noticeable features. Just like in ordinary life: if you step into a puddle, there will be splashes and squelches, if you wander into a snowdrift, you will have to move upright; in a swampy area, there is fog and particles of earth or leaves are raised by the wind; if you run along a dusty road, excuse the tautology, you will raise clouds of dust.
The only thing I can complain https://nongamstopcasinosites.co.uk/usa-online-casinos/ about is the metal trees. The branches almost don’t bend under Connor’s bulk, and moving between them is not so convenient, because the trees are spaced quite freely (which is indecently realistic, it’s not a jungle) and sometimes you have to think for a long time about where to jump.
Animus 3.0
The new animus has a better design, the menu has become faster and simpler. Added network statistics (for phallometry).
However, this is where the convenience ends. And during the game you will have to get used to the not very convenient and greatly changed controls since the days of Revelations (after all, the adaptation to joysticks and boxes makes itself felt). Connor’s ambidexterity is very conditional, and the weapon selection menu is extensive, and therefore quite inconvenient. Again, console greetings.
About the stories.
You can always tell something about a really good story without resorting to spoilers or realities. The first characteristic that comes to mind after passing is saturation. The number of cut scenes simply exceeds all conceivable limits for the genre. Each, even the most dull quest (of which there are very few, by the way) has an extensive introduction, and an equally long ending, smoothly flowing into the beginning of the next adventures.
The beginning and end of each chapter is accompanied by a loading screen with Connor’s comments. The game seems to invite us to take a little breath after the large-scale battle of Bunker Hill/our execution/Boston Tea Party and formulate questions. which, according to the scriptwriter’s plan, should have already matured in our heads. For the dumbest ones, there are several cutscenes right in the game where Connor clearly voices them.
Another positive quality: a minimum of clichés and moments of deja vu, such as “everything
I’ve already seen it 5 times”. For once we are not rammed in the forehead with the statement: “The Assassins are good, and the Templars are evil.”. Moreover, the order of assassins consists of the old mentor Achilles Davenport, and Connor himself – who is the only active combat unit – a true killer, whose father is also the chief Templar. Due to his personal motives, violence and unpredictability, the lines between good, evil, murderers and knights are blurred so much that by Chapter 10, the devil knows them, these independence fighters.
The intensity of passions changes parabolically as the game progresses. The first 3 chapters are linear and generally about the hero’s father, and not about the assassin’s affairs. Linearity=100500 seconds of cutscenes and events. But I assure you, this does not affect interest at all. Closer to the middle, the game lets us go free, implying that while the newly minted mestizo assassin is training, you have time to do side quests, get improvements for the equipment of the hero and his ship “Aquila”, engage in micromanagement that is so hated by many, join clubs (guilds) of hunters/adventurers, wrest zones of influence from the Templars, etc.n. In short, turn your gaze to the RPG component with pirates.IN ADDITION, IN THE GAME YOU CAN ROBB COROVANES. +40% to steepness.
Unlike Ezio’s adventures, no one imposes anything here, there is always a main plot marker (exclamation mark) on the map, you can immediately stomp straight to it, ignoring everything else. For the huge Frontier there is a fast travel system for the most impatient.
From Chapter 7, the franchise’s signature vendetta begins with the removal of one of the leading Templars for the chapter, and the plot again rapidly gains momentum. Pseudo-historical realities also make a huge contribution, such as recreated battles for independence (Chesapeake Naval Battle, Boston Tea Party, etc.).n.) and historical images (Washington, De Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin). Moreover, they are trying hard to show us that they are not really heroes, they say the time was such and it was necessary to act. And in the addition they generally promise to change the pros for cons and show a bad Washington.
Of course, if you are a person with a very rich inner world, love the darkly humorous philosophy of Kafka, subtly feel the light sadness of Cortázar, or rack your brains over Tarkovsky’s metaphors, you will find 9,000 reasons to say: “This is heresy, you don’t understand anything about the plots.”. But for me personally, looking from the point of view of the interactive science fiction genre (Deus Ex, Dishonored and other cyberpunk), everything turned out to be interesting, high-quality and, in some places, new. Clichés like: “Enemies burned down their home” and “Again about revenge for everyone” are sufficiently diluted with very interesting, although sometimes predictable plot twists. They didn’t lie to us about the gaming experience, the main thing is to relax, take out the tomahawk and go administer justice.
Combat system.
By the way, I finally got to justice. The combat system is great. More precisely, not all, but a huge variety of finishing methods, counterattacks and different weapons. Everything is done very carefully, while the first three chapters the plot is linear, they teach us how to play, and only then the protagonist. As the game unfolds, you just get used to the controls, then you watch how Connor matures in his skills, and somewhere from the 7th chapter, all the game mechanics open up before us.
The number of techniques is impressive. If Altair had 8-10 of them (and in total: about 700 animations, including parkour and cut scenes), Ezio had 30-40, then here there are a good hundred (and ~5000 animations). And then, I have the Jewel version, and there is no Pontiac club. You can make a series of kills, you can counter-attack, you can have special disarming blows, you can cook your opponents on the tables, trees, walls surrounding you, throw them into ponds/from cliffs/from a ship, kick, attract Shen-biao (the legacy of the assassin Shao-Yun from the movie AC: Embers) or, with the help of it, hang them on branches, and also cut, strangle, stun, kick in the balls, kill secretly from all kinds of stacks and cornices. There are an order of magnitude more enemies. I don’t know what they said about 1000 people in the frame, but two or three hundred definitely fit.
No promised special approach or tactics are required, they overwhelmed the first soldier with a series of beautiful ax + knife blows, carried out a counterattack with the second and began the series, and then, as your imagination turns. Whoever ran away was pulled back with a lasso (sorry, Sheng-biao). If they want to shoot you with muskets, use the space bar to grab the nearest poor fellow after the blow and make a human shield out of him. The Irish in skirts and huntsmen, after a counter-attack, should receive a kick (with the same space) so as not to interrupt the series. The only thing that confuses me is that PKM remains out of work, as well as blocking blows. Connor is fast, there are a lot of enemies, there is no time to stand in the block, immediately counterattack and start chains of kills. It will be possible to train in Boston, fortunately, for once there are not only four of them, but also tens of them, and while you bring these down, another half of the city will catch up to prolong the pleasure of the battle. The second small flaw in the AI, more precisely, is that the most spectacular, double counterattacks are obtained only if two people attack at once, which, alas, does not happen often. Although if you burst into some fortified fort, there will be enough adventures;) After all, Connor, unlike Ezio, is far from being immortal, two volleys or sweeping ax blows from an Irishman in a skirt can end badly in desynchronization.
Oh yes, the main character also has *CRYSIS VOICE ON* maximum bow *CRYSIS VOICE OFF*. +30% to steepness, according to SG tradition.
Sounds, ambient, music.
The subjective assessment is:
The soundtrack itself, written by Lorne Balfe, is not particularly impressive, the usual pathetic orchestral OST, with the exception of a few compositions, especially those heard in the Mohawk village. But I cannot deny that it is very organically woven into the game, everything that plays in the right places only enhances the atmosphere and immerses us even more in the cinematic nature of what is happening.
Everything that sounds in the Frontier and the Davenport estate is also amazing, bird trills, the rustling of leaves and rain, and some other purely natural sounds.
In many games, the thought often comes to mind: “I’ve heard that before somewhere.”. Especially, sounds from DOOM and Half-Life (or whatever the original source is) are repeated in every tenth game and every hundredth action movie. There’s no such thing here.
Multiplayer
This is where things get more complicated. The interface has become noticeably more beautiful, even more spectacular, but less convenient. I spent half an hour figuring out how to customize a character, and how to exit to the main menu (Esc doesn’t work), and the worst thing happens when you’re delving into all this custom tinsel, and your session has loaded. As a result, you sit and don’t know how to enter the game.
What else can I say except: “NOTHING NEW”. Run@kill. Unlike Brotherhood, the multiplayer here is more of an add-on to the exciting single-player part than something more interesting that complements the gaming experience.
Total
15-minute credits, the work of nearly a thousand people, 30+ hours of exciting gameplay. There is nothing particularly revolutionary, breaking the mold, or previously seen in the game. But what we have sets the highest standard for quality (well, some heel patches for polishing wouldn’t hurt). If you didn’t like something: it’s not the game, it’s you. Maybe this genre just isn’t for you?
Of course, purely assassin tasks for very quiet and methodical murders have disappeared, well, the “Stealth” prefix is no longer written on the game box.
Of course, the campaign for Desmond is several times smaller than the developers hinted, but judge for yourself, why merge two settings into one game, one of which will be a Hitman clone??
In general, there are many advantages, but most of the disadvantages are a coin with two sides. In my opinion, this work is the first in a series that really deserves its “Amazing”.
Wangyu! Kulakov will give his usual “Commendable” no matter what, will find mistakes and will talk about the joys of independent knowledge. However, in the latter he is right and I think many agree with this, certainly in relation to this game.
UPD: While there was no Internet, I finished all the side lines. I must say the quests are trivial, but the story of the creation of a semi-utopian community on the edge of the mainland, where everyone loves each other, is the best version, albeit a snotty one.
By the way, there are 2 gays in the game, one of whom in chapter 7 or 8 tries to grope Connor and even sits on a horse specifically behind him. It’s a shame you can’t kill him, I’m such a pacifist that I would hang him as beautifully as possible.
Open question: WHERE ARE THE WAR MACHINES TRAINED IN ABSTERGO ANIMUSES FOR KILLING FROM MULTIPLAYER GONE??