Easily the best title in the assassins creed series for me.

[Grample_Gust]

I'll never understand the extreme amount of hate this game got. But every time i read a negative comment, it was always about nit-picky stuff that doesnt actually effect the experience. Personally when i first picked this up on launch i was blown away. I was completely un-aware of the hatred that the internet was throwing at it. But its easily my favorite in the series for many reasons, and here is why.

It had:

 

- The best story in the series. Including the best characters. Villains. And connor himself. (I know, i know, but its my opinion darn you!)

 

-The best gameplay. This game revamped the entire series'es gameplay system. The amount of options in this game felt endless. You could air-assassinate with any weapon, the killing animations were brutal and satisfying, the constantly large amount of enemies on screen made combat feel fluid and never-ending. The parkour was easier and more fluid then ever, connor could climb any surface imaginable. The stealth was actually a key component and it gave you more options then ever. Corner hiding, jumping in bushes, the rope dart, the bow, heck, you could even play as a passive ninja and not kill anyone by choking them unconscious. Not to mention hunting was really fleshed out and once again offered so many possibilities.

 

- And at a technical stand-point, nothing is more impressive. Connor holds the world record for most animations in a videogame, over 2,000, in fact. The physics on connors cloths and weapons made him feel heavy. The sound-effects when you smash people sounded extremely brutal, and the graphics were the best in the series until AC4 came out.

 

- And finally, the multiplayer. They added many new options, made it tighter, increased the stuff on screen at once. It was fantastic. So fantastic that i eventually reached prestige 3. Probably spent over 200 hours playing it.

 

Now for the obvious cons, or (con) rather. This game was the buggiest, most unpolished thing i have ever played. If they wouldn't had patched it up when they did. The glitches would've driven me mad. Once they finally got all that sorted and done, this game got even better. Other then that there are no glaring issues that i can think of on top of my head.

 

Overall i give it a 10/10. No joke, this is everything i wanted in assassins creed. I must've spent over 70 hours across two play-throughs in single-player, and over 200 hours in the addictive multiplayer. What do you guys think? From what ive heard im in the minority, most people will say AC2 is the best, but with its outdated gameplay, it doesn't hold up as well as it could. And with ACIVs none-existent story and copy/pasted gameplay, i dont see a reason to pick that one over 3.

Edited October 8, 2014 by shananiganyo

[Sigma999]

It's not bad by any means. I did enjoy it from must of the time. Spent 30 hours in singleplayer and really enjoy the sidequests although the main missions wasn't so enjoyable after Sequence 5. It's in my top 3 from Assassin's Creed Saga but in the last spot behind AC IV Black Flag (1st) and AC II (2nd).

[Lokkijumala]

Totally agreed, it's my favourite in the series as well. Way too many people hate it though.

 

I'm not a multiplayer guy at all, so that's why i haven't even tried it.

[Sigma999]

Totally agreed, it's my favourite in the series as well. Way too many people hate it though.

 

I'm not a multiplayer guy at all, so that's why i haven't even tried it.

Same here. Only tried the Brotherhood and Revelations MP and after gettig the plat in Revelations, I was all sick of AC MP.

[xVolloxx]

Agreed ! 

 

I really enjoyed the story to the game (Much better then 4 but then again 4s story was very vague)

Connor annoyed me throughout with his arrogance but i found Kenway to be very interesting as 

it seemed that both the Assassins & Templars wanted the same thing but were going about it 

in 2 different fashions

 

4 was a better game but 3 has a much more in depth and interesting story .

[Meacham]

I don't think I agree with the best in the series. I'm with 2 on that one, the jump from 1-2 was brilliant However when I first played this game (on release date) I thought it took too long to get into it, didn't like anyone, many glitches, sucky servers. This took the whole experience from me to be honest and I think the main problem was with myself, as everyone else was that it was massively hyped.

 

The gameplay though was probably the best in the series I admit as the updated free-running was much needed.

 

When I recently got back into the game (this year) I thought completely different, I enjoyed everything a lot more now that it worked. 4 was literally a copy/paste like you said with this and that added in but hopefully Unity is really good!

 

I enjoyed the whole story more, still pissed about the ending but I grew to like the characters also,.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Meacham93

[WuTangJase-]

I was really disappointed. I preferred the previous ones. Looking forward to unity too.

[johntatsi]

Agreed. Though I can admit 2 is better overall, and I have yet to open my copy of 4, I enjoyed this the most. Best characters, plot, world, and just the fact that my favourite period in history was 1700s-1800s Canada/USA.

[freddie1989]

I am currently playing this now and so far I am loving it, the characters are good, the story is good and the fight system seems much improved from previous games. Personally I am a big AC fan and have enjoyed all the games in the series but this one is up there!!

[DrBloodmoney]

I dont agree that its the best (for me it was Brotherhood) but I think it was a solid entry in the series, and I think it was simply a bandwagon that people were jumping on in thier 'hating' it.

I dont think there has been a bad game in the series since AC1 (which wasnt terrible, but was quite lacking in gameplay). It has always seemed quite arbitrary which ones folks latch onto and which ones they dont - I likes Revelations a lot, but it also gets derided by a lot of fans

[Razza]

Personally I found Assassins Creed II to be my favourite of the Assassins Creed franchise so far.

 

It felt so different when it first was released, the story and characters in the game are interesting and keep you gripped to the story and the gameplay was a huge improvement from the first Assassins Creed.

 

But I respect everyone else's opinion on which they enjoyed

 

 So I shall leave you these wise words from an older and wiser Ezio Auditore.

 

[Saltyie]

I respect your opinion, but I'd like to share my opinion on AC 3 too. 

 

AC3 had the potential to be the best AC game, but that potential was wasted. Engineers claim the creative team just wanted too much, and I agree. While ship combat was a good feature, that was only one needle inn a haystack made of crap. Underground tunnel exploration, weird Assassin recruit system, that awful pivot thing, Desmond's story conclusion, even the homestead missions (even though they were alright). They were just spread too thin, and it was too ambitious of a game.

 

But those are only reasons why AC3 could've been a great game, sadly, there's many more reasons why AC3 is a bad game. I'll start with the most obvious, the bugs. I've just played through AC3 recently, and I have to say, it's still as buggy as it was in 2012. Missing audio, leaving gunshots and sword battles looking fake, annoying parkour issues, e.g running up a hill and Connor suddenly doing the animation for running up a 90 degree wall. I fell through the map multiple times, I've had parts where no matter how far away I ran, the guards wouldn't exit hostile mode, hell, even my ship was flying in the air at one point. And there were the more common bugs, like framerate issues, npcs spawning in right in front of you etc. The bugs and wasted potential make this game worse than it could've been, but I'm not done yet. After all this, I'd still rate it an 8/10, but it gets worse.

 

The story is about as underdeveloped as Ride to Hell Retribution. It's almost laughable. So many times were scenes extremely important to the game cut, that I no longer cared about the story by the end. I get that Connor didn't uphold the Assassin's tradition, but so much is left unexplained. Why are his hidden blades different (they pop out and turn into daggers), How come Achilles doesn't give a shit about his father being the TEMPLAR GRAND MASTER. The targets themselves were piss poor, and the game tried to give them a ounce of personality by making them tell Connor they were doing the right thing. I don't want to talk about the setting. The Revolution. Awkward gameplay scenes, the battles have no weight, all the characters are met once and discarded, it feels pointless. And it's laughable when Connor says "enjoy your victory, it'll be the last I deliver you", when all he did was ride a horse around like an asshole for 10 minutes.

 

Connor is a boring character. Sure, he isn't a ladies man like Ezio, but even Chris Redfield from Resident Evil has more personality. I didn't give a shit when he killed his 'best friend', because why should I? I hadn't seen that character in hours of gameplay I'd almost forgotten him! Connor just took orders from everyone the entire game, even when breaking out of jail he's told what to do. 

 

Sorry for the long ramble, but I think AC3 is a bad game (6 or 7/10 'bad', not bad bad. I'm a huge AC fan, and I think AC3 is by far the worst). I could go into more detail with my points, but I just wanted to share my thoughts about the game quickly. I really hope AC Unity is better than 3. It looks like from the story trailer Arno has more character than Connor.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Saltyie

[Grample_Gust]

I respect your opinion, but I'd like to share my opinion on AC 3 too. 

 

AC3 had the potential to be the best AC game, but that potential was wasted. Engineers claim the creative team just wanted too much, and I agree. While ship combat was a good feature, that was only one needle inn a haystack made of crap. Underground tunnel exploration, weird Assassin recruit system, that awful pivot thing, Desmond's story conclusion, even the homestead missions (even though they were alright). They were just spread too thin, and it was too ambitious of a game.

 

But those are only reasons why AC3 could've been a great game, sadly, there's many more reasons why AC3 is a bad game. I'll start with the most obvious, the bugs. I've just played through AC3 recently, and I have to say, it's still as buggy as it was in 2012. Missing audio, leaving gunshots and sword battles looking fake, annoying parkour issues, e.g running up a hill and Connor suddenly doing the animation for running up a 90 degree wall. I fell through the map multiple times, I've had parts where no matter how far away I ran, the guards wouldn't exit hostile mode, hell, even my ship was flying in the air at one point. And there were the more common bugs, like framerate issues, npcs spawning in right in front of you etc. The bugs and wasted potential make this game worse than it could've been, but I'm not done yet. After all this, I'd still rate it an 8/10, but it gets worse.

 

The story is about as underdeveloped as Ride to Hell Retribution. It's almost laughable. So many times were scenes extremely important to the game cut, that I no longer cared about the story by the end. I get that Connor didn't uphold the Assassin's tradition, but so much is left unexplained. Why are his hidden blades different (they pop out and turn into daggers), How come Achilles doesn't give a shit about his father being the TEMPLAR GRAND MASTER. The targets themselves were piss poor, and the game tried to give them a ounce of personality by making them tell Connor they were doing the right thing. I don't want to talk about the setting. The Revolution. Awkward gameplay scenes, the battles have no weight, all the characters are met once and discarded, it feels pointless. And it's laughable when Connor says "enjoy your victory, it'll be the last I deliver you", when all he did was ride a horse around like an asshole for 10 minutes.

 

Connor is a boring character. Sure, he isn't a ladies man like Ezio, but even Chris Redfield from Resident Evil has more personality. I didn't give a shit when he killed his 'best friend', because why should I? I hadn't seen that character in hours of gameplay I'd almost forgotten him! Connor just took orders from everyone the entire game, even when breaking out of jail he's told what to do. 

 

Sorry for the long ramble, but I think AC3 is a bad game (6 or 7/10 'bad', not bad bad. I'm a huge AC fan, and I think AC3 is by far the worst). I could go into more detail with my points, but I just wanted to share my thoughts about the game quickly. I really hope AC Unity is better than 3. It looks like from the story trailer Arno has more character than Connor.

You made a load of fair points, and holy crap, if its still that glitchy then darn, i havent been unfortunate enough to come across any bad ones since the patch. But i do have one complaint, since when is a 7/10 bad? Or even a 6/10? A 7 typically equals a good game. While a 6 usually means the got more good then bad. I'll still hold to my opinion, dont know why but darn. This game just gave me goosebumps. Loved everything about it. I'll give it another go sometime soon and see if it still holds up to my initial love for it. Who knows, maybe i was just way too into it to notice any of the things you listed. Except the glitches... which although hilarious, can get extremely annoying after a while.

[Beyondthegrave07]

For me, AC3 is still sitting on the shelf, glaring at me for not playing it for 2 years...unwrapped, coated in dust, still waiting for the chance to be played.

[Saltyie]

You made a load of fair points, and holy crap, if its still that glitchy then darn, i havent been unfortunate enough to come across any bad ones since the patch. But i do have one complaint, since when is a 7/10 bad? Or even a 6/10? A 7 typically equals a good game. While a 6 usually means the got more good then bad. I'll still hold to my opinion, dont know why but darn. This game just gave me goosebumps. Loved everything about it. I'll give it another go sometime soon and see if it still holds up to my initial love for it. Who knows, maybe i was just way too into it to notice any of the things you listed. Except the glitches... which although hilarious, can get extremely annoying after a while.

Yeah, I suppose it's 'good' at 7/10, but I feel it's bad for an AC game. I found a clip of some cut scene I was talking about before, some guy has put in-game scenes to it, but it shows us that everything was there, but Ubi cut it from the game for some reason:

 

 

Connor wasn't a boring character like I said a bit harshly before, he's just very uninteresting, since Ubisoft did a crap job of doing his character. They were obviously going for the 'native having trouble understanding people's culture and stays silent' role, but they don't do it very well, making him look mad all the time as a result. My major gripe is there was no real good story parts, like this one in Ezio's game:

 

[ShogunCroCop]

AC 3 was my favorite, but for different reasons. I have always been a history nut, especially of the Revolution, so to finally have a game set in that time period was awesome for me.

[Welmosca]

After had seen so much hate towards AC3,I gotta say its good to hear that from you....I recently bought the game and its still sealed but I wanna play it ASAP.Never seemed like a bad game to me but I can't share my thoughts since I didn't even played it.Although I was taking you seriously until this:

 

"- And at a technical stand-point, nothing is more impressive."

 

Come on man you must have meant no other AC game is more impressive....btw I didn't know it had that record of animations,pretty nice.

 

Still gotta play AC3 and Black Flag but the best AC for me is Revelations followed by AC2.

[AenigmaMagister]

I really love so much Assassin's Creed II, revolutioning and evolving the saga after the first one...and Ezio Auditore will be forever one of the unforgotten characters in videogames history...

[Mr_Freaker]

It's refreshing to find people who like the game, despite me disliking it.

 

AC III isn't a bad game, but it isn't my cup of tea.

This might sound offensive, but I don't care two seconds about the story of how America came to be.

I found it difficult to follow the story and even more the differentiate the charachters.

 

I assume most people had a difficult transition from Ezio to Connor.

If Black Flag was the next installment after Ezio, it might have suffered a simmiliar faith.

 

I love the gameplay of AC III, it offers a few very innovative mechanics.

I was amazed how accessible nature became.

 

But... story is important to me.

I don't care if the graphics are a bit less or the gameplay a bit less, story is important.

I felt no bond with Connor, no sorrow or regret when a friend died.

I remember how I did felt this with Ezio, Altair (the parts in revelations) or Kenway.

It's not a bad game, just not my cup of tea.

 

[Grample_Gust]

After had seen so much hate towards AC3,I gotta say its good to hear that from you....I recently bought the game and its still sealed but I wanna play it ASAP.Never seemed like a bad game to me but I can't share my thoughts since I didn't even played it.Although I was taking you seriously until this:

 

"- And at a technical stand-point, nothing is more impressive."

 

Come on man you must have meant no other AC game is more impressive....btw I didn't know it had that record of animations,pretty nice.

 

Still gotta play AC3 and Black Flag but the best AC for me is Revelations followed by AC2.

That's what i ment

Yeah, I suppose it's 'good' at 7/10, but I feel it's bad for an AC game. I found a clip of some cut scene I was talking about before, some guy has put in-game scenes to it, but it shows us that everything was there, but Ubi cut it from the game for some reason:

 

 

Connor wasn't a boring character like I said a bit harshly before, he's just very uninteresting, since Ubisoft did a crap job of doing his character. They were obviously going for the 'native having trouble understanding people's culture and stays silent' role, but they don't do it very well, making him look mad all the time as a result. My major gripe is there was no real good story parts, like this one in Ezio's game:

 

I'm pretty sure that was from the book "Assassins Creed: forsaken" Some guys got connors voice actor on a podcast. Same deal for the haythem speech. They asked them to read it out loud. I could be completely wrong but by the way the audio sounds so fuzzy, I'm about 80% sure.

[Fawazc98]

My favourite is also Assassin's Creed III. The pleasure to explore Boston was just mesmerising and insanely beautiful to watch it, and the multiplayer was so smooth and dynamic. The main protagonist himself is really good. I liked the way how they showed us the stages of development of being an Assassin, though the ending could have some refinement but other than that, I loved it.

[DrBloodmoney]

It's refreshing to find people who like the game, despite me disliking it.

 

AC III isn't a bad game, but it isn't my cup of tea.

This might sound offensive, but I don't care two seconds about the story of how America came to be.

I found it difficult to follow the story and even more the differentiate the charachters.

 

I assume most people had a difficult transition from Ezio to Connor.

If Black Flag was the next installment after Ezio, it might have suffered a simmiliar faith.

 

I love the gameplay of AC III, it offers a few very innovative mechanics.

I was amazed how accessible nature became.

 

But... story is important to me.

I don't care if the graphics are a bit less or the gameplay a bit less, story is important.

I felt no bond with Connor, no sorrow or regret when a friend died.

I remember how I did felt this with Ezio, Altair (the parts in revelations) or Kenway.

It's not a bad game, just not my cup of tea.

 

Dude, i think you just accidentally wrote a poem 

[Memnoch]

Was this the free one with ps+? Tbh I gave up on the series from brotherhood. It became repetitive and story was going downhill (in my opinion obviously)

[DrBloodmoney]

Was this the free one with ps+? Tbh I gave up on the series from brotherhood. It became repetitive and story was going downhill (in my opinion obviously)

 

I understand the sentiment, though i personally always have time for an AC game - but i really would recommend giving Black Flag a go - there are a lot of folks who bailed after brotherhood who returned with Black Flag, and it really is a step up IMO

[Parker]

Was this the free one with ps+? Tbh I gave up on the series from brotherhood. It became repetitive and story was going downhill (in my opinion obviously)

 

Nope, otherwise I would have it. 

 

I've been meaning to get back into the Assassin's Creed series, I beat ACII and I started the next one (Brotherhood, maybe?) but for some reason I stopped playing it. Black Flag looks amazing but I don't want to skip the other games in the series, I'll get to them eventually I suppose. 

 

 

Parker