Despite what some online comparisons indicate, the remaster is the superior version of the game.
Let’s preface this one differently. I was a big Assassin’s Creed fan but AC3 greatly reduced my love for it. And Unity murdered it. When I played that game all those years ago, I was disappointed on all fronts. I was also setting really high expectations that could not be reached. And I wanted to beat the game before the real life “December 21, 2012” end of the word scenario so I rushed through all of it. Hated the difficulty, the setting was underused, Connor wasn’t a good protagonist, and lots of bugs and grievances with the detection settings for NPCs.
Well, I either completely sucked back then, or Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is a much better experience. This re-release comes with a remaster of Liberation HD (a remaster of a remaster?) as well. This remaster came out March 29, 2019 and either is free with your Assassin’s Creed Odyssey season pass or in the store for $40. The season pass for Odyssey costs $40 so you have almost no reason to not have that marvel of a game and its DLC packs. So, is it worth a revisit after so many years? Or perhaps, for those who haven’t played it, a decent entry?
GRAPHICS: 2/2
There will be a video on this in the near future but this title is the subject to a bit of controversy. If you look for graphical comparisons on Youtube, you will see that some of them imply it to be superior, yet others imply that it is worse. Whether it is misrepresenting the game on purpose or not, this review is from the “Xbox One X” version of the game, so the most graphically powerful console release. I can personally confirm that the release is highly superior in the graphical department. With the exception of a handful of faces, you’re getting better looks across the entire board. You have better color with HDR, lively landscapes, and incredible textures.
STORY: 1/2
You can’t really change an entire story in a remaster, can you? What you CAN do is try to engage your player more this time around. AC3 tells the story of… Haytham Kenway? Yes, the game pulls a reverse Metal Gear Solid 2. A sizeable chunk of the game has you playing as a character who is completely absent from all of the marketing materials. After a while, you do finally get to Connor or Kanien’kehá:ka (don’t try to pronounce it, just give up). The problem with this character is the game gives him a very rich setup due to the events of the first hours of gameplay. Yet at every turn, Connor manages to remain as dull as humanly possible. More on that in audio.
The other issue is that the setting doesn’t really do a good job at expressing the ins and outs of the Revolutionary War. Sure, there’s a lot of text you can read, but in terms of the game on its own, you basically just jump in and out of several world-famous events. Funnier is that it implies that Connor was at the front of all of them. Paul Revere? Connor? Boston Massacre? Connor. Boston Tea Party? Connor. The freaking battle at Chesapeake Bay? Connor.
Really stretching the believability, but then again this series more firmly expresses itself as alternate history. This makes the second time around a lot more enjoyable. Not to mention, I personally was able to focus more on a lot of content I had to pass on because I was so eager to finish.
AUDIO: 1/2
It’s not every day you come across a voice actor who is a direct descendant of American indigenous tribes with a fine understanding of their languages, but here we are. Noah Watts, of the Blackfeet nation, voices our protagonist Connor. He speaks English and… not English. #OnlyTheFacts | Now, as said before, Connor is a dry and wooden protagonist. This is really not the fault of the actor. The dialog given for his character contains little in the way of flair or emotion. He speaks very directly at all times. He comes in two flavors, deliberate and agitated. That’s it. The rest of the cast wasn’t too great either. As for SFX? They’re mediocre. Nothing wrong about them but nothing to grab your attention.
I must make it painstakingly clear though, this game has one of the GREATEST original scores in the entire Assassins Creed franchise. That genuinely made the game a good experience overall. Quite emotional too, making up for some of the acting.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
So, at the time it came out, AC3 had a bit of a difficult learning curve. A lot of the combat mechanics, controls, and gameplay style of the game change in the transition from the Ezio trilogy to III. However, coming directly off of AC: Odyssey, the game is retroactively easier to come to grips with. If anything, the game feels more limited. No dedicated stealth mode button. Combat is the old style of “counter-attack kills” that were prominent in most of the series. The simplicity of the game in comparison to the new game actually made it feel a bit more streamlined. It was almost arcade-like to play this game after every game we’ve had since.
It also seems as thought a lot of changes streamline the overall experience. Some redundancies were eliminated. Enemy detection appeared to be slower. The ship combat was easier to handle. Every step of the way, quality of life improvements are there, on every front. Oh, and the load times, those are some short load times. Especially for fast traveling and desynchronizing.
FUN: 2/2
The fact that I took my time to play through more of the game is a very big deal. This time around, I bothered to unlock all the fast travel locations in the underground. It was a bit grindy, but manageable. The silly “homestead” missions actually felt like they were worth the time. That is despite the fact that the “convoy” system of the game was an absolute waste of time and needlessly complicated. I did all the district liberations and recruited all 6 support assassins. I did several of the optional naval battles. Not everything could be helped. The almanac pages are still dumb, as are all of the other fetch items the game throws at you. But I must stress that above all else, I had a much, MUCH better time playing this game again. I was supposed to be playing other games, yet I kept coming back to this re-release time and time once more.
Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is a huge improvement on the original iteration. Between the streamlining of gameplay elements, the simplicity, and the visual quality? This is a good remaster that has been released at exactly the right moment. If it has been a while since you last played, give it another shot. If you’ve never played it, also give it a shot. And ignore the real world plot, it’s still crap.
SCORE: 8/10
If I find time, I would like to play the Tyranny of King Washington DLC as well as Liberation, but that will have to wait.
David Cage and Quantic Dream are at it again. The fourth attempt at blurring the line between cinema and gaming. Detroit: Become Human is an action adventure game with a major emphasis on player decisions. Released on May 25th, 2018 exclusively on PS4, its character choices aim to push the boundary of narrative storytelling in video games.
Graphics 2/2
Beautiful. That sums up the entirety of the visual fidelity in this game. Never before has facial animation been so mind-blowing. Every detail carefully every emotion that is being portrayed in the performance. Alongside the fascinating character performances and modeling, Quantic Dream did an incredible job creating a futuristic version of Detroit. A realistic futuristic version of Detroit at that. One that shows off the talent of this team by recreating industries that could believably be present in the near future. The visuals are so amazing they are practically hypnotizing. Detroit: Become Human effortlessly pulls you into its world and makes it almost impossible to step back into what feels like the past.
Story 2/2
Experience the android revolution. Through the lens of the androids at the forefront of it all. That’s the general premise anyway. The full story is an experience that’s so emotional it’s nearly inexplicable. Detroit: Become Human takes you through a roller coaster of emotions. And It’s a rollercoaster that changes every time you play it. As the ride continues, the individual stories begin to unravel onto each other. Each with their own driver and distinct way to behave. So much of the story is hard to express without opening the gate for spoilers, but the writer’s for this game did not hold back. They delivered raw and uncut stories that showcase the future of the world we live in now. It’s a powerful cultural masterpiece.
Audio 2/2
Bad sounds can do a good job of destroying the experience developers work hard to create. The team behind sound design for Detroit: Become Human brought this world to life sonically in a way that shines emphasis on the full experience. The sounds of the future coupled with the visuals truly sell the realism of this universe. These are all sounds that can be heard now and vividly imagined as sounds of the future. It’s the subtle details that really bring things to life though. The slight metal sound in the voices of the androids. Just audible enough to distinguish a difference between human and machine. One of the greatest highlights of the game: The chirping android birds.
Gameplay 1/2
If you’ve played one Quantic Dream game, you’ve played them all. Seriously, they all play the same way. Of course each one of them with their own small detail based mechanic, but the same none the less. The left analog stick is used for character movement while the right analog stick alternates between being used for camera movement and interacting with items. Most of the action sequences are played through various quick time events. Exploring the world is made easy with a zoom button that points to unique objects to helped add character and intrigue to the story. In this case, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix” applies but a little adventuring couldn’t hurt too much.
Fun 2/2
Detroit: Become Human is one of the most immersive video games on the market. It is simultaneously one of the best movies of the year. That’s what makes this game fun. It’s an overall fun experience with tons of replay value. It’s filled with captivating performances, amazing dialogue, emotion characters, and a living world. Detroit is a choose your own adventure story in full motion. Action packed, thrilling, and intense in every second. This game is at the highest points of fun not for what it lets you do, but for how it presents an experience for you to never forget.
To summarize: Detroit: Become Human is one of the most artistic pieces of theatrical work to ever be presented in a video game. A meaningful story is driven by characters that feel as real as a breath of fresh air. This is another game to show off when people ask if video games are art. The answer is: absolutely.
What happens when you pick up a game and found out that your shooter has now become a cooking simulator? In Valkyria Revolution, Vega tells us all about this grave mistake in two minutes! Meanwhile, chet:( keeps accidentally referring to the game a Valkyria Discovery for no reason whatsoever. Why, why did he make this mistake? The world may never know. Review forthcoming.
