Assassin’s Creed Revelations concludes the epic adventures of Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn La-Ahad. Ubisoft have concluded this four game plot in a single game, however as allways the best has been saved for the last. Throughout the game you will witness Ezio and Altair accept their lives and what they have done.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations has the daunting task of concluding the story line of three characters in a single game, which would be crazy for most developers, however Ubisoft have done just that. The game follows Ezio’s quest to uncover some of the secrets in his order, while engaging in some romance and politics. Throw in the flashbacks to Altair’s life and the optional missions in Desmond’s mind and you have a packed game. Through great development or magic Ubisoft has done all that while not lacking in the actual game play.
Ezio’s quest to find the secrets of his order take him to the great city of Constantinople, where upon arriving Ezio quickly becomes romantically interesting in Sophia, while constantly sneaking off to kill someone. This relationship seems to flourish despite their differences and the world around them.
This romance as convincing as it is; is nothing but a drop of water in the sea compared to the overall plot and depth in the game. The games cinematics are well orchestrated never missing their mark. While all the previous flaws are gone and replaced with very lifelike, deep characters, with the visuals looking better than before; for example all the characters expressions and animations look flowing and real.
Throughout the game Ezio will discover keys to Altair’s hidden library, where you will re-live parts of Altair’s life. These keys are located within hidden ‘dungeons’ in the city where you explore giant caverns. Upon retrieving the keys you get to live out major part of Altair’s life from when he was young to old. This variety helps to keep the game fresh as the Altair missions are generally rather different to Ezio. This is also one of the major devices to bring the stories together and create the immersive story of the game. Through these flashbacks you will see what makes Ezio and Altair so different and alike.
The missions have also changed very little in their format with the usual, chase, follow, meet and kill. Yet they have been done in such a way that they never feel too repetitive. With the deep plot all the missions fit in and unlike before non-feel out of place, even the side missions; each have a believable plot and fit in with the bigger picture.
The previous games had the feature of taking enemy caps and towers to remove their influence in an area and Revelations has improved upon this system with the addition that the Templars would try and take the assassin dens. This has added an interesting territorial control system to the game, where you have to constantly defend your assassin dens and take the captured ones back.
The Den Defence simply adds a tower defence mini game. Ezio stands on the rooftops near the Den and directs the troops to counter waves and waves of oncoming units. This addition to the game does little in the way of improving on the actual core content; however it does bring a nice break occasionally to constantly walking the city. If you don’t like tower defence then this will be an extremely annoying feature to the game as there is little you can do to avoid the situations.
The actual meat of the game has not changed since the originals with nearly the exact same combat and climbing system. The combat and free running has been improved and built upon, however there has been no major change just a few tweaks here and there.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations has increased the number of weapons, ranged and melee, available to you though out the game. The most major of these hast be the bombs. These are created at work stations where you mix ingredients and cases to create bombs for every occasion. These can vary to trip wire bombs with lambs blood to sticky bombs filled with deadly explosives. There are three distinct types of bombs available, destructive, distraction and utility, each as their own pouch and carry limit. The other new major weapon is the hook blade, this is simply an adaptation to the hidden blade allowing the wielder to zip line across streets and hook on to building.
The graphics have been greatly improved upon since the previous games providing even better expressions upon the characters and life like movements. The setting of the game has had an extremely large amount of attention with even the littlest details filled in. These graphics and gameplay has been combined with some fantastic voice acting and backing music that fully complements the game.
Personally this is a great game and a must buy for any fan of the series and even if you are not a fan. It has its flaws however they are extremely minimal compared to the larger picture. With the updated graphics and gameplay this is extremely entertaining game with a plot to keep you playing. Unfortunately Assassin’s Creed Revelations has been released extremely close to the latest Call of Duty game and Skyrim and many people won’t be able to afford all three games, so if you can pick just two then make sure you take Skyrim and this.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
