Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
By Ubisoft
Genre: 3rd-person Action-adventure
Rating: Mature (Blood, Language, Mild Sexual Themes, Violence)
Desmond Miles is in trouble. He’s fallen into a coma following the events of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood; I imagine being mentally manipulated by a super-powerful alien, one of a race who claims to have created the human race, could do that. In any case, Desmond’s Assassin friends Shaun, Rebecca and newcomer Bill work hard to save the core of Desmond’s being, and place it into a safe mode within the Animus. While he’s on the idyllic yet lonely Animus Island, he must reconstruct the memories of his past as well as relive more of that of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore.
In order to seize a decisive advantage over the Assassins, the evil, scheming Templars seek to gain access to the Grand Temple located beneath the former Assassin’s Fortress at Masyaf. They have one of the five keys required; Ezio must travel to Constantinople, the Crossroads of the World in the early 16th century, and enlist the aid of local assassins to find the other four.
Once there, the excitable local Assassin Order head, Yusuf Tazim, shows him around a small part of the gigantic city, as well as grants him a useful new implement: the Ottoman hookblade, which enables him to cross large segments of the city via ziplines as well as to extend his reach in parkour or combat situations.
As with II and Brotherhood, Ezio has the opportunity to buy all sorts of property and reap a percentage of profits. From the quaint shops found throughout Constantinople, Ezio can buy books and artwork to improve the value of Assassins’ Dens, or more importantly improved weapons and armor to help his chances in battle.
When the Templars choose to assault one of the Assassins’ Dens that you can occupy, a Tower Defense game starts! You’re responsible for placing various types of troops on the surrounding rooftops, barricades in the streets and other hindrances to prevent the enemy from re-taking the Den. This is not an unwelcome addition to gameplay, but is a little hard to get used to no matter how much you play it.
When you’ve found certain amounts of Animus Data Fragments (little collectibles) throughout Ezio’s journey, Desmond, back on the Island, can take on first-person puzzle challenges to help unlock his fragmented memories. These consist of placing platforms or inclines to get through various challenging puzzle rooms within the “Black Room,” a deeper safe mode which requires manual decryption through the aforementioned puzzle solving.
Also, when you find each key, you will flash back to a playable vignette with the Master Assassin, Altair himself, who has locked untold secrets within the Grand Temple, but, having suffered repeated assaults on his Fortress, has chosen to hide the keys within Constantinople.
Multiplayer returns with modes both old and new, with an actually interesting story that details the history of Abstergo, the modern incarnation of the Templars, and their efforts to bring down the Assassins and seize control of the world.
A few technical issues aside, this is definitely one amazing game and I’d highly recommend it to those who, like with the rest of the series, don’t mind a little bloody action in with their historical fiction. Five out of five!