Better Late Than Never Review: Assassins Creed III

      My schedule throughout most of the year keeps me from getting to things I'd normally get to when they are released.  Things like movies, books and video games that are highly anticipated but I just can't get around to them because of school, work, training and the like.  It's been like this pretty much because of school mainly, so it has created a huge back log of things I get to when most people have already checked these things out.  Because of the reasons mentioned, this is my first "Better Late Than Never" review for Assassins Creed III on the Xbox 360.

     I've been a pretty big fan of the Assassins Creed series on the Xbox 360 console since the original one, I think its safe to say I'm a fan of most open world, Grand Theft Auto style games.  This game I was looking forward to as soon as I had heard about it because of its historical ties to revolutionary times in American History and the people who work on this game do a good job giving us some history with our game play if you take the time to read the archival messages you get when you pass by historical structures, all the Assassins Creed games did this.  All the games were very well done as far as the visuals go and they seem to get better visually with every installment, detail and emotion were displayed well in the cut scenes between characters in the story and the story was done really well.

    This game takes the players into the  mid/late 1700's during the time of America's fight for independence and follows Ratonhnhaké:ton ( I hope I got that right), thankfully known as Connor later in the game and his involvement in historical events like the Boston Tea Party and the creation of The Declaration of Independence while continuing the battle between the Templars and Assassins.  Connor is born into the Assassin bloodline that we have followed through Desmond Miles in all three games and his animus sessions.  A lot more action in modern times happens with Desmond in this game too and is a little challenging since you lose the HUD and other graphics that help you with combat.  If I have any complaints about this game its the controls, they seemed broken and buggy and that is something that seems to have gotten a little worse in each game.   The instructions that came with it were very basic although they do note there is a more detailed manual in the game.  I know its supposed to be green and save on paper but I do miss reading the details before I start the game.  Controlling Connor, especially on horseback got so annoying at times that I thought it better to jump off the horse and go on foot a lot of times when a horse would have been nice.  The other problem with the clunky buggy controls was that it messed up a lot of missions that required stealth, combat at times was very redundant too.  There is a point where you have to pick a fight in a prison and I wasn't even pressing anything and the character was still fighting, that's just weird.

One page of instructions, with a note to access the rest through the in game menu.

     I love the franchise so I enjoyed this game even with its problems, I didn't check out multi-player because I don't think games like this need a multi-player option and by the time I get to them the on line community is pretty dead since I get in on it too late.  The follow up Assassins Creed: Black Flag comes out in the fall and seems to capitalize one the oceanic ship command part of this game so I'll probably get that one...when I can get around to it.  It's a good game you can get through pretty quickly if you do not do all the side missions like hunting and separate assassination contracts.  It's probably on sale right now and worth checking out if you haven't.