Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – Review
Platform | Release Date
360 | November 15, 2011
PS3 | November 15, 2011
PC | November 29, 2011Developed by Ubisoft Montreal
Published by Ubisoft
The Pitch:
Ezio Auditore must leave his life behind in search of answers, in search of the truth. In Assassin’s Creed® Revelations, master assassin Ezio Auditore walks in the footsteps of the legendary mentor Altaïr, on a journey of discovery and revelation. It is a perilous path – one that will take Ezio to Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where a growing army of Templars threatens to destabilize the region.
Have you read Ben Daniel’s article about franchise fatigue yet? If you haven’t, you should do that as soon as you’re done with this reviewtorial (patent pending!). By doing so, you’ll understand why I feel the way I do about this franchise. Don’t worry, it’ll all come together shortly!
While playing through Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (AC:R), I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I had done all of this before. For
some that may be all they wanted; I’ve talked to a number of friends who love the Assassin’s Creed series but a lot them have been playing the games within months of each other. I’m on a different side of the fence with having played each game in the series as it released. That means I’ve had a year to forget about the last one, or to soak in what had just happened, to prepare for the next piece of the story. When it comes to AC:R, I wish they would have just wrapped up the story in Brotherhood and let it be.
It’s hard to describe this game without spoiling large chunks of the story. There are a fair number of new mechanics that have been introduced, the most notable being the hook blade. It would have been great to have had this invention in the past because it allows you to climb faster and jump further, which makes for a quicker traversal of the city’s skyline. Not only does it allow you to travel more quickly, but you can use it to get away from your pursuers with ease. Previously, if you were on the lam and bumped into crowds of people, it’d slow you down or cause you to fall over…but not with the hook blade! Hold down the right combination of buttons and you’ll be leapfrogging citizens like they were the last log.
Besides the story, AC:R had a GIANT emphasis on using bombs to dispatch of enemies. When I first saw that I was going to be collecting materials to put together these items, I was scratching my head. That’s not to the say that by the end I still wasn’t scratching, but I can’t quite figure out how a bomb makes you an Assassin. In my mind, a cloaked figure is supposed to be stealthy and rarely seen but bombs 
do the reverse of that. I understand that you’ve got the ability to make different kind of bombs: blood bombs, coin bombs, smoke bombs, whatever it may be, but they were hardly used throughout the game.
Moving to the experience, AC:R can be a lot of fun if you don’t get easily overwhelmed. From the start of the game, just about the entire city is open for you to do EVERYTHING that you did at the end of Brotherhood. I found it generously overwhelming, because I’m easily distracted by the glowy objects that scream “BUY ME!” or by towers that beg me to climb them. If you’re not too busy picking up the next piece of candy, you can try your hand at defending an Assassin’s Den in a tower defense style mini-game.
It’s like the icing on top of a terrible cake: You want to eat icing because it looks so delicious, but you’re not really a fan of carrots. If you try to take back the Den from control of the Templars, you’re thrown onto a roof-top as a sort of Commander, where you toss orders to fellow Assassins. Those Assassins essentially become turrets and after you’ve placed a few different types, you can launch the wave of Templars and shoot them down like other Tower Defense games. Sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? After the second one, I decided to save my game and go back into the world, where I let the Templars have the den so I could just assassinate the leader and take it back.
AC:R’s story is a nice end to the series. It wraps up most of the loose ends and makes you feel for Altair and Ezio like they’re family. Most of the missions are what you’re used to: go here, stab someone, ride a carriage, glide here…whatever gets the job done. While the story does slow down a bit, and it may feel that they ended it a bit abruptly, there is no shortage of gameplay or information to keep you
entertained. You can even leave memories to play around in the Animus as Desmond, which opens up his personality a bit more. I felt like they really tried to bring to life all of the characters that they may have forgotten about, or that the fans wanted more back story on. It was a nice change to be able to play as Altair, but I would have been just as happy to never touch Desmond again.
My main gripe is that it’s the same as last year and I wasn’t ready for it. Even though I kept telling myself that I wanted to continue playing Assassin’s Creed, I had more fun playing with the box than the product. Though the developers took the time to polish some loose ends, give me more stores and landmarks to purchase, and other quests to do, it wasn’t enough to keep my attention like Brotherhood had. If you haven’t taken the plunge, ask yourself if you can live without knowing more about Ezio. Because if you can, you might want to wait until AC:R goes on sale to make a definite purchase.
Writer’s note: I was unable to play the multiplayer due to renting the game.
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I skipped the first game and still have Brotherhood sitting on my shelf. I liked the second game, but I enjoyed the game more when it was about stealth and blending in (beginning) and not button-mashing (the end). I also have some serious suspension of disbelief issues with the series. Ezio is the most obvious person in the city – how CAN’T guards spot him?
Some sort of disguise mechanic would go a long way towards making the series better, in my opinion.
Good review. I’ll probably still get to Brotherhood (since I already own it) but I may skip Revelations altogether and see where they take the franchise next. Unless it’s Desmond-centric, in which case . . . ick.
I’ve always kind of dismissed the recognizably with the fact that any guard seeing Ezio is seeing him for the first time. Anyone who has seen him before is dead.
Though, if you play the first game, it’s more concrete. You literally blend just by holding your hands together. The idea is: the streets are always so crowded that as long as you don’t act suspicious (Right Trigger literally translated to “Suspicious behavior” or “High Profile”) guards didn’t notice you among the dozens or hundreds of other people. Unfortunately, tech-wise, even when you are the only person on the street it has the same AI applied, breaking the suspension of disbelief. There’s no crowd-shadow or line of sight being applied.
If you liked the hiding and running, go play AC1. It had, by far, the most. Combat was tedious and counter-kills didn’t even kill people and required better (harder) to pull off. Overall, combat was discouraged and you had to run. It has some of the best art direction in the series, some of the best targets. It’s far more linear and the prep missions are not varied (pickpocket, interrogate, etc, repeated for each target), but definitely worth playing.
Seeing the effects of killing your targets on the world had almost a Shadow of the Colossus effect: were you doing the right thing? Sure, the doctor looked evil, but now there are a bunch of escaped mental patients/inmates running loose in the city (an early example). AC’s since then have tried to make things more clear cut…
Never tried the first game because my wife badmouthed it so much. I think we still have it shoved in a corner somewhere. . . .
Thanks for the recommend. I may try it one day after all.
My biggest recommendation is don’t push through it in one day. That makes the tediousness stand out a bit. Instead, just do at most 1 target a session. There are 8 (?) or so targets. I think trying to power through multiple targets made some reviews/people go a bit crazy.
Also, don’t bother with the flags unless you thoroughly document them on a map or piece of paper. Always collect them ALL in any new section of the city that opens….or just don’t bother unless you want to be like me and be stuck at 99/100 for each city…
Great review, I loved the first two games and eventually will pick up Brotherhood and Revelations at some point.