Assassin's Creed Unity Reviews

  • PunderstatementPunderstatement313,496
    28 Jun 2015
    19 7 6
    As the 9th game in the series (or 10th if psp games that never got a 360 edition count) there's a very definite checklist of what makes an Assassin's Creed game; a protagonist with a tragic back-story caused by the evil red cross who deals with it by giving out free stabbies and collecting anything that floats or is in a chest(bonus points if their name means some type of bird), some puzzles for those who like to keep their mind sharp as well as their blade, running about rooftops like a spastic Santa, and climbing really tall monuments and jumping off into haybales that happen to be there. We get hours of fun, Ubisoft gets money cycle repeats forever. Unity follows in that tradition admirably but ultimately changes in combat, free running, and enemy AI are a borderline deal breaker for me.

    Pros: The game is B-E-A-utiful on the one whenever there's a cutscene or Arno synchronizes a viewpoint. Rest of the time it looks like any other Assassin's Creed game. The story, while not as epic as previous games, is nonetheless wonderful thanks to the cheeky chops Arno and his relationship with Elise. New to the list are rift missions, collectible races that are timed which I found to be intense and fun. Customizing your character is a new addition to the series which I hope continues into future titles.And infamously glitches, placed in this section because the only I ever had to deal with was the one were you run in place which is a great stress reliever when accompanied by Benny Hill music. Smoke bombs are back. Achievements are pretty straight forward. No more multiplayer achievements! Co-op can be played solo.

    Cons: The changes to the free run system. Oh my god. I compare it to Jenga, each Assassin's Creed game messes with the controls a bit, takes a piece from here, puts it there. Well Unity went for a base piece and now the whole thing has toppled. It might appear to function the same but run through crowded streets, try to climb down a building or venture through a particularly mean looking hallway and you'll see what I'm talking about. As a child Arno IGotStuckOnAChairAgain and his mum used to play the floor is lava, years later he honours her memory by refusing to run along the ground preferring to instead hop onto any chair, lamppost or nearby building. The new system for quickly going up and down buildings is quite the opposite and is both slower and much more frustrating. If you're not convinced play The Tournament flag section solo. It wouldn't be an Assassin's Creed game without a metric tonne of collectibles and while other games have much more these ones are much more tedious. Almost every chest you encounter has armed Royalists on guard and require you beat a lockpicking minigame that you have to wait until you've beaten sequence nine to fully unlock. Lack of weapons (can only carry two weapons at a time, only get assassinations with hidden blades, etc.), dead bodies cannot be moved, fast walk is gone (replaced with wall gluing which is helpful because sometimes I feel like the enemies need more time to turn around and spot me as I'm stuck to a wall waving), lack of counterattacks (especially annoying as later in the game all enemies block and your wind up block breaker is unresponsive and slow) and enemy detection from hell. Imagine the enemies from the Tyranny of George Washington said sod it to America and moved to Paris. Imagine you don't have your cool invisible wolf and eagle powers. Now imagine enemies who will spot you fro further away than you can fire and are always suspicious of you. Lastly imagine a disguise feature that disappears as soon as you pass by their eyesight effectively meaning you get a single use in most situations. Really long load times.

    Neutral: Co-op It's there, if you get people who try to be stealthy it's great otherwise rushing is dumb.


    The Less Wordy Version: I love the AC franchise and there were some great parts of this game but usually I'm a little sad when I've finished an AC game because it's over. No sad face this time just glad it was over.
    3.0
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    PunderstatementWell I'm glad it made someone laugh, if I'm going to make a long speech I prefer people enjoy hearing it. Still that free running was a mess.
    Posted by Punderstatement on 04 Aug 15 at 01:02
    Davis 888Kanchanabuuri and the writer of this review nailed this game down. Great graphics, characters and story, but seriously broken game. I have never been so frustrated with an ACE until this piece of trash. And black flag was nearly perfect in all ways... how could they have fucked up so badly. If only I knew beforehand I was going to spend most of the game dieing from BS and searching for chests while spending the in game money on items you can never find on body's... It's no wonder this game put a halt to the franchise.
    Posted by Davis 888 on 20 Feb 17 at 00:45
    Scenic Route 16Easily the worst game ever made.
    Posted by Scenic Route 16 on 21 Feb at 08:13
  • Swinny CostelloSwinny Costello1,258,747
    31 May 2015
    16 6 1
    ‘Ahh – Assassin’s Creed. Born from progressive design, now bastardised into an annual franchise with fewer improvements each year.’

    The above statement is what many would have you think - or if you only judged each title from its analogous cover art.

    What Ubisoft have done with the Assassin’s Creed franchise, is turn the series into the James Bond of the videogame world. We’ve got the usual tropes and attractions, the odd new gadget; but as some would say – why bother reinventing the wheel, when you’re still selling millions of copies?

    Enter Assassin’s Creed Unity, the 9th title in the series.

    Set in Paris during the French Revolution, Unity introduces players to the enigmatic Arno Dorian, a charming young Parisian that winds up joining the Assassin order after a series of cataclysmic events. The campaign story is paced well and Arno is developed into a relatable, strong protagonist by the plot’s sombre conclusion.

    As mentioned before – Unity does not attempt to unearth the core concepts of the series. It presents a familiar set of gameplay experiences (with a few neat additions), all wrapped up in attractive new Parisian trappings.

    From a presentation standpoint, Unity is remarkable. Wandering around locales like the Champs-Élysées and Palais Bourbon is astonishing, capturing the rebellious essence of the era. While there are certainly issues, such as an inconsistent frame-rate and haphazard graphical glitches, the overall presentation is so well executed that just standing idle in the Parisian streets beckons the player to explore their many hidden passages and secrets.

    Sound design is also impeccable, with realistic dialogue and nuanced environmental effects like tools clanging in a marketplace being highlights of the aural package. If I was to criticise one aspect, it would be the choice to use English and American accents, as opposed to French. Whilst I understand the need to avoid alienating the audience, past titles in the series (such as those set in Italy and the Third Crusade) have managed to deliver authentic dialogue with appropriate accents, so I do not understand the reasoning here, particularly considering that Ubisoft is a French company themselves.

    Being a AAA title, one would expect many bells and whistles to keep players happy. While Ubisoft did go the extra mile in including additional missions to hold our attention, one cannot help but feel that much of this content is purely ‘padding’. It’s akin to dining at a restaurant where the servings are too large – sometimes too much is unsatisfying. A smaller amount of unique content would have led to a more positive experience.

    Summing up, Unity isn’t a game changer, but it knows what it does well and is superb in its delivery.
    4.0
  • Skycaptin5Skycaptin51,071,622
    27 Nov 2014 03 Aug 2018
    21 12 12
    Campaign
    Playing as Arno Dorian, a French assassin alive during the French Revolution you will experience the major moments of his life as you attempt to find a unique person for the future. The whole future aspect was somewhat stupid, but that's the just of it. They do help to create some unique places as you migrate servers which are weird variants of time and filled with glitches, just like the regular game! Arno is fairly charismatic and funny of an individual throughout his venture, but he still seems like an empty figure. At a young age he was orphaned and taken in by a Grand Templar whose daughter he had taken a particular liking to by the name of Elise De LaSerre. Eventually her father has a similar fate of assassination and then this whole plot of redemption and revenge comes in. Elise becomes a full Templar set on revenge where Arno becomes an assassin and is set of redemption with her. Despite being apart these two cross too often and everything becomes mixed. It was actually an interesting store for the most part except at the end where the execution was terrible and the story was pointless. You also have some great occurrences like working with Napoleon, solving a murder mystery and dodging between server migrations. The missions had a good amount of variety and really made you trek all across Paris, with tons of side things for you to be doing. You can also buy additional skills, items and weapons from various dealers as you're pretty much a barebones assassin at the start. Finally, that wine stealing level was hilarious and it's great to see missions that are a little out there.

    External image


    Cooperative
    Originally shown as an entire game feature the cooperative play of Unity has you going about in groups of up to four across various side missions or heists. These are rather interesting and great experiences to plan out, well run in there with most groups I've played with on an all out assault on the objective. These vary from stealing things to assassinating and of course planting a series of documents. These seem well planned out and build on the story for many hours. I'm not seeing hours of play though from this as missions are already becoming repetitive and it would have been great to see the whole package as cooperative. Additionally if you don't have a full team there are also smaller missions focused on lesser groups or you can search online. Matches can also be awful in terms of gameplay due to a mixture of glitches, frame drops and general lag that did flag quite a few games I played. Enemies were appearing everywhere and players randomly dropped dead while some were seeing things that others weren't. When it got bad, it was an absolute mess.

    Gameplay
    The world of Paris is beautiful, alive and vibrant. I've never seen such a full world with every AI character in the world doing something special. There's so many interactions going on and events that you witness which are amazing. The world is also filled with unique areas, items and just packed to make it authentic. However the frame rate suffers greatly and is just plain terrible at times when it gets really choppy. I had a great number of audio cut outs, audio issues and generally quiet gameplay. Finally there were many instances of things getting stuck or not quite working as they should which was stressful and some game crashes. It's like they just said "good enough" and shipped it out. The parkour system has also been reworked for the next generation and it works relatively well except for when it doesn't. When it doesn't which is quite often, everything goes to hell and the player suffers. From the character not moving to well, just randomly diving off a building. The assassination systems and everything worked fine in how they're performed and weapons were great. Personally though I find the rifles or pistols were perhaps to accurate for the time piece they're attempting to create.

    External image


    The Conclusion
    Assassin's Creed Unity could have probably been the best game this year aside from so many bugs, glitches and general issues that bog it down. The story itself while great for the most part was pointless by the end and it felt very empty once completion. It was essentially just a chain of random assassinations that had no point as the whole point of the story seemed to be lost by its end. The world of Paris was so massive and filled with activities. It's just got some awful aspects in the game that ruin these areas, but it's still neat to see displays of civil war as the citizens fight for Democracy. Further on that the game also made it feel like it would be more of working with citizens to cause this revolution and it didn't do that at all, anywhere.

    Review of Mine from Gamerheadquarters.com
    Gave Assassin's Creed: Unity a 6.2/10
    3.0
  • Madknight 64Madknight 64477,030
    10 Sep 2018
    6 1 0
    Assassin's Creed: Unity is one of the weaker entries into the series. As a whole, it doesn't have a lot to add to the series lore or evolve the game play in any meaningful fashion for the series as a whole. If you are a die hard fan of the Assassin's Creed universe, this game is worth a playthrough, but if you are new to the series or looking for the best of, you can probably skip this one.

    Story
    In this Assassin's Creed, you follow Arno Dorian during the French Revolution. The story starts off pretty slowly, but towards the end has some pretty interesting things happen and really ramps up. The game wraps up the whole Arno story nicely, and there are two major events that I thought were shocks to the story and really moving.

    In terms of the overarching Assassin's Creed story, not much really happens. This game pretty much just focuses on Arno, with very few brief interludes to the modern day story, though the intrusions that you have to deal are pretty cool. I've always enjoyed how things were tied to the modern day, so it was a little disappointing to see these had been mostly removed.

    Game Play
    Unity plays like many of the other Assassin's Creed titles out there. The mechanics feel very similar, though the combat system got a slight update from Black Flag, it's not so ground breaking that it stood out. The one thing that has been added has been the ability to run through buildings and interact with your environment more, however there are many times that you can't quite get Arno to do what you want. Many times I would want Arno to go into a building, I would climb around the window as the game couldn't quite figure out what I was trying to get it to do.

    The big change to this Assassin's Creed were the actual Assassination missions (and these were a really cool change). These missions give you options to make the assassination easier, do a special assassination, or go in swords out and fight your way through. It felt like a throw back to the original Assassin's Creed where you could learn information that could make assassinating your target very easy, or incredibly difficult. This change to the mission style was a really nice inclusion and I hope to see it in future titles.

    The multiplayer in this game was also a unique change. Unlike in the previous Assassin's Creed titles, this was a Co-op only multiplayer. You could work with other players to carry out missions, just like the ones in the game, and try to work together to get to the objective. However, just like other online experiences, I ran into two types of players. The ones who wanted to sneak around, play as the hidden assassin's and complete all of the bonus objectives to the best of their abilities, or the ones who just wanted to run through it as fast as possible, and would hack and slash their way to victory. If you have a group of friends to go through them together, this could be a ton of fun cause you could play the way you want to, but with random players, you may be pushed to play a way you don't necessarily want to.

    The only other game play issue that I noticed with the game was the side quests/map clutter that happens in the game. When you are finally able to start exploring Paris, you open up your map and it is just full of things, Side missions, Treasure Chests, Online Missions, etc. and it's a little overwhelming at first. On top of that, they give you access to all of this prior to you being a full fledged Assassin. This means that you can do side missions without a good way to complete them because you lack the items to do so. If you stumble into these missions without knowing this, it could be confusing/difficult to deal with. Though some of the side missions can be quite fun (I enjoyed the murder investigation side missions).

    Last Thoughts
    Assassin's Creed: Unity is an OK game, but there are other games in the Assassin's Creed Series that stand above this in terms of quality. If you're a die hard fan of the series, this game would be for you, but if you aren't a super big fan of the series, there are other titles in the series that you would probably enjoy much more. If you decide to skip this one, you are just missing an interesting time period to be running around in.


    This review is my own opinion of the game and mine alone, and doesn't reflect the opinions of my employer.
    3.0
  • dudecrazy108dudecrazy108444,693
    04 Nov 2016
    5 5 4
    Assassin's Creed Unity is a game full of some great ideas and good times but plagued by bugs and glitches galore.

    You play as Arno Dorian, a French assassin alive during the French Revolution. Traversing the gorgeous land of Paris you have to help Arno fulfill major plot points in his life. These often lead to bigger set piece moments as well as introducing side characters. The story while decent enough I found to be nothing too special and eventually winded up not caring too much about it.

    Like the previous games in the series the real meat and potatoes of the game is the open world and all it offers. The game is littered with missions, coop missions, random events, collectables galore, viewpoints and so much more. They offer plenty to do in the game that is for sure. Coop missions can be completed with friends or solo which I found to be a nice add on for those not wanting to play with others. The random events are often either tackling a thief or killing criminals and just pop up at random when moving through the city. They are nice random moments even if after doing 200 of them are seen as quick bits of repetitiveness. Missions all either turn into assault or stealth missions and usually can be done either way though one simple mistake (which sometimes may not even be your fault) will ruin your stealth attempts.

    Now the big downfall however is that this is one glitchy bug filled game. The game was released in Nov. of 2014 and I had started it in Oct. of 2016, nearly two years after release. I have to say this game sometimes gets so bad that it becomes unplayable. The frame rate constantly drops especially when something big is happening or there are many NPC's on screen. The frame rate lag gets so bad that is becomes instantly unplayable and would lead to my death or completely messing up the mission I was currently on. Even free running isn't safe from this all either. The free running system has now changed to almost be based off of luck. I often had Arno jump from rooftop to rooftop with ease often making huge leaps then out of nowhere he would act like a scared dog and refuse to make jumps that he could normally do. Even worse was when attempting to jump through a window as he would often climb up or down. Running down streets as well was a problem with your character jumping and becoming stuck on tables, chairs and fences quite often leading to stressful moments.

    What really hurts is that this game boasts a beautiful world and city. Graphically this game is stunning most of the time to say the least. When standing at the viewpoints and looking out you are given view of a full living breathing world just waiting for you. From crowded plazas filled with life to empty abandoned tunnels the world offers so much to see.

    The combat as well seems to have taken a step down from the last game. Often times I would find myself being hit by an enemy out of my view point while mid attack with another enemy. Also the lack of a counter attack at times can be frustrating especially when later in the game enemies gang up and take multiple hits and parry's to take down. Doesn't help either that ranged enemies can fire at you in coordination with other ranged enemies therefore often times killing you instantly if hit 2-3 times.

    Overall Assassin's Creed Unity would be a great game if not buggy enough to make it unplayable often times. It is filled with a beautiful world with a lot to do and great fun to be had but is just plagued by glitches and bugs galore making it more mediocre then it should be.


    Score : 5/10

    https://apocalypticdemise.com/2016/11/03/assassins-creed-uni...
    2.5
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