Assassin's Creed: Revelations

The Good
They had time and practice (both with previous Assassin's Creed titles as well as with Prince of Persia games) to make a good game out of it and, well, if at first you don't succeed, you try and try and try and... well, try try again.

Revelations lift up the series to a whole new level of well directed action that can be pretty impressive from time to time. I mean, navigating a parachute flying while being dragged by the coach is nothing short of a Bond action scene. The new slow-motion that kicks in with each final strike during the combat is looking awesome, even better how you can combine instant kills with every next strike which can result in you taking out 5 enemies in like 10 seconds or so. It is as impressive as graphically aesthetic.

For such a huge title, Ubisoft lacked to include some more noticeable music. Well, they fixed that too. From the moment you insert the disc you'll notice a very nice main theme with vocal which is just as good as that of Dragon Age: Origins, if not better. Furthermore, action sequences have a fine dynamic background music to it, and certain cinematic scenes are quite impressive, like when Ezio is addressing his assassins in a high and mighty invigorating speech. Sure, we've seen that in far better performance in Mass Effect 2 before the final battle, but it's still nice to see Ubisoft is at least trying and they actually are improving this series with each new title.

In Brotherhood you fought Borgia, now you are back to fighting the Templars, and new elements we saw make appearance in Brotherhood are here, expanded and upgraded, and equally fun to play. Ezio can take out enemy commanders and occupy regions which will enable him to recruit more assassins which can then be sent on a missions to level up. That, we've seen. The new things now are that enemy cas strike back at you. You can train your assassins to become master assassins and assign them to dens that can no longer be occupied by the templars. But when templars do attack, the new RTS mini-game kicks in. You must protect your HQ from enemy invasion by placing barricades on the streets and archers, riflemen and other unit types on the roofs or behind the barricades to fend off the attacks. You even get to use the cannonade. It is very fun to play but can become unreasonably hard to destroy the final wave that tries to ram down the building. On the world map mini-game you are now attacking towns that are under Templars' control, and when your assassins are skilled enough, you can even takeover the town control, but then you have to keep expanding and restoring the city to keep the control of the city. Having a city under your control can be rewarding in both money and experience points.

The story fares pretty well and is supported with nice locales, dialogs and many foreign words (sure beats using english only, it's actually a rather nice thing from Ubisoft). And characters and overall graphic is really nice. Something you would expect from a new PS3 title. Desmond finally looks normal and not so repulsive or strange. Good thing they minimized the things that happen outside the past events, as Desmond doesn't wake up until the very end. But the story does not only follow Ezio. It also shows you what happened to Altair, and eventually intertwines the fates of both Altair and Ezio. Missions where you control Altair can be quite dynamic which tops anything we saw in the original game (except maybe going after Richard's army).

Altair and Ezio... and especially Desmond, they're all kind of mediocre looking characters. Their actions, their way of thinking, they just weren't made to look attractive at all. Especially their personalities. This game, however, changed that as well. All three of them are more mature and seem to have some better dialogs assigned which certainly lifted up one more thing to like about this game.

Ever since Assassin's Creed II, Ubisoft used Digic Pictures to deliver a life-like thrilling pre-rendered cinematics, and they always used it in a trailer while game was nowhere near so cool. This time they used it for the very intro cinematic and it worked so damn well, especially since the graphic of the actual game is also on a very good level. Hope they continue this way in the sequels, it's a waste only to use it in the trailer.

The Bad
Guards re-spawn at very same location as soon as you go behind the corner, so to speak, and fighting the guards seems downright pointless. It becomes more of a nuisance to see the entire rooftops covered in guards that you just cleared a minute ago. Alas, that didn't change from the very first game. Specific missions have the limited number of guards which makes it more realistic and gives you a reason to fight... so you can then explore freely or go about your objective. And coward Templar commanders always hide inside the building if you don't catch them, and even if you clear all the guards and soldiers around it, you cannot enter but have to wait for the next day until the commander returns to its post, of course, with all the soldiers at their very same positions.

While Desmond moment were kept to a minimum (at least he doesn't wake up every now and then), there are Desmond memories you can play which is played entirely in first-person and as you progress through rather creatively imagined way of how to pass each maze, it can feel rather boring. This would've worked better if done with either unlockable cinematics or something. I mean, it's Desmond, he doesn't need to be in Animus to access his own childhood memories or anything.

Constant memory synchronization kicks in every now and then during gameplay which just makes the image a bit fuzzy or adds a white grid or something... okay, it was done in the original, fine, but it's really just ruining the experience during gameplay especially when it kicks in before the scene or a dialog is over.

Gameplay, gameplay!! Sometimes (and that happened in every single prequel) I run toward the soldier and just as I press the assassination button, the passing two civilians get it. What's worse, you can't lock on further targets when there are many others closer to you whether they're civilians or not. Even when jumping, at certain places camera does not allow full rotation and jumping simply doesn't seem to respond well to the side you are pointing to jump towards, but luckily that's only when some wall is not allowing camera to full rotate or something.

Endings are now well scripted. After the credits you always see Desmond and are not sure if there is more to play or if the game just let you continue in case you want to finish some unfinished business. After four titles, that should've been more clearly stated.

The Bottom Line
Assassin's Creed is still far from being perfect, but it has undergone a plethora of upgrades and updates since we saw the first one in 2007, and we can clearly say it's the best one to come out thus far. There is a new setting to explore, there are plenty new moves and they're done in a manner I was expecting to see in the original game.

This release comes with a copy of the original Assassin's Creed which let you play the story of Altair and see where it all started, both our game and their creed. However, the original game has such a disappointing graphic when compared to Revelations it will be hard to play (or re-play) if you want to find out what happened to Altair, Ezio and Desmond. It may be a bringer of cool things like a "leap of faith" and uncanny climbing, but the series didn't really reach a good level until Brotherhood came out, and Revelations tops it all.

From time to time, Ubisoft needs a lot of attempts to finally reach a good game. Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, they all brought new elements to the table, but they really didn't become really good until after a few titles got released and they got much more polished. Good thing AC franchise passed its own threshold because if it continues (and ending certainly indicates to that), it can only get better..