45%
27 hours played
Completed story modes of all previous games except Rogue and Liberation.
Assassin's Creed Unity probably contains the most mechanical and gameplay changes to the AC franchise other than AC2. However, not all of these changes are improvements and it creates quite a disappointing game.
It seems that with every improvement there is also a negative. The city is huge and, in my eyes, beautiful, but loading screens are extremely long and frequent. The character customisation is great with so much choice, but I wish you could still skin animals for larger inventories. The amount of NPCs in a crowd is impressive, but models repeat and the frame rate can be choppy. Stealth is improved as it now has its own button, but the whistle mechanic is gone and the cover system was said to be like the brilliant one in Watchdogs, but it isn't. Those are a few examples, but I could easily list more.
The games tagline is unity which relates to the new co-op missions available. The team sizes are either 2 or 4 dictated by the mission. Even though they are side missions and don't relate to the main story they do come with proper cut scenes. The missions themselves are good fun from what I've played, but the lag is horrible. Often in the main story you will have a companion controlled by AI and when you are both fighting the same guy you are both able to land hits. With online multiplayer often one assassin will get the attack animation whilst the other just freezes in place until the move is over. Although there are a lot of missions I wish multiplayer was also available in the main story especially if it's supposed to be the main feature of this game.
The other side missions are a mixed bag. The murder mysteries are a lot of fun and force you to think to make sure you capture the right culprit. However, I found the Paris stories that I played to feel mostly like they were just prolonging my game time. Helix missions I found to be way too repetitive. Paris is large and there are a lot of missions and items to unlock but a lot of it isn't engaging. The amount of icons on the map I also found to be overwhelming and messy. They are 4 different types of chests which is so confusing and you don't know how difficult they will be to be to unlock before traveling to them. Here is the map with all viewpoints unlocked and it's definitely confusing:
I am definitely impressed with the character customisation. The clothing of your assassin can be changed and so can his weapon. Here is how my assassin changed throughout the course of my play.
He started off looking like robin hood and ended with looking more like an assassin. You can customise the head, chest, waist, forearms, legs and the overall colour of the outfit. Each item has different statistics which can aid you in stealth or combat. Weapon choices are also vast. I started off with an axe and then moved on to a spiked club and ended with a sword. All of these can be brought with micro-transactions or in-game money, but I never needed to use my own money or grind. There are skill points which can now be used to drop different abilities, but they don't drop frequently enough. Also, necessary skills like double assassinations have to be unlocked.
The main campaign is enjoyable, but I stopped caring about the characters about half way through. The revolution and its events are used effectively, but I wish they were used more. There are a lot more assassinate missions than there were in previous games and this is definitely an improvement. The ending though is just terrible, but I won't spoil it here.
Although I experienced many occasions of choppy frame rates my game never broke or crashed. There were numerous glitches I also encountered by they weren't a big issue.
So in conclusion Assassin's Creed Unity does have some improvements but it fails in more areas than it succeeds. Towards the end, I was getting really frustrated with the game. It's definitely not the best game in the series with glaring issues, but it also isn't the worst.
Final Score: 7.5 (20 point scale system)
