Assassins Creed 3 really is terrible.

[Jacco]

I've been playing it a lot recently as a second playthrough. The first time I just ran through the campaign and called it good. This time I am trying to get as close to 100% as I can. In going so deep into it, I've come to realize it really is an atrocious game. The core gameplay mechanics are fine and fun, but everything outside of that is shit.

The first things that come to mind are the crafting and the control of horses. Both are a disgrace. The way the tree free running is set up is terrible as well and the controls are so broken it's not even funny. it should not even be an option to leap to your death after spending 15 minutes navigating a climbing puzzle to synchronize. And don't even get me started on the glitchiness.

Tell me some of your AC3 horror stories and we can all rage together at the fact this is a "completed" game that was released as beta quality.

 

[schrodinger]

I had a horrifying glitch where in the beginning if you picked a gunpowder barrel the screen would go white and a high pitched terrifying noise would play.
I thought my game was possessed

example:

otherwise, meh, it was an ok game. I usually had fun fuckin' with the guards; good 'ol stab and run with the sweet chase music.
Their bad accents amused me.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I only played AC3: Liberation on the Vita. The game is so repetitive, poor framerates, horrible control, boring story which lost me half way through because I was dozed off, plus the forced gimmicky motion control was absolutely terrible, buggy and frustrating. The side missions are so repetitive. At first I tried to complete as much as I can, but half way through I didn't give a beef.

The worst thing is the maze puzzle. I will just leave this here:

 

[Nixou]

This time I am trying to get as close to 100% as I can. In going so deep into it, I've come to realize it really is an atrocious game

The stealth sections are the worts, I hated how often Connor would get immediately flagged by guards while walking in the streets, even if he was a hundred feet away from the nearest redcoat while climbing and careening on roofs in broad daylight would give him a free pass even with tons on guards on nearby roofs.

But what prompted me to stop playing altogether did not came from these annoying but deliberate choices in design but from poor coding: the save system was messed up: I'd save at one point, quit the game, only to be warped to the next sequence when I started playing again, despite the fact that the previous was not yet completed

 

[Casual Shinji]

They fucked up the free-running. That was my biggest issue with the controls.

Used to be you had walking, fast walking, running, sprinting/free-running. This made it so that whenever you choose to run when, say, chasing a target, you wouldn't involuntarily parkour onto the nearest wall or structure. But due to Ubisoft locking free-running to the right trigger, you can't move fast anymore without automatically free-running as well. I constanly lost targets because of this, since the game figured I wanted to climb a wall or a fence.

Assassin's Creed 4 has the same issue, but slightly mitigated.

 

[hazabaza1]

Yup.
As someone who really enjoyed every game that came before it, seeing how bad they managed to fuck up... basically everything was rather impressive. I'm still skeptical about even looking at AC4 now.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm still skeptical about even looking at AC4 now.

Take it from someone who didn't even bother to finish AC3; AC4 is very good. This is primarily because of all the pirating, but the setting itself is also just much more inviting then colonial America. The game does ultimately outstay its welcome, but that's more or less a staple of the series now.

 

[hazabaza1]

I'm still skeptical about even looking at AC4 now.

Take it from someone who didn't even bother to finish AC3; AC4 is very good. This is primarily because of all the pirating, but the setting itself is also just much more inviting then colonial America. The game does ultimately outstay its welcome, but that's more or less a staple of the series now.

Hmm...
Sadly it still uses Uplay and I hear it's bollocks on the 360/PS3 but if/when I do get a PS4 I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Seracen]

I've been playing it a lot recently as a second playthrough. The first time I just ran through the campaign and called it good. This time I am trying to get as close to 100% as I can. In going so deep into it, I've come to realize it really is an atrocious game. The core gameplay mechanics are fine and fun, but everything outside of that is shit.

The first things that come to mind are the crafting and the control of horses. Both are a disgrace. The way the tree free running is set up is terrible as well and the controls are so broken it's not even funny. it should not even be an option to leap to your death after spending 15 minutes navigating a climbing puzzle to synchronize. And don't even get me started on the glitchiness.

Tell me some of your AC3 horror stories and we can all rage together at the fact this is a "completed" game that was released as beta quality.

The high point of the series for me was Brotherhood. After that, it just hasn't been the same. Revelations and Black Flag have flashes of brilliance. I do not speak of AC3...lest I start to sputter curses. The chase sequences got annoying, especially that last one...dear god...

It just wasn't as fun, never mind the technical glitches and intentional brokenness at points. The story was a disappointment too.

It really is a case of situation where they should have just quit while they were ahead, and moved on to another story. It isn't as if ending one arc meant saying goodbye to the universe, after all.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Apart from the last chase mission and the pointless wilderness area the only thing annoying was the buildings in the towns. They were not tall enough in that time period so was easier to sprint around the towns instead of climbing. But even for all its negatives, i got a lot of fun out of it.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I HATED the core game mechanics of assassin's creed 3. The whole thing felt extremely restrictive. I didn't see a lot of complaints about this so maybe it's just me, but the fact that you can't even slash your sword without targeting an enemy and moving into assassination range or getting the game to go into "combat mode" just makes me feel this crushing lack of freedom and the fact that the controls and game feel completely change in combat was jarring hurt the flow of gameplay a lot.

Also, switching weapons in that game is by far the least ergonomic system I've ever encountered. The weapon wheel in every game prior to that was perfect. In 3 they have the left shoulder button pull up a menu that you have to navigate and select your weapon from a list while holding down the button. I played it on the 360 and there was also this obnoxious momentary 1-2 second loading chug every time the menu was opened and again when it was closed.

I didn't make it very far into that game. I was just not having fun with it at all. Though if anyone can tell me whether or not these things are changed back/fixed in 4 I'd appreciate it.

 

[Duffeknol]

The worst fuckup was Connor, the "character". I can't put enough quotation marks around that word so I won't try. Holy shit he did fucking nothing the entire game. He went with ANYTHING people told him. "You work for me now!" after every plot twist was followed by a dumbfounded "okay". I swear, if at the end of the game the templars told him something like "no, stop what you're doing, run the other way and go kill the assassins instead", he would've agreed to it.

Also the railroading was INSANE. I remember getting to New York. Fucking finally, I thought, a new city to explore, let's hope there's more to it than goddamn Boston. Here's what happens: you can't go ANYWHERE before taking your first quest. Trying to walk into the city leads to desynch. Okay, fine, let's do this mandatory dull walk-through-the-city-quest and get the lay of the land. NOPE, now you have to stalk a guy, now you have to chase a guy, now you're in prison, now you're back as Desmond... and after 90 goddamn minutes of turgid gameplay, I finally get to explore New York.

Fuck AssCreed III. Hard.

 

[laggyteabag]

Mechanically Assassin's Creed 3 was really fun, and the best in terms of gameplay when compared to the previous games in the series. With a new engine it could handle a lot more in terms of detail as well as improving the gameplay a lot. It also introduced ship combat which was probably my favourite part of the whole experience. (aside from the crafting system being really pointless and clunky as well as the "fast-travel" system that I used a whole... never)

The real downsides came in the form of the story, setting, and characters (specifically Connor himself). The setting was boring, for many it felt really close to home, especially with the foliage, scenery and the architecture of the buildings which made it feel not very exotic at all, especially with the tallest buildings in the game being ~3 story churches as opposed to large towers or pillars from the previous games. The next problem is to do with the time period which was fairly common knowledge among a lot of people which made it fairly boring to continue on with the story, also the time period allowed there to be an emphasis on guns and other ranged weapons which made the already easy combat system even easier by being able to fire your guns multiple times and eliminate a large amount of threats in only a short amount of time (this problem persists in Assassin's Creed IV). The final issue that I had with the game is that Connor himself was too serious and overly boring, I get that he was seeking revenge for the murder of his mother, but he was glum and serious all of the time, unlike Ezio who had the entire male side of his family executed, but at least he knew how to have fun once in a while.

The last issue that really bugged me, yet was such a tiny issue was that all of the small weapons used the same animations, this resulted in some quite odd effects when Connor was attacking people with huge overarm chops and swings using a small bladed dagger.

EDIT: Notice how Assassin's Creed suffers the same issue as Microsoft and their OS's with each odd numbered product being fairly poor whereas each even numbered product is a really fun experience?

EDIT 2: Also if you played the game on PC with an AMD GPU you may have noticed that the game ran like ass, this is because that engine was (and still is, for both AC3 and AC4) horrible to play on any form of AMD GPU's whereas NVidia cards run just fine.

 

[Boba Frag]

Reading this thread makes very happy as I hate that game with a fiery passion.
Connor was a dull, pointless, angsty moron with a permanent stick up his ass.

After loving Ezio's adventures, and his humour, it was a total knee to the balls to be playing as this awful, ungrateful, po faced muppet.
I get it, he had a tragic childhood.
So, why is he nothing less than shitty to the one person who took him in, again? Did Achilles pick at him for not doing his homework or something?

Haytham was far, far more interesting and enjoyable, and he was the piece's bastard Templar


I was so deliriously happy with the freedom that AC IV: Black Flag gives you.

Far better characters and a much, much better gaming experience.

Oh, yeah, and it's *fun* to actually play, too.

ACIII felt like a chore from start to finish.

I think the worst part was trying upgrade the homestead with that unwieldly, clunky system, but also seeing Connor show glimpses of decency towards other human beings.
Sadly squandered potential.

I'm off to terrorise the Caribbean as Edward Kenway now.

 

[DeadProxy]

To be honest, I can't remember much of anything from AC3, other than finding one of my new favourite weapons, the blue rifle butt weapon. And then there's always Creed's parkour fuck ups where I just want to run forward, not attempt to climb something, or even worse, waste time running up a wall I can't possibly climb.

AC4 is much better though, mostly due to being able to be a pirate and sail the oceans, which is fairly cool. Except for it's small weapons selection compared to AC3, so you only get to pick from maybe 8 different swords and 4-5 pistols, while AC3 gave you axes, tomahawks, swords and a few clubs, along with a couple of guns. The only way to get an axe in AC4 is to kill/disarm one of the bigger guards, and then you only get it until you throw it away.

Edit: Gotta point out, in AC4, theres even a little tidbit in the game you can find while hacking computers, where someone wrote a report on the characters you play as in Assassins Creed, and in the report, they even say that Connor is a poor choice to use as a subject due to his personality or something similar. At least the game makers can laugh at themselves a little.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

One glitch I remember was when a horse and the cart with driver got stuck in a forts fence. Ha.

1/3 of the game there is so much hand holding and it's not long before you step into another cutscene after 10 seconds of restrictive gameplay.

 

[hazabaza1]

I'm still skeptical about even looking at AC4 now.

Take it from someone who didn't even bother to finish AC3; AC4 is very good. This is primarily because of all the pirating, but the setting itself is also just much more inviting then colonial America. The game does ultimately outstay its welcome, but that's more or less a staple of the series now.

Hmm...
Sadly it still uses Uplay and I hear it's bollocks on the 360/PS3 but if/when I do get a PS4 I'll keep that in mind.

Problems with PS3? There was a few glitches around launch, but that was all fixed ages ago. It works fine on current gen platforms.

Well, not "problems" problems but just looks and runs a lot worse. I'm not massively concerned about the game so I can wait with no issue,

 

[clippen05]

Yeah, I mainly don't like it as it tries to act like its unbiased in its portrayal of the revolutionary war but it is pretty much 100% MURICA! (And I'm American) Connor wasn't that great either, and of course, the mechanics were a bit lacking.