Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag - No Trace of Scurvy here.

I said I wasn't gonna do this. Said I wasn't gonna buy or play another Assassin's Creed game. After the slap dashed never ending disaster of the previous games, I was completely sick of it. The Desmond story that never seemed to end until its car crash like sudden closing. The Ezio pissing around for 2 games pointless fluff of story. Connor Mcdouchington's emo trip through US history. I was fed up. I said the only way I'd get a new one is if they made some sort of pirate themed game, because I liked that aspect for Assassin's Creed 3.

And those mother fuckers..... Ubisoft not only made the new one a pirate game, but a launch release for the shiny new consoles. So here we go, another fuckin bout of soft science stabbiness in....

ASSASSIN'S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG

So after the abrupt end of Desmond Miles after pushing the magic button of destiny, we take control of his great, great, great unrelated silent protagonist. He's working for Abstergo Entertainment to make fancy interactive movies, and thanks to the "donated" brain meats of Desmond thanks to Abstergo's retrieval team this new guy gets to live his memories instead.

His first project is to assume the memories of Edward Kenway, a welsh commoner who married way out of his league and took to a life of piracy to make his fortune to bring to his lady fair. After coming across a shipwrecked assassin, he pursues the man and kills him to loot a reward. Kenway assumes his clothing and identity in the hopes of claiming the reward the assassin was looking to get for giving a valuable artifact to the Templars.

Unable to hold his cover, Kenway becomes mixed up in the battle between the Assassin's and Templars in their race to find a place called the Observatory, which with a drop of blood allows anyone to spy through the eyes of the blood's owner. Kenway has no allegiance to either side though, as he wishes to claim the observatory for himself and sell its powers for a profit.

Maybe its a matter of preference, but I found it very easy to like Kenway.
Practically zero angst in comparison to Conner. 

So I can tell you, all of my anger and reservation from the previous was almost immediately crushed right out of the gate. The connection to the Desmond story seemed minimal at best, and right out of the gate you start the game as a guy with swagger (which is the correct use of the term, you yolo spouting fuckwits) without being arrogant like Altair or cocky like Ezio. He also establishes right out of the gate that he's not "a good guy" by basically trying to kill the guy who offered a reward to help him.  So pretty much right out the gate he connected with me as a player, because I wanna stab some shit, I wanna get rich, I wanna drink, and I want to sink ships on the high seas.

But what I found interesting with Edward as a character that despite dressing like an assassin and eventually getting his hidden blades, he remains generally neutral in this chapter of Assassin's Creed canon. Which I suppose is good since the story has drug on too long and become so convoluted I don't really care which side wins at this point. So while Kenway dresses like an assassin, and moves like an assassin, and becomes embroiled in their mess, he's not technically one. Works for me.

No, Edward Kenway makes it very clear right from the onset that he is a pirate, and naturally if he is a pirate you would expect to spend some time on a boat. Very early in the game Kenway plunders his own ship which he dubs the Jackdaw, and this is where you are going to spend a large portion of Assassin's Creed IV. If you remember, they introduced the ship mechanic back in Assassin's Creed 3 but really didn't know what to do with it other than to build money that serves no purpose.

The perfect form of the Assassin's dive must be genetic if its lasted this long in time.

The controls to the ship feel functionally the same from their previous incarnation, but there were a handful of tweaks to polish it up such as varied ways to attack (these might have been in AC3, but I couldn't tell you). Typically you get assets for your ship by sailing the seas and ransacking other ships. This was easily the most fun of the game. You can pull up aside them and start unloading cannon fire, you can fire mortars from a far, or if you are like me you will put a ram on that ship and T-bone fuckers in two. I love that last strategy because if it doesn't sink em the moment you turn you are at point blank and can unload heavy fire for massive damage, given you can take the return fire.

Once a ship is near defeated you have the option to ransack them. Suddenly the game switches back to Assassin's Creed. You rope swing across to the enemy ship and you can start hidden blading fools and dropping 2 or 3 before you even get into close combat, and if you fill enough requirements you then take control of the ship. You can strip them for parts you use to sell or upgrade your ship, add it to your fleet, or use it to lower your wanted level against hunter ships.

You build a fleet because like previous AC games you have that timed mission mechanic where you can send your fleet on trade runs. Its a good idea to get a decent blend of them because sometimes you need to clear our the danger before you send your fleet off on missions. They are done in this kind of JRPG autoplay kind of combat, and you can see your chance of victory going in so as long you bring 1 light and 2 heavy ships to the table, you basically can't lose.

In doing this you can build money, which unlike the pointless city building in the previous AC games, you need in mass quantities if you want to get your ship ready to tangle with the brigs or frigates sailing the high seas. You need to complete a lot of the side quests for the best upgrades though, which seem necessary for tangoing with the legendary ships. But much like the Weapons in FF7, that was too much of a hassle to see through for me.

But that isn't to say that AC4 has completely abandoned the land and sneaking. You will often find yourself on a number of islands throughout the game, and admittedly, a large portion of the missions here involve trying to tail a target. Or a number of times it simply a matter of trying to slide though a heavily guarded area unnoticed.  And of course, hunting down an assassination target.

Land controls are just what you'd expect: Completely Unchanged.

The thing is, while I've heard some complaints about having to do so many tailing missions, this installment of AC felt more like the older versions I used to love. Here is your target, go get em. There were a handful of these where I would dart from brush, to bush, to doorway and cover, hidden knifing guard after guard trying not to be noticed, closing in my target and actually getting an opportunity to make a STEALTHY KILL before getting locked into a cutscene.

This is a massive improvement in my opinion because AC3 and some parts of the Ezio trilogy basically makes you watch some extended cutscene where the target runs away and you get swooped by guards, which forces you to give up any pretense of stealth and pretty much makes you give chase else they will get away. Once you get the blow darts stealthing becomes that much more fun because you can start getting targets to fall asleep or kill each other without you ever needing to enter the fray. Who would have thought the guy who isn't an assassin would be the best one at the job?

I freak'n love the blowdart. You can get a targets own guard to kill them with berserk darts

Sticking to the weapons thing a bit, the number of ways to kill someone has been cut down from previous installments. AC4 would prefer you stick to swords or a hidden blade, Gun or Blowdart. No bombs or poisons or tower defense or various forms of hand weapons. Despite the massive cut down it seems, I actually kind of preferred this because it allowed me to focus on making my weapons better instead of giving me different ones to muddle around with, and with the pirate theme, a pair of swords seemed like the way to go anyways.

The combat basically hasn't changed since the first one, which is kind of annoying because I still think the combat in these games fucking blow. You can mash your attack button all you want, but  its better to just wait for one to attack, hit counter, then go on a streak of kills until you hit counter again. Predictable and boring. All the more reason to get the job done with the stealth kills first because I feel there is at least a degree of skill with that.

Tip: Use your ships minicannons to take out their crew first. It will make fighting them
on board that much easier since you'll have less to worry about. 

Like the previous installments of this game there are a butt-ton of collectibles and side missions to do. But at least this time around it feels like there is actually a purpose to a number of them. Hunting and Spearfishing give you goods to sell, but they also are used in crafting which you need for more health, better ammo capacity, and better armor (which I highly suggest doing). The collectible shanties are worth picking up because after a few trips to sea, you'll want them to have different things to sing to fill the travel gaps. (Anything to put more time between having to hear the Johnny Bulgar shanty again.)

I sort of went on about the story already, but I have to say I was pretty pleased with this one. Yeah the Desmond canon is still kinda hanging around, the rejected Scooby-squad are still poking their heads around, but for the most part its only mandatory to partake of a few times, If you want to learn more about it you can always drop out of the animus and hack other peoples terminals. It does an alright job in connecting the stories together, but ultimately you don't need it.

I really get the sense Abstergo is a gag on how Google is taking over the world. 

Actually, in all honestly, I kind of liked the idea that you were playing a character who was on the Abstergo side of things outside of the multiplayer. So while I really couldn't care less about what the hell else is happening in the Desmond story, I was interested in seeing what was happening with Melanie Lemay and how the Abstergo brass was pushing the Templar agenda without directly saying it.

Now that I am reflecting on it, this is probably the most interesting set of characters this franchise has ever had. Leonardo DiVinci making weapons to kill people is interesting in its own right, but the ensemble of James Kidd, Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Adewale, and even Melanie I just found to be a billion times more interesting than any of the side characters or villains in the Ezio trilogy. Perhaps I just don't care about medieval Italy. I dunno.

Oh Anne Bonny...  *Swoon*

What I liked about the Edward Kenway story is there is a clear and defined beginning, middle, and fucking ending. I was absolutely shocked because I didn't think Ubisoft had any fucking clue how to end a story. Granted, it wasn't one of the best endings to a game I've ever seen, but at least for once we got to see a story come to a conclusion in a fashion that made sense. While its true there is probably going to be about 13 billion Assassin's Creed games, at least this time we got a little fucking closure.

Lastly the multiplayer is still fun. They haven't added any kind of multiplayable sea or ship games, so its the basic set of Assassin's Creed online games you've played before, but they have added a series of wolf pack missions to play co-op with other people instead of against people. Sadly, it hasn't stopped being from being complete fucking assholes to newer players, and after a spat I had with a level 30 fucking shithead, I haven't really gone back to it. Thanks for trying to ruin the game for me asshole, I guess you succeeded because I'm not playing it anymore. I hope you grow a tumor on your spinal column.

Not a whole lot of surprises to the multiplayer, but its still really fun. 

I have to say going into this game I had some pretty staunch animosity growing towards this franchise, its unchanging nature and mechanics, its seemingly endless story, dislikeable cast and so forth. And while some of the aftertaste of the previous installments looms in the background, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag kind of brought the series back for me. They really do need to stop with the once a year release schedule though, because without more radical changes to the gameplay, people are gonna get tired of the series. With out the heavy ship focus on this one, I probably wouldn't have gotten it.

That said, after I played the story through to completion and have taken a number of weeks to reflect upon it, I can say that from my personal standpoint: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is the hands down best installment of the series. Ubisoft clearly has no intention of ending this series, but in my opinion this is a great place to do it. On a high note.

I highly recommend this one. If you've never played an AC game, this is the one to play.

Assassin's Creed III (PS3): You know what? Fuck this series.

No.

I've had enough of this. Back in May of last year I spat some serious venom about this franchise. I complained that the game continues to get away from what I felt made the game awesome.  I complained that they keep dragging out the story without letting it come to a logical closure. I complained that I keep shilling out money to continue to be disappointed. I told myself I wasn't going to do it anymore.

And as if I have no fucking sense of pattern recognition, I picked up and played it anyways....

ASSASSIN'S CREED 3: (PS3)

Assassin's Creed 3(5) picks up our never ending story after closing the tales of Ezio and Altair. The scooby gang of Desmond McDerpydoo, British Von Angstydouche, Unimportant Whatsherface, and now Desmond's grumpy dad are closing in on the location of a shrine of "Those who came before" to hopefully find a way to put an end to the impending global disaster and put a rest of this conflict between the Assassins and the Templars. But as they try to enter they find that the temple is locked away. So in order to find the key to entry Desmond has to, you guessed it, go into the Animus to relive the life of a past ancestor as his team tries to find the keys Abstergo (the templars) have already found.

You pick up as what appears to be an English Nobleman by the name of Haytham Kenway. He is attending an opera in the hopes of finding an amulet that will act as key to the Temples inner chambers. Here you take control and make your first assassination of the game. After completing his mission he takes a ship over to America to locate the temple and takes in a protege in Charles Lee. While in Boston he kills a slave trader and saves a Native American woman named Kaniehti:io. They find the temple but can't enter, and a relationship beings to blossom.

Shortly after this, the perspective jumps several years down to the line, as you take the control of the love child of Haythem and Kani, Ratonhnhake:ton. After a brief hunting mission he returns to find his village on fire, and finding the culprit to be Charles Lee. Raton is unable to save his mother as she dies in the fire.  After a meeting with the village elder and a spiritual journey with a piece of Eden, Raton goes to find the training to avenge his mother. He meets a retired assassin Achilles Davenport who reluctantly trains in how to be an assassin. After Raton is renamed Connor to travel through the cities with more ease, the hunt for Charles Lee begins.

Haythem was actually very interesting character.
That s why the big twist with him is such a punch in the gut.

Usually I stall to write my Assassin's Creed reviews usually because I get it around the holiday time and its one of the last few I get around to playing of my holiday list. This time I tried to get it out of the way early, but I have never been moved to write it. Why? Because really if you have played this Assassin's Creed then you've probably played all of them. I just remember when they announced this game at E3 and the various other gaming conferences how they were going to rebuild the franchise and make things drastically different.

I guess that means all they were really changing is how the hud looks. Because frankly to be honest that's the only thing I really noticed as different. Same style of control, same boring wait to be attacked combat, same hud. Only real changes to the game that I saw was setting, time period, and maybe a little bit of difference on some of the weapon animations. You may notice some significant changes if you played the first Assassin's Creed and then jumped to this one, but if you've followed along it feels like an expansion with no major change to it.

The one major change to the game that kind of felt out of place was the naval battles. Fairly early on you can get a ship and there are a series of missions you can do with them which lead to open sea pirate combat. At first I found this very annoying because they have you trying to navigate shallow waters without destroying your boat and its very intimidating to do. Not to mention, I'm not assassinating anyone so why should I give a shit?

I will say though, that after a few spins on this and figuring out the controls, it was actually pretty fun to learn and play. Although getting money in this game was incredibly tedious so I never got to upgrade my boat, i was still able to take the high seas in calm waves or crashing storms and fight with the best of em. If they wanted to do some kind of pirate themes offshoot game, this would be a great base to start with.

As mentioned building money is tedious. You can save people around the forest to kind of build a small community around your homestead, which then you can use their services to make supplies that you can use for trade and build money, which is then used to upgrade the homestead and your ship. The main problem is its tediously boring busy work. I basically skipped it because it didn't seem to help me progress in the story in any way.

I thought the forest was a nice change of pace for the setting somewhat. You still have a number of cities like Boston and New York for you to parkour around, but I thought using the forest to introduce some of your hunts and kills would be a refreshing change of pace to the usual Assassin's Creed cannon.

That's what I thought, anyway. Much like I complained about at the end of my Assassin's Creed: Revelations review, I feel this series is just getting further and further away from what makes the game fun. Every new edition of this game seems to be a distraction from actually assassinating people. A number of missions that I remember, You basically watch a cut scene and then guards attack. Either you kill them or break after your target when they run to kill them.

What happened to giving me a target, then just sicking me loose into the world after him? Again I go to the Hitman Series or even fuck'n Skyrim for how to do assassinations. Give me a target, give me a location, allow me to use the open sandbox environment, let me follow my mark around and see if there is a moment when they are vulnerable. Perhaps a time of day where the target is without their guard, or in a location where I can make my move and quickly escape into the confusion? Don't just drop me from clusterfuck to clusterfuck.

And really, Assassin's Creed 3 had a great opportunity to really switch up the usual formula to something better catered to that. In a very early stage in the game, Connor is shown a wall of all the targets in the story who need to be killed. Instead of making follow a linear path to kill them one at a time, I think it would have been better served to allow me to go after them as I pleased, and allow me to learn information about the rest as I do.

Or if they didn't want to break up their precious story as they had it written, allow me to go after a few contracts at a time, that way when that group of them died you can proceed with the story in a fashion like you wanted to while still providing me the freedom to actually feel like a fucking assassin. But of course, this isn't how it happened.

Shit like this is what I want to do. Not giant muskety warfare.

And really, it was really hard to feel like an assassin playing as Connor to begin with. For some strange reason despite his background, I found him to be an incredibly dislikeable character. He has the tragic past and the desire for vengeance so I have no problems with his motivations. But every single conversation he has he comes off as an aggressive dislikeable shitdick. He alienates those who try to help him constantly, responds to differences like a spoiled child, and I don't even think the guy smiles once during the course of the game. I never thought I'd ever say this in this series, but I wish I was playing as Desmond.

Thankfully, that is the other aspect of the game that I liked. There are a number of missions where you actually got to play the game as Desmond. Periodically through the game you take a break from the Animus to go on missions to find more of the keys to unlock more areas of the shrine, in this missions you actually get to do a bit of assassinry with Desmond. These are actually probably the closest missions to how I think the game should be played.

Since these parts of the game are done in the real world, and not the Animus, there is no hud for you to use either. its very subtle change that I didn't even realize at first. Some of them require a bit of stealth, sneaking, hiding, and climbing. I can't just charge in. Almost as if I have to approach things as an assassin. Crazy right?

It all comes to a head in one spectacular segment where Desmond actually takes the fight to Abstergo and you get to see some really innovative and stylish kills that Desmond gets to do. My problem is that they didn't last long enough. Now I know what you're thinking, "If they aren't letting you do that many as Desmond, that means they are setting it up for the next game."

Unfortunately, that isn't the case and it brings up the biggest problem I have with the game. This is something I complained about in the Assassin's Creed: Revelation review, and I'm gonna do it again here: The game has no fucking ending.  I don't mean in the shitty "Go buy Assassin's Creed 3.5" way of things.

I'm gonna be a massive prick here and spoil the ending, but Ubisoft basically spent 5 game teaching me that the experience Desmond gets in the animus will make him an assassin.  For a few missions I get to experience this effect in blissful violence. As the game comes to a close the story gets muddled even further and BAM, Desmond is killed off.  They literally tease that the world can end one of two ways, and they just wipe out the main character without rhyme or reason.

They give some very lack luster epilogue while the credits roll before dropping you back in Connor's time to clean up any side missions you have as well as a bonus mission. Don't care, Didn't do it. Fuck this game. I had to sit through this soft science premise for 5 games, all the while thinking that I was training this character to be some elite class of assassin. Before I even get a chance to wet my pallet with this character, he is abruptly taken away from me with incredibly minimal explanation.

I guess I could say this opens up a new path for the story take, with a much more modern sci-fi-ish bent. But the problem is, I don't fucking care anymore. You can't keep taking customer base for granted. People want fucking closure, and just wiping out the main character you've been building for 5 games was not the way to do it. So now we have this new all powerful threat coming threat, and with the way the game ended there is no new hero to take up the fight.

So you know what Assassin's Creed? Fuck you. I'm done. Each release I see more and more of the game I love get squeezed out of this property for arbitrary side bullshit, unintuitive samey combat, tortuously poor story telling, and an overall lack of direction for the series as a whole. I'm not doing it anymore. I've sat back and watched this game get stellar reviews heralding its great story telling and how it accomplishes so much as a franchise that it deserves it praise.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I am not a backwards thinking neanderthal that thinks games can't change, but there is certainly a point something has lost its direction, and Assassin's Creed 3 has definitely fallen into the latter with me. Change the time, change the setting, change the characters, yet at the same time is hasn't changed anything. Same old Assassin's Creed. Feels like all the games that came before it and I'm still no closer to seeing the story end. You want to play Assassin's Creed, go play the 2nd one then quit.

Part of the game I love is in here, but it keeps getting pushed aside for new crap I can barely see it anymore. Until they publicly state that "This is the last Assassin's Creed game" I'm not buying another. 

Assassin's Creed: Revelations (PS3): Too much of a good thing

So yeah. I'm really behind one this one. I purchased this game around Xmas time but for whatever reason as much as I enjoy playing this franchise it never seems incredibly high on my to do list. I ended up waiting until a big thicket of March releases before I actually got around to it. So to some folks this review won't be anything new but then again, I'm not out to compete with major game review sites and mags, I'm just talking about things as I play them. So, without further adieu.

ASSASSIN'S CREED: REVELATIONS (PS3/XB360)

Our next installment of Assassin's Creed picks up with future protagonist Desmond Miles waking up realizing he is in the Animus. Finding the consciousnesses of agent 16, the assassin in the animus before him, Desmond learns after retrieving the Apple of Eden his mind basically overloaded and he has slipped into a coma. In a last ditch effort to save him, his team basically boosts the Animus in safe mode in basically a world of free physics. He unfortunately cannot wake up however because the Animus doesn't know where to put him and in order to find his way back, he needs to complete the memories of the ancestors before him before he can go back to reality.

In diving into the Animus portal, he finds himself back in shoes of a much older Ezio Auditore returning to the home of the Assassin's and the home base of the first Assassin's Creed. Upon reaching the library he finds a score of Templar's trying to open it and learns they have one the 5 keys needed to enter. After a bit of spat he then takes off for Constantinople to try to assist the Assassin's guild there and locate the remaining keys in the hopes of learning the true purpose of the Assassin's and hopefully finding a means to end this conflict between the Templars.

"So Desmond, You ever gonna get to be the star of this game?"
"Probably not."

It is really interesting to me how goddamn much they are able to flesh this Assassin's Creed II story out. II ended on a pretty haywire note and it left me with a lot of questions but I definitely left that game much more satisfied than the first one. Then Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood fleshed that game out further, with a bit more focus on the Desmond character. Everything about it gave this feeling that Revelations was going to be the big climatic finish. But what bothers me about this, and its been noted by others before, is that there doesn't seem to be any weight to the stakes. Yes, the Templars and Assassins are still trying to kill each other but really that doesn't even appear to be a major focus of the story. There is a bit of a side plot between the succession of the new sultan of the land, but if Ezio doesn't meet one of the heir's in the first scenes of the game, it could have been cut out completely with nearly zero impact to the overall plot line.  He's in a race to get these keys to Altair's library but he doesn't really have any idea or what he'll find. It just sounds like every serious point or event seems to take place outside the Animus, which you occasionally hear whats going on in between stages, or when you collect one of the keys you get to play a little further in the life of Altair and find out what became of him which never seem to last long enough. Occasionally they try to characterize Desmond in these obscure 1st person "puzzle" sequences, but they are slow, boring, and optional. Its basically all the fun of Portal, without the portal gun, GLA-DOS, Wheatly, puzzles, cake, humor, or entertainment. It falls completely flat. I hate to say this but from a story perspective, there is virtually no reason this game needs to exist other than the wrap up the tales of the previous characters, which should have been done like 2 games ago.

Essentially building bridges is all you do, and even that isn't much fun.

Still Lookin' like a dapper bad ass in his old age. 

Story aside, that isn't to say that game play isn't as good as it always has been. It's still loads of fun to parkour your ass from rooftop to rooftop and with edition of the hookblade and zip lines now everything moves even faster. There is not a lot of new innovation from this title from its previous one. Generally all the weapons are the same, you build up new assassins from the downtrodden of the streets just like you do in the prior games, but in this one you have to accompany them on a specialty mission before they can maximize their potential to be true assassins. You can send them out to renovate the city but it seems even less important to do this time around. Yes it opens up new shops and such and takes away Templar influence but this time around, and I had this issue with Yakuza: Dead Souls, I had that feeling of "god dammit. I've already done this shit, I don't want to do it again." So I found myself just doing things as I happened by them. there were only a few scant missions I used my Assassin's insta-kill on a particularly stubborn guard and many of the actual assassinations felt much easier to do than in the previous titles. They did add a bit of a tower defense mini game but really you are only forced to play it one time in a tutorial kind of thing, and if you keep your notoriety down from the Templars you'll never need to do it again. The only real new kill in your bag of tricks is you can construct grenades now as if your cavalcade of weaponry wasn't enough, but I doubt you will ever find need to use anything but your hidden blade. Its fast, efficient, and kills quickly.  I still think the combat sucks in this series. You are given all these different weapons and means to kill, yet every single weapon you get handles the same way, you are give a handful of different attack options but they are all useless because unless you hit your sneak kill, you are just going wait for an enemy to telegraph their attack and hit counter, then chain to the rest of the enemies. Just like the last 2 fucking games. For the majority of the game you can get by just throwing some coin, walking buy distracted guards, and then hidden blading your kills before they even know whats happening. Its all still pretty fun to play over all but really, its just more of the previous 2 games.

Graphically and musically, there isn't a very significant change from the other games. With the exception of some polish to some of the graphics, an entirely new location to run around it and Ezio Auditore becoming Oldzio Auditore, there pretty much isn't much change in the look of the game. Some of the tunes sound similar in comparison to the previous titles, but for a series of games as long and as epic as these are, you would figure there would be a more notable or interesting soundtrack to the titles. Go ahead, try to hum a part of your favorite Assassin's Creed song. Couldn't think of one? Neither can I. 

I'm sure the multiplayer is still fun, its a pretty original concept and it beats the hell off the slayer or team deathmatch concepts. Pretending to be a computer controlled character long enough to fool a target, that's loads of fun. But I bought he game used and didn't have an online pass and I'll be damned to pay an additional 15 bucks for something I'll play like 2 or 3 times.

Ultimately, I feel that Assassin's Creed is getting away from the concepts that would have made this series incredible in an attempt to try to keep up with other big name action titles. The core concept as I understood it is your are an elite assassin who can enter a room, pickpocket one target, stab another, and be out of the room before anyone even notices. But the longer this series begins to run on, the more it seems like the stealth aspect of the game is optional. And to me that is a serious problem and has to potential to kill off this franchise. Take a look at games like Thief or Hitman: Blood Money, these are titles where you actually get penalized for making your presence known and it makes sneaking up on a kill that much more exciting and shows a greater level of skill to be able to be in and out without alerting a guard. This seemed like something that Assassin's Creed should have naturally adopted but it falls even flatter with each release. The other HUGE fucking complaint that I have is Ubisoft knows they are wringing out 60 bucks a pop for each of these fucking games, and because of it, they refuse to put an ending in sight. They may have delievered on ending the tales of Ezio and Altair, but I am no closer to figureing out what the fuck in going on with Desmond in the real world, where they intend to go, or what the fucking point even is.

And now here I am, waiting for a 5th fucking installment of this fucking game to get even the basic fucking plot points answered. It's become complete infuriating to continue to play this game just to have them piss in my face just before the credits roll. I've never been so disappointed in an ending to game since the first Assassin's Creed game. Maybe that's why I keep putting this series off when they come out. No matter how much fun it is to play, how good of a story is told in it, no matter how great it looks or as memorable as it is, every fucking single one of them leaves me with this feeling of bitter disappointment. I am constantly being baited with the thought, the IDEA that all this is leading up to a massive finale that we might never see. There are talks that Assassin's Creed 3 is going to be completely retooled to have a completely different feel and have new characters and settings, but I already hear the apathy of its fan base getting tired of waiting around.  They better answer a FUCKTON of questions in this new installment because I guarantee that people will get tired of this game before it comes to a close. And then the remaining fans will never get their true ending or some slapdash rushed finish.

If you feel you need one more romp with our age Italian friend then I guess I could recommend Assassin's Creed: Revelations. But you'd probably leave more satisfied if you never finish it.

I wish I hadn't.