***I may use some spoilers throughout this response by the way.***
I am reading all of these responses, saying all the bugs, how disappointed they are with the game. But in my personal opinion, I thought this was a fantastic game. I am just here to voice my opinion on what I have read.
I am reading all about the bugs in AC3. I'll tell you, I couldn't agree more. I have seen many bugs and problems with the game play and how smoothly it runs. But have you seen the development and the lapse between AC2 and AC3? Ubisoft has completely changed the running style of the Assassian, came with a new Anvilnext weather system, a whole new combat system, and more. We have not seen changes like these, this drastic, in the franchise. It blows me away how much criticism they are getting for pretty much starting from scratch with AC3. With all of these new engines, we CAN'T EXPECT the first release of AC3 to be completely flawless, and if you do, you do not understand the gaming business. This first patch was a beta test pretty much, and I guarantee the first patch of AC3 with fix all of these bugs you speak of and I speak of, and the game will be dramatically better.
I am also seeing many people talk about how the storyline runs completely off track at moments. Well it has the entire franchise pretty much. In AC Brotherhood, do you remember when someone kills a courtesans (or however you spell it) and then you have to find him and kill him? That had nothing to do with the storyline, and yet you speak of it like you have never seen it before. There are other examples, but can't think of them off the top of my head. Then you are talking about how side-missions have nothing to do with the storyline, you can't understand proper english because they are called SIDE missions for a reason. And still, most of the side missions, like the Homestead missions and Peg Leg missions will help you throughout the story line; like providing you money and giving you a uniform from Peg Legs mission with Captain Kidd. And naval missions as well: Yeah, they may be random naval wars, but some missions you complete you have to do with the main story line, and plus, they are just kick ass.
I also see many people bagging on how bad of a character Connor is. I personally think Connor is a great character. I see many people talking about how he is never happy and how he is never satisfied and how he lashes out on Achilles for no reason; well, that is what makes him a great character. You people don't realize WHAT Connor is actually fighting for. He is not fighting for the colonists, he is not fighting for the colonists freedom, he is fighting for his villages peace and freedom and only the villagers. He lashes out on George Washington and Sam Adams and the other founding fathers because they were not supporting what CONNOR was fighting for. Connor was never a Patriot or a Loyalists, he was merely fighting, in a way for both sides, but whatever side would give his villagers peace and freedom. That is what made Connor unique, and that is what you people are missing out on. I realize that this is my opinion, but however you are criticizing Connor for false reasons. And Connor lashes out on Achilles because he thought he knew more. Now this I didn't like about Connor, lashing out on Achilles, I understand where you come from from that perspective, but Connor does apologize to Achilles and finally acknowledges how much good Achilles brought for Connor. BTW, Connor does smile ever once in a while if you complete all of the Homestead missions, like at the wedding.
The combat, I will admit, is pretty damn easy if you know how to counter each of the opponents you face. But when hasn't the combat been easy as h*ll? The entire franchise has been based off of counter kills and counters, and maybe 10% of actually attack and parry. But once again, you speak like it is the first time it has been like this. Ubisoft has just revamped the combat and made it more fluent, not necessarily easier. Plus, in the past games, other than AC Brotherhood and Revelations, they didn't have guns in the games, and in AC Brotherhood and Revelation, you hardly encountered guns. Ubisoft HAD to make the combat more fluent, smooth, and more aggressive to be able to balance with facing guns everywhere you go in AC3.
Then in the main post, speaking about pacing. Once again, this has happened in the franchise before, and yet we are all putting the criticism on AC3, expecting it to be amazing the first patch. Remember in the beginning in AC2, the whole beginning of the game was doing errands for your father, picking 1 fight, and just a slow pace. As well as in Brotherhood, the whole beginning of the game was running errands for Montergonni. And speaking of the tutorial, we are complaining about the tutorial, but AC3 was the first game in the entire series that if you were to, new Assassians (new to assassian's creed) could really jump right into the franchise, as in the other games, you really had to play the previous games to get a good understanding. So Ubisoft pretty much had to add a separate tutorial for the new Assassians coming in. I think we are all criticizing AC3 in all of the wrong ways that we have seen before.
The maps are too big? Well obviously it seems like that because the entire AC franchise has been based off of a compact city, other than Brotherhood in Rome, (and even in Rome you were limited of where you could go around the city) and the franchise has really never expanded in the way that they have in AC3. The people who are complaining about the size of the maps, well would you rather have that, or have the entire frontier be the size of Florence in the previous AC's? The maps give us a vast area of exploring and we are complaining about how free-running has no point, well the people who speak like that don't KNOW HOW TO free-run in AC3. If you want to free-run, Ubisoft gives you opportunities to with trees, rock climbing, and in the city, Ubisoft grants you with alleyways to sneak through and being able to sneak through other people's houses. The only problem I see with free running is on rooftops, and the only reason why is because previous AC's have been based off of roof top running, while AC3 is really based off of hidden path ways, walking through the people on the streets, and somewhat roof top. We are criticizing the free-running because AC gamers have not yet evolved to the new look of the entire AC franchise. I'd rather have an expanding series than having the same old same old flat rooftops, same architectural design in towers and in buildings, and everything in between. If you didn't notice, which all of you have, Ubisoft NEEDS to expand like they did in AC3 because if we were to base the environment off of all the recent AC's, it would become more dull and vague the more you play and the AC series would go downhill. Us, AC players needed this expansion to be exposed to this kind of environment and to be able to expand in the future.
Now to the beginning of AC3, I absolutely loved the first few sequences of AC3. I see many criticizing this part of the game, but I loved it. It exposed us the to English side of Connor, and if we didn't know about Haytham and we didn't get to notice what he was fighting for and why, we wouldn't fully understand Connor and the story. We saw how Connor got the English heritage, too. If the game started out as Connor just as a kid and playing tag with his friends, later in the game, we wouldn't understand how some Templar Englishman was the father of a cold-hearted, thick blooded, angry, aggressive Indian boy named Connor. Ubisoft added this part of the game to better explain to us, Assassians, a better understanding of Connor, his background, and why Connor was going after his father and wanted to finish off the Templars. BTW, we wouldn't know Charles Lee and Haytham's other friendly Templars and why they went after Connor's village if it wasn't for the beginning of the game. Ubisoft did this for the better understanding for us, the players.
In conclusion, I completely agree with the disappointment in all of the bugs and laggy cut-scenes and all of that other stuff, but we are completely looking over the actually greatness of AC3. We are not realizing that Ubisoft and this franchise have represented the Revolutionary in an astonishing way that no other industry could replicate. We are over-looking the greatness of the frontier, and the greatness of the colonies and how well-represented they are in this game. Even though these areas may be linear, which for the most part, they are, for the first time Ubisoft expanding in this way, it is a GREAT step forward. We are over-looking the great naval warfare and we are over-looking the great concept of the Homestead and how you manage your Homestead. We are over-looking all of these great aspects of AC3 and replacing them with all of these complaints. This was the first release of AC3, and you need to realize that in time, AC3 and Ubisoft will learn from these mistakes and in a month or two, AC3 will be a revamped, great game that has been refined to its pulp. This game, in my opinion, is my GotY, because I noticed how truly great this game is and how great it represented history and how it weaved the Assassians Creed franchise into this historical time period in our history. This game was absolutely fantastic in my opinion, and it is, by far, the best AC yet and my favorite game I have played.
Sorry for sounding critical against you guys, but it is just irritating to see all of these complaints against the franchise when we are just ignoring how ground-breaking and amazing this game is and how of a big step forward this was for Ubisoft and how hard it was and how much work went into this great game. That is it from me. I would love to debate more about this, because I am a total AC fan. Thanks you for reading.
