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Is Assassin’s Creed III A Good Place To Jump In?

Is Assassin’s Creed III A Good Place To Jump In?

Here’s a confession: I have never finished an Assassin’s Creed game.

That’s not to say I’ve never wanted to; the concept of reliving key moments in history as an assassin loaded with a plethora of neat little gadgets sounds incredibly cool to me. It’s just that I couldn’t finish the first one.

I mean, it was legitimately enjoyable for the first few hours, but it quickly became formulaic and repetitive: Inflitrate a particular part of a particular city, sit on a bench for a while, follow someone around, then make a kill while alerting as few people as possible. Rinse, repeat. As soon as this formula became obvious, the magic of Assassin’s Creed vanished for me.

And that’s not to mention the clumsy controls. Now, I know people who will argue me on this, but, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the original Assassin’s Creed doesn’t have the greatest control scheme in retrospect. Sure, at the time it was probably incredible, but in a post-Uncharted 2 world, we have high expectations for fluid climbing mechanics. As we should.

And, dear lord, the flags!

I never picked up Assassin’s Creed II because I wanted to finish the original first. And since I couldn’t finish the original, I just kind of gave up on the series as a whole, assigning it to my backlog of titles that I know I should probably play through but, in reality, I might never actually get to.

Enter Assassin’s Creed III. From the moment the details started leaking, this game had my attention. This one will be set during the American Revolution, which is a fascinating era of history for anyone born under the Stars and Stripes. (Our British brethren may not be quite as happy about the results as we are, though.) You know what other game was set in this time period? Age of Empires III, which was a game I fell completely in love with during that weird period of my life where I would have actually called myself a PC gamer.

And this brings with it a whole new slew of possible weaponry, like hatchets and muskets. The traditional AC formula can be greatly expanded upon simply due to technology.

Is Assassin’s Creed III A Good Place To Jump In?

And naval battles? I’m weak in the knees.

So now I’m stuck at a crossroads. Should I just jump into Assassin’s Creed III, or should I pick up the Ezio trilogy, which is launching very very soon, and power through the entire series once the gaming industry enters its December lull? I haven’t decided yet.

Let me know in the comments section which course of action you’d recommend and why. Just don’t spill any spoilers, or I may have to use my newfound assassination skills IRL.

By
Josh Wirtanen
Editor / News Director
Date: November 8, 2012

*The views expressed within this article are solely the opinion of the author and do not express the views held by Cheat Code Central.*

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