Gorgeous game, game-breaking controls and AI.

First off- every British soldier in this game is a master marksman with XRAY vision and the reaction speed of a fighter pilot. Jump from one building to another, you just alerted a guard who was standing below you who takes aim- shoots you in mid air (1.5 seconds airborne from one building to the next) and using his IPHONE notified every single British in Boston to your EXACT location- Every British soldier converges on your location and using their extensive PARKOUR training they all leap from building to building to kill you. All while moving around the base of the building underneath you constantly tracking your location with their XRAY vision.

This coupled with the fact I have 1600 pounds and cannot buy a new outfit so I'm not the ONLY NATIVE IN BOSTON. While every soldier is on the lookout for... a native.… Expand

My Score: 3.0/10 Pros: -Cinematics -Graphics are **** amazing (IF you have a PC with good hardware) Cons: -Combat is too simplistic and not fluid. -Glitches and bugs throughout EVERY aspect of the game -Terrible AI -Boring gameplay and almost entirely automatic Bethesda's Dishonored makes Ubisoft and their team look like fools. Assassin's Creed III is one of the more disappointing games to be released this year. Don't fool yourself by reading the review by IGN, BECAUSE Ubisoft paid for that review. I'm sure over the next couple of weeks I will have to listen to all the simple minded **** who bought the game and are too afraid to admit how stagnant the series has become. The game emphasizes cinematics with a cutscene for every 5 gameplay minutes, which seems to serve as Ubisoft's effort to distract the player from the slow, simple, and glitchy gameplay. Marketing will fool the majority of the tools, hopefully not you, but this game is a failure. If you want to play it then pirate it so you can save your money for bourbon.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game is probably best compared to going into a restuarant, purchasing the best steak available and finding that it is burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. My first review composed of a lot of swearing, but I have decided to refine it...
I love Assasins Creed. The story, the characters, the open-world and free-running freedom and the choice to go at your own pace. The series seemed to go from strength-to-strength (with the exception of Revelations), however when I played this game, I couldn't believe at how arrogant the game is. The first 4 hours of the game, you are dictated what to do non-stop. The cut-scenes happen far too often and rather than allowing you to skip conversations during a cut-scene to speed it up, the only options you have are to watching the entire scene - which are usually incredibly drawn out and slow paced - or to skip the scene entirely. I don't like being left in the dark, but Assasins Creed 3 seems to like to test the gamer's patience with the abundantly pedantic amount of cut-scenes. It feels as if every time you are getting momentum, suddenly, a wild lengthy cut-scene appears! Also, ignore every review that addresses amazing new free-running. It's not amazing it's actually disasterous and completely unneccesary. The game has now taken away your choice as to when you want to climb/jump and when you only want to run. Now, when you run, you automatically will climb/jump. This sounds great, except for some reason, the developers decided to slow your character down when jumping/climbing to the point where I'd rather just run away from enemies instead of performing the seamless parkour that was evident in the earlier titles. Most of the time, my character tries to climb or jump onto a nearby barell/box during a chase that I wasn't even aiming towards. Next up, combat. Combat is always fun right? The developers decided to find a way to mess that up too. Your counter-attacks can now be countered as well, which is kind of ridiculous when surrounded by strong enemies who take away your health each time they counter your counter-attack. So there's no way around that but to discourage combat, which nobody wants to do. The leap-back move has been taken out, because the game would rather you time your blocks, even if it means the enemy can counter your blocks which you cannot stop. You can no longer grab enemies. The menu to select weapons has now been taken from a nice, seamless, in-game experience to a full blown menu which covers your whole screen. Which you still need to hold the button in for. Instead of an easy inventory-wheel seen in previous titles, the weapon-select menu shows the weapons in a column view, which is rather annoying and doesn't allow a "snap-select", you now have to scroll through each and every weapon to get to the one you want. Did I mention there are only 4 quick buttons? So we are now forced to use this unpleasant menu more frequently. Horses are completely useless when not being used on roads and trails because although they have no problem jumping up hills, they seem to have a problem jumping down again. It's little, irritating things like this that make me really not care about the game. It's just irritating and not a joy to play. Even the amazing visuals and life in the busy streets of 1700's New York isn't enough to distract the disgustingly obvious flaws. There are no bugs in this game, the entire game is even more flawed and unfinished than Dragon Age 2 ever was. It seems that the developers were so excited about finishing the game, they decided to distribute it before they could discover on how to make it better.

There's just too much wrong with this game. Play it for yourself and see.… Expand

Initially this game felt very solid to me, it felt like a good addition to the franchise.. that is until I got to the second sequence. This game is absolute trash, a complete waste of money and I couldn't even be bothered to start it again despite paying $50 for it. Even if you get this game for free as a gift or some other form, save yourself the headache and either return it or remove it from your computer.

This shouldn't even be called AC3, they took everything that made it Assassin's Creed out. It's not like the old Splinter Cell games that the first Assassin's Creed was modeled after. The only similarity between the first one and this one is the less than perfect movement. There is a linear path in this game, no creativity at all, the only path you can choose is the order in which you complete the now mandatory Synchronizations. You have to do missions a certain way or you fail, you don't get to try new things unless it's convenient for the game.… Expand

I don't know how many times I have failed a mission because I didn't know what to do and only found out after failing that mission! The lock picking "mini game" simply does not work, check YouTube to see what others are saying about that! Way too many cut scenes! Combat is horribly simple and repetitive! This is a lot like the first Assassins Creed but prettier and easier for the most part, when it works!… Expand

This game ruined everything I used to love in the Assassin's Creed -franchise.
(1) The characters were not exciting.
(2) Story was not exciting.
(3) Assassin's Creed used to be about assassinations, not charging enemies with your sword out. This game encouraged to brawling, many missions even started with enemies attacking you.
(4) Parkour is missing. Lack of heights, building too wide apart. Even the greatly advertised tree jumping is more linear than all CoD -games combined.
(5) Sum of previous 4: The game is just not that fun to play. Once I completed it, I felt no desire to go back and complete all mini missions and try for 100% game completion. Maybe if Ubisoft fixed all the hundreds of bugs, I might feel intrigued again...… Expand

Ac3 is probably the most in depth chapter yet in the series. The game was very intuitive and challenging.
There were many changes to the dynamics of the game, making money and so forth. Money is harder to earn and crafting is kind of a pain. One of the missions to retain two main crafters is bugged so you can't hire them. The only thing you can really do is hunt and skin and sell. They did a great job on the huge areas of movement and the ship battles are spectacular and exciting! Hopefully they will stay on this path and the next chapter will be just as exciting to play. By the way it's about 4 days or so to complete at 8 hours a day so it's worth the purchase!!… Expand

Pretty good series, but not as good as the 2nd was. I missed something from it, maybe the good story. I've waited for it, but it's not as good, as I expected. Good graphics, good gameplay, but not the best story. The character of Connor is easy to forget, not like Ezio or Altair. I liked the game, but it's not the best in this series.

I've never uninstalled any open-world game before without finishing it first. AC3 will be the first. I decided I'd rather watch the ending on YouTube than suffer through the insanity of game design. My monumental disappointment stems from the realization that such an incredible game series has fallen so very far since the first and second games, including their variants. Despite being a "stealth" game, accomplishing objectives with stealth is either impossible or unrewarding. Lockpicking is a hair-pulling affair, the enemy AI is laughable, and travel (despite being reworked in a more advantageous way) is even more of an annoyance. Heaven forbid you run into the rock wall of a cliff above you and need to choose left or right. If you choose wrong, you're running ALL the way back. There's no way to climb up, the trees nearby don't go high enough, and you can't Fast Travel to a closer location to start again because Fast Travel is turned off during a quest. The only thing I love about this game is the music. An incredible score keeps up the exciting tempo. Such a waste, though. God damnit.… Expand

Fail and disappointment f the year :( That's very sad because I'm big fan of AC series and was waiting hardly this part to come out. First, this is NOT AC game at all. Everything good from AC2, ACB and ACR is gone. Controls are totally changed and practically unplayable. For first 30 minutes be sure to make popcorns because there is 30 minutes unskipable boring animated sequences series. Overall, unplayable game which have nothing in common with good old AC games. Everything except nice graphics is bad in this game.… Expand

This game has turned into call of duty and their just churning out new ones each year, wait till this goes on sale for $20 or something, I do not know what I was thinking when I bought this....

This game left me with the mixed feelings. From one side we've got gorgeous, detailed word, with thoroughly made "living" characters, extraordinary level of animation (for protagonist and NPC alike), high standards of visual image. From the other side we got awful game: lame arcade gameplay, linear level design for missions, zero replayability. One thing I keep thinking while playing, that developers had so many ideas for this game - they never had time to fully complete ANY. The game also very NOT-friendly for users. There is almost no in-game tutorial, text tutorial in "animus database" is almost useless. Sometimes I've needed much more time to understand what developers want from me to complete a mission, rather than fulfilling a task itself. Worst interface (PC version) I've seen for years - another major thing, that spoiled my experience.… Expand

First thing to hit you about this game is how badly optimised it is. The opening scene, which is set in a fores, makes your frames per second plummet. All this is but a taste to what is to come. Once you enter the city of Boston, the game becomes unplayable even in the lowest detail setting with frames dropping to as low as 20 fps. This is on a rig that plays Hitman Absolution and BF3 with no issues.

I guess this was expected since it is a Ubisoft game after all. Their console to PC ports are some of the worst in the business.

Gameplay wise, it's standard assassin's creed fare. Jump some buildings, kill some guards and hide in some things. Perhaps the gameplay would've been better without the infuriating performance issues.… Expand

**** console port. Ubisoft delayed the game three weeks behind consoles for what? The optimisation is horrible. There are barely any changable graphical options in single-player. The low FPS being experienced by many is the straw that broke the camels back. And on top of that, Ubisoft forum moderators state that there is no patch 'forthcoming' to fix issues. This is the last Ubisoft product I'll purchase.… Expand

I simply do not understand why people are so enthusiastic about this game. I hate games that take you by the hand and don't offer anything else besides the scripted linear path. The summary of my experience with this game comes to: "Hold E to skip cinematic" and "Follow the yellow dot to finish your goal". Extremely boring... moving on.

A better companion than previous 2 AC games because of its long development time ad money . Boston n New York looks good ... frontier hold its own fantasies . It is one of the best port of PC by Ubisoft . Obviously its not perfect Assassin's Creed game , there were even some bugs as well as bit pacing problem . But with Well refined combat mechanics , Great Visuals and Especial Naval Fights , you can spare your few moments to get yourself in this American Fight . Desmond section were bit average and could be much better but with well made mechanics and good game-play features ... GO FOR THIS GAME!!… Expand

This is a masterpiece and a new era of gaming... I've been gaming my whole life and I'm not quite into graphics usually, I want a decent gameplay and some combat sistems, but this game just blew me away. I've been playing the whole AC seriers amongst others. I am highly impressed and this is a game that you should buy. Hats down Ubisoft

This game is awesome :P I really enjoy myself during my game-play. Although there are some bugs or glitches but they don't effect my game experiences. I believe assassin's creed 3 is worth a 10 score

Since 2007 I've been following and loyal to the Assassin's Creed series from the release of the first game. I watched the games grow and expand to the triple AAA franchise it is today. When I heard about the Assassins Creed 3 upcoming release, I was really excited. I've watched the E3 game play videos countless times and pre-ordered since day one. However when October 31st came around and my copy of the game came in, I thought that AC3 would definitely win 2012 game of the year, but turned out to be a disappointment. The game has a great introduction and brings the player up to speed about the Assassin and Templar conflict and how Desmonds trying to save the world. You get in the animus and play the tutorial and try out the games many new features and your probably thinking to yourself "wow this is a great game, look at all those new features ubisoft implemented to this new installment!" However once you're done with that the game goes downhill from there. The Pacing is god awful. I understand that you need to set the charters and setting, but the game literally takes you about 4 hours until you can start playing this so called "open-world" game. Speaking of open world, the games so called AnvilNext game engine that claims they can run over 100 NPCS and can" render seamless worlds of nearly infinite possibility, transporting you deep inside America before it was 'America.' From vivid, natural landscapes, to accurate portrayals of life during The American Revolution" is a **** lie. The game is so glitchy it makes Skyrim look like its glitch free, running on 60 FPS. Heres an example. I'm in Boston, one of the main settings in the game and I'm trying to run up a building. the game suffers from so many slowdowns it just doesn't make it enjoyable. To much pop in with NPCS and buildings a whole just ruin the experience. The story is mediocre and not as absorbing as Assassin's Creed II . Conner as a character is satisfactory and is just too serious. Fortunately, the graphics are great, but like I said before, the glitches will turn you off. However the Frontier is great with the new tree climbing and mountain scaling parkour. I find the Frontier the only setting in the game where glitches wont appear as often. All in all this game totally doesn't deserve a 10 nor does it deserve and 0 or a 1. I give this game a 6, soley for Ubisoft's somewhat effort to avoid repetition from previous games and make a jump from the over saturated franchise that it is today. Assassin's Creed III is sloppy, unpolished and rushed product that had so much potential.… Expand

While this is the best looking Assassin's Creed so far, everything else is the worst and disappointing. The story missions are dull and uninspiring. The game also feels disorganized, there are side-missions that are already on the map when I haven't even meet the character associated with it. I found myself doing things I don't even know what for because I haven't been briefed. And most of the side-missions doesn't even bother to give you a reason. Just targets popping out in mini-map. 3 years to develop this? More like 3 years spent on the graphic engine and 3 weeks of rushing overworked coders on the actual game.… Expand

This game is awful... I seriously want to write a long review but even then thinking about all of the bad just enrages me. Story was so predictable that I got to the part where you first get to sail your boat and gave up. That's it. I was done. I knew exactly what was going to happen. Wasn't worth my time playing if I knew the story already. What awful story telling Combat is boring more counter fun. Graphics are no big improvement but the visuals are great. The characters I don't even remember... seriously who was in this game? Never touched multiplayer as this game disgusted me to no end. It was... just... awful. There is no more Assassinating in Assassin's Creed too... I noticed as I watched my friend Livestream it he just tomahawked all his victims... there was no stealthy approach or anything... 2/10 because of visual... love of God gaming industry you're just failing.… Expand

Big fan of the series, I have played and replayed all the AC games. I have to say I am VERY DISAPPOINTED with this game so far. To be fair, I have to say that I'm at the beginning of the story but there are already so many things that bother me that take all the fun away and playing feels like a chore. The boat trip to arrive to america is so irrelevant, I just cant understand why they included it__1__ The mechanics have changed to worse, the controls have been simplified (probably to make it easier for a controller). Basically everything you need to do is done with the "E" key. __2__ there are cutscenes everywhere, and take all the immersion away. At this rate, on the next AC game you will have a cutscene every time you take out the sword.__3__ Boston (i havent seen NY but I imagine it will be similar) has wide streets and its almost impossible to reach your destination climbing and jumping through the city's roofs. Basically the developers took AC's essence and wiped they butts with it.__3__Graphics are on par with previous releases, good enough.__4__I cant say much about the Multiplayer since there are not enough players to even start a game.… Expand

What could have been the best game of the year became one of the biggest disappointments I have had to play, however not everything is gray. However, there are so much talk about that i don't know where to start.

I think I'll start with the general history and development.
The game starts off really slow and boring with a tutorial about 4 hours teaching you basic things you probably already know. All that to reach the '' Memory 5'' starts to catch up. However it will still be yawn-worthy until you reach '' Memory 8''.

The unfortunate thing is that this game ends with the same level of mediocrity as Mass Effect 3, but even worse with a final doubly pathetic, confusing and completely incoherent generating more questions than clarifying them.
I think the ending was really bad, it seems as if the writers of this game were all in a hurry and let they let their imagination run wild, and this unforgivable disaster emerged. Another problem, they barely talk about Lucy in this game, despite working for the templars. I think what happened to her, deserved a better explanation.
Connor is not a bad character but not be quite interesting as it was Ezio and Altair. I think Haytham Kenway should have been the main character of this game instead of Connor.

The game is full of glitches and technical errors, some very basic and others unforgettable, the weapon menu interface does not work very well and you have to constantly re-equip what you want to use because it switches to other weapons by itself, the map is bugged and it will usually change the position you marked in the map.
Climb a tree to make the eagle eye can be deadly because climbing is easy but once you want to go down Connor sometimes fails when trying to grab onto the branches causing the fall and died instantly.
The horses get stuck in the ground at times, riding a horse through the woods can be very frustrating because the controls do not respond at all well.
Also, people and horses sometimes disappear in front of you for no reason
Sometimes trying to escape from the guards in a town can be difficult because Connor tries climbs the first thing that crosses instead of running.
Muskets sometimes do not work or can't be grabbed. The music leaves much to be desired, the lack of Jesper Kyd is just remarkable in this release.

The only thing that amazes is the visuals and graphic, it looks beautiful but this is not enough.
The naval battles are entertaining, same with hunting animals, but only for a while.

The Multiplayer was interesting until they decided to add micro-transactions, so you will always be at a disadvantage if you don't spend real money in ''Erudito Coins''. An absolute disgrace that totally kills the competivity in this game.

This is a big shame. I am a fan of AC since its first release and it was always one of my favorite franchises but this installment damaged its name and reputation forever
Never have I felt such sadness and anger at the same time since Mass Effect 3. And to think I spent $ 80 dollars for this.

The hype has claimed another victim. I wish I could go back in time and prevent myself from spending this big amount of money in this mess.

I could go on all day because there are so many more problems that i haven't mentioned.
Not to mention that in this game i feel like an errand boy instead of an assassin.
Like someone said in one of these reviews, this should called ''Errand's Boy Creed'' instead of ''Assassin's Creed''.… Expand

Well it couldn't match the success of previous games of Assassin's Creed series such as Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood but this really is a great game which is certainly worth your time.

I dont know what happened. Did they just dumbed down one of the most popular franchises of all time? I am a huge AC nut. I've played all of the AC titles including the NDS AND smartphone games, and have played through AC1 3 times, AC2 4 times and AC:Brotherhood 3 times. I love the franchise, despite what felt was becoming more of a CoD-scheme of release since AC2: one game/year with the same engine and pretty much the same mechanics. When they announced that AC3 was coming and this time with an enhanced engine and different gameplay mechanics I was pumped. How wrong I was. Firstly, the technical issues. I played the PC version, a version which has been heralded as a 'well-made port' from the console version. WHAT A LOAD OF BS. My PC, which runs Crysis 2 on high with decent framerates and all the AC games on 60fps+, cannot even run AC3 properly, with fps dropping below 20fps. I tried lowering the resolution to a dismal 800 x 600. No change to the fps. I tweaked the ini file and my driver settings (which have been updated to the latest version, thank you very much). Still the same. For review purposes, I gave up on the PC version and played the 360 version. And guess what? This is NOT AC anymore. There are so many technical glitches and bugs that it just felt like a joke at times. The emphasis on the frontier woods and smaller 'cities' means less roofs to stalk and less exploration. They basically just dumbed down the a critical element of the franchise (CITIES) and encouraged players to explore the repetitive, derivative wilderness to kill animals. Dont get me wrong. There are still a lot of things and missions to do in the cities but overall, its a huge step down from previous games. The combat...my God, why WHY did they have to change the combat mechanics???!!! It was perfect and exhilarating before - AC1: it was too easy, AC2: they improved it, made it awesome, AC:Brotherhood: Even more refining, now brilliant, and finally, AC: Revelation: they perfected it. In AC3, the combat just felt so unfluid and felt so disjointed at times that it wasn't as fun as previous times. The controls are different too and shooting is such a pain in the ass that you'll be using the tomahawk and Assassin blade in 99% of cases. The naval combat is cool and is praised by critics as a strong point but its basically more of a visual fest than actual side game. We've all done it before in previous AC games using carts and war machines instead of ships. Its the same fair and at times its linear as hell. Visually, its good. But seriously, this is the SAME ENGINE as the previous AC titles despite Ubisoft promoting it as a revolutionary new engine. It looks the same as AC2 but with more intricate texturing and dynamic shadows. Thats pretty much it. Just like how IW market CoD sequels as having enhanced engines, for AC3, its basically the same visual fair as the previous titles so dont expect anytime too fancy. Overall, whether you like AC3 depends on you: If you're a big AC nut like me, you'll notice the changes & glitches, cut yourself and curse Ubisoft for it all but still play the crap out of it anyway. At its core, AC3 remains moderately true to its mechanics with a decent plot and ends Desmond's tale. Oh yea thats right, the ending. Its almost as bad as Mass Effect 3's ending so all I can say is...prepare yourself. As for those who haven't played AC titles or only played them sparingly, you'll definitely love this game. The PC version is definitely the superior version with highly noticeable graphical enhancements as well as patches for the niggles that the console version had been experiences. Ultimately, if you do have a console, pick AC3 up for that as the PC version is, despite its bells and whistles, a very VERY poorly optimized console port that I wont continue to play until Ubisoft releases a patch to fix the issue. Seriously guys, even the PC version of Dark Souls, a game that basically spits PC gamers in the face with a lack of graphical options, had better optimization. In the end, AC3 felt like a rushed job with poor design decisions that would polarize gamers and will leave fans of the franchise disappointed. The endin… Collapse

After good AC1, much better AC2 and best AC: Brotherhood, we have here revelations and AC3. Sadly it seems that Revelations and AC3 were made with different dev team that made AC1-2. AC3 is probably the worst. Dumbed down to it knees, fight mechanic, free runing... everything. No options for player, everything is scripted. You cannot control when and where to jump. Just press ASDW and everything is done for you. Occasionally (or more often) you just press E and another script will do everything for you. Cut scenes on every move, "press E" on every corner.. Overall for completing the game you just need 5 buttons- ASDW and E. I was looking forward to this game, but it seems that i will skip this release and will just look at the end cutscene on youtube and im done.... Im very sad that developers slapdash last two releases and ruined my whole AC enthusiasm :(… Expand

they ruined ac series with this abomination. Cities are boring, street after street looks the same. amount of guards on the streets/ roofs( ??) is ridiculous . Even in the middle of forest there are 9 men patrols walking in circle guarding snow. No idea why they made soo many of them, since you can kill them without slightest problems. Fighting never been so easy, still its ridiculous how many times you have to stab opponent to actually kill him. Main character is just some random dude, not even close to being so charismatic as Ezio. Missions are uninteresting, most of people I'm helping out i would rather leave to death. This game is much worse then Revelations and thats kinda a achievement.… Expand

I had high hopes for this game and was really looking forward to it after AC2 and the add-ons. Unfortunately, it does not live up to any of the hype as the storyline is completely haphazard and does not explain itself. To add to that the game play is nowhere near as good as AC2 and the scenes and sequences are cut short without explaining the story well enough. I am 40% of the way through the story and I'm still not sure about how a lot of things came to happen. It doesn't explain itself like AC2 did. The story doesn't flow, it's all over the place. And could someone tell me how an old black man (not being racist here, just factual), could own a mansion in America at that time? He would have been a slave, not a home owner and even if he was freed I'm sure the population at that time would have driven him out of the area.
There is a problem with riding horse along wilderness tracks. The horse keeps getting stuck by running into invisible walls. They also get stuck if you try to cross a river at the wrong place. They can't be backed up or turned around so you have to dismount and call the horse out.

Apart from the terrible story line, I'd like to know why Desmond has transformed into a silver back Gorilla? It was bad enough that he completely changed for a good looking Italian guy into an uglier older guy in Revelations but he now looks like something from several thousand years ago. Why couldn't the character models from AC2 be used in AC3? Have the characters suddenly been mutated by radiation or something?

On the whole, the graphics are acceptable but there are too many errors in game play. The sound effects are pretty good but a lot of the time they are misplaced in relation to the character/object and are too loud/soft in many instances.

This game is a big let down after the brilliant AC2 and unfortunately, there are too many things to "patch out." I don't know what Ubi soft were thinking with this version but they have definitely lost direction in game development between AC2 and AC3. Very disappointed.… Expand