“Assassin’s Creed Rogue is as entertaining a game as any of its predecessors to play, and should not be overlooked!”
Alongside the blockbuster release of the next gen exclusive Assassin’s Creed Unity by Ubisoft this week, homage has also been paid to what has come before. Assassin’s Creed Rogue has been launched as the finale to the American saga of the series, and to the current generation of the series as a whole. But this game is about much more than closure for those gamers who have followed the series thus far. Rogue is about the Templars, however this time around you aren’t fighting with them, you’re fighting for them.
It is one of those “what if” ideas that gamers tend to have on their favourite titles; what if you played Halo from the Covenant perspective? What if Fifa had a Be a Ref mode? Ok, so that one might just be me, but what if you could see Assassin’s Creed through the eyes of a Templar? That is a more popular one for sure, and whilst number 3’s plot twisting introduction gave us a taster of this idea, Rogue sets out to show exactly what this might be like.
When you start playing Rogue, you do get the classic, long winded introductory stuff which is standard in Assassin’s Creed. Despite all of the games you should have played before it and little if any changes to the controls, you have to go through the basic training bits first. You also spend the first three hours (ish) of the game playing as an Assassin, and once again as in Black Flag spending a long time getting to the plot points which were advertised. Nevertheless, the storyline here is interesting indeed, incorporating many major characters from previous games such as Adawale and Achilles, and setting up for the major plot to follow.
As you delve deeper into the game, visiting some surprise locations and seeing some previously unmentioned events along the way, you start to see where things are going. Furthermore, you can suddenly very much sympathise with the Templar perspective as they become the ones trying to halt the anarchy for a change. Its odd, because a part of you feels like when you pick up Rogue its going to be something of an Anakin Skywalker, Jedi-turns-Sith situation. The reality is you will genuinely question the two causes and the nature of the fight you have seen playing out in all of the games before. Now that’s storytelling folks!
So what about Shay? Does he meet our expectations for general badassery in Assassin’s Creed protagonists? Oh yes, Shay Patrick Cormack’s personality and style put him up there with the best of them; he certainly passes the test! Armed with a sword and dagger, dual hidden blades, pistols, a rifle and, given time, a grenade launcher, our one-man arsenal is ready to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge his way through several hours of gameplay for your brutal gaming pleasure. And he’s clad in black and red, so he looks pretty sharp doing it too!
So that’s story, tick, and protagonist, tick, so next up is gameplay. Gameplay scores a bit more of a wiggly line than a tick, and there are a few reasons for this. The main one is that someone at this new Ubisoft studio to be granted the rights to the series got a memo that they were building Sailing Simulator 2015 rather than Assassin’s Creed. The ship thing is a little overdone as it is now, but this time you aren’t even a pirate anymore, and it feels massively overplayed as a feature. There has also been an overhaul of the ship controls, and this confuses things further still. Bottom line; the ship stuff isn’t that fun anymore.
Combat on the land however is good fun. Things work for the most part as they always have, but as usual the finishing strikes of your character have been changed up and Shay’s are as cool as anyone’s. Combat is still smooth too, though in some cases it remains a little easy. And then there is Stealth, which hasn’t changed a whole lot, but guards do appear more savvy to someone stood on a roof these days, and will shoot you if you do. Free running hasn’t really changed either, still working pretty well and naturally being awesome, but maintaining the problems of the character doing the wrong thing and irritating the hell out of you at times. I guess you can summarise gameplay in Rogue as being very Assassin’s Creed, most specifically a mix between 3 and 4, which if you are a fan and can overlook its minor gripes is not a bad thing at all.
There is one stand-out problem in Rogue however; bugs. From a cut scene where Shay was invisible to a problem of a broken mission (until an update kindly solved this), Rogue has been released with some issues which really shouldn’t have existed past QA testing. A visible tidy up job has been going on around this, with various updates having come along since release day, but really more is expected from a franchise this big coming from a place like Ubisoft. A slap on the wrists is due, but thankfully they have been cleaning up their mess.
The look of the game has changed very little from its predecessors. It’s still pretty fantastic to see the landscapes of Assassin’s Creed in Rogue, but many of the assets and styles have clearly been adopted by the new studio and tidied up for this game. Some elements are clearly original however, such as some of the new locations we visit, and it is a great show by the smaller studio that it has the ability to produce valid titles for the AAA market. The sounds of the game are also about the standard for Assassin’s Creed, bar the voice acting of which much is naturally original. These standards have been well kept too however, and all in all the game has the detail which we are used to seeing from the series, and makes yet another fantastic entry on these points.
Assassin’s Creed Rogue is yet another highly enjoyable addition to the epic series, and despite a new, smaller studio than usual being at the helm of the title, it does not in any way feel like a step down. If anything, this studio managed to take a successful franchise, give it a fresh spin, and solidly show that they are capable of meeting the high standards which gamers expect Ubisoft to deliver. With an interesting plot, a strong central character, and much of what has always made Assassin’s Creed great to enjoy in Rogue, it’s only major pitfalls are in the overplayed naval elements and its various and frequent bugs. The latter however is already on the mend, and hopefully an error this studio will learn from for the future. Otherwise, Assassin’s Creed Rogue is as entertaining a game as any of its predecessors to play, and should not be overlooked!
The Good:
- A strong, original plot creates a fresh and interesting new storyline for the Assassin’s Creed saga, and one which will make fans think.
- Shay stands as awesome a figure as any of the series’ previous protagonists, and feels as ever an exciting character to take control of.
- Combat is entertaining, and once again the finishing moves are fantastic.
- The game maintains the high standards of design set by previous studios, and at the same time showcases the ability of this new, smaller team.
The Bad:
- The naval elements of the game itself and as part of the series are very overplayed.
- There are numerous bugs present, which though being fixed are a disappointing thing to see in a finalised build.
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.
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