Coma-Desmond and Co. continue their treasure hunt, with yet another exotic location and something to retrieve. Enter ancestor Connor, son of a Brit(who unfortunately provides the white-bread half... he's astonishingly bland) and a Native American, thus giving us an immersive look into their culture - voice actors of that ethnicity, dialog in their tongue(subtitled for the rest of us), music and the respect shown for the animals you kill(you hunt rabbits, foxes... and can take on bears and wolves in QTE's where, as with much else in this, the window of opportunity is so wide you may at times press too soon, expecting it to be, well, a challenge... nope, still not in these, not in SP; you do get universal bait and a snare(that works if left alone, they will be scared off by you), and there's a decent range of different ones... almost a dozen total... still, it boils down to different targets to sneak up on(an aspect that is largely drowned out in action in this, too), and yet another way the extra stuff to do is busywork... you earn money by skinning and selling off the meat and the like, no longer just "waiting" for money to come in... at least they realized that aspect needed addressing). He gets pulled into the conflict between the two hidden groups when he seeks to keep his village safe, leading up to going up against the villain... wait, *that* was the main...? Huh, OK. And this does "conclude" some overall story, with as abrupt an ending as usual, and setting a new standard for how disappointing and anticlimactic it is. Did I mention this only took me 27 hours for me to complete? Granted, that's with only 56% overall(I've yet to determine how on Earth to Craft, for example... I think that's for $, too, and getting unique items), still, that's two and a half less than Revelations(with 98%, to be accurate), one of the two "essentially expansion pack" titles... and 37 and a half less than Brotherhood(which remains the benchmark for the closest to good the franchise has gotten)! The plot, characters(including one key relationship, that is done well) and development of such remain effective, engaging and interesting. Atmosphere is built well, largely due to the weather(with snow physics(your foot going deeper into it when it's thick), fog and rain - and it will gradually shift between these, in a natural manner) and night/day mechanics. The visuals are great(they've got nothing on Hit-man: Absolution, mind you), other than the occasional Zemeckian dead eyes. Oh, and the rugs that must have been hit repeatedly with carpet-beaters made exclusively from wood off the much-mentioned, but hitherto unseen, Ugly Tree. Yes, it's in a lot of the forest. We're talking early 3D, and that's not an exaggeration. And that shows what's wrong here.
To reach excellence, one thing that one must do is to admit what you have to work with, what you can actually achieve and cover up failings or stop short of them, make compromises instead of leaving scars in the final product... Ubisoft failed to do so, and the result has a heap of glitches(as well as several bugs... don't go near window panes, you'll stick to them and have to load), bad design choices(which, along with excessive streamlining, is the actual nemesis of this series... I didn't realize that it could get this much worse, it is genuinely outright dumbed down at this point), and you can literally see the line they crossed of where the little graphics engine that almost could. Just. Couldn't. Take. It. Anymore. Freerunning lacks roofs(never an issue before) and Jump Key doesn't need to be used for most of it, meaning that you can't run over an edge... you'll hop, and you don't climb "almost" up, no, now it's all the way... like the wall-hugging, the fact that it's automatic ruins it, taking away strategic opportunities for no reason and leading to frustration when stealth, already here neglected in favor of action(did they forget the creed they themselves wrote?), fails merely because you didn't know(nope, they still don't deal with that) what acrobatics would be employed when you moved in a direction(and how far). And yes, you can do it in trees and the like, too, now(not *that*... get your mind out of the gutter). It's entirely linear, rendering its name an oxymoron. While I can appreciate that this was the way it was inevitably going to turn out(how else would one approach it?), the lesson to take away from that is that it wasn't that smart of an idea to begin with. MP gets countless tiny fixes, mostly for the better. Getting rid of Escort, Steal the Artifact, Corruption and Chest Capture, this gives two new modes, both of them very potentially lasting something other than 10 minutes, mixing things up(as does the Animus Shield, blocking 1 to 3(Craft it) other things, like the Gun or Throwing Knives). They are Domination(exactly what you think it is... and one can take a Checkpoint away from 4 enemies! Taking them requires less than defending them, keeping it tense, as whoever holds it for the longest, wins... there's a meter at the top of the HUD showing which team is currently doing best, and if it gets pushed entirely to one side, that will finish the match) and Wolf-Pack, where 2-4 people have little time to score enough to buy more time, to... you get the drift. Your targets are all AI, and they may run off or go for a stun, they have a set perception, and some of them have abilities, same as you(including Smoke Bombs!). It forces coordination and tactics. There are 7 levels, all with 3 ambiances(sunny/starry/overcast). Seafaring is one of the few examples where the many elements in this come together(rather than feel separate from one another). There is a lot of bloody violence and some disturbing content in this. I recommend this only to tremendously forgiving fans. 7/10
