Assassin’s Creed: Revelations PC Review

If I were to be completely honest with my opinion of the Assassin’s Creed series, I’d say that I think it’s about as serious a series as Lego Star Wars. Sure it’s fun and sells like hot cakes, but every installment seems to be much the same. Then again, it’s hard to take a game series seriously when said game series has been criticised by the company responsible for making it. That being said, let’s introduce Assassin’s Creed 2.75: Revelations.

Since our last game, our buddy Ezio has become bored of killing Italian people and has instead decided that Muslims are much more fun to murder. There’s also a magic door that Altair sealed and left the keys to in the Middle East. After hearing about this, Ezio sails to Istanbul (once Constantinople), which as far as I can tell is pretty heavily-laden with Turkish Muslims for him to slaughter mercilessly. There he meets a Turkish Ottoman who teaches him how to use bombs.

I’m not sure why they included bomb crafting in this game  when I have a gun and thirty other lethal gadgets at my disposal. Most of the time I found myself building the largest bomb I could, as the enemies lacks enough intelligence for you to be able to use these bombs strategically. I get that these bombs are supposed to make this game “different” from the others in the series, but it feels like the addition is more to justify selling a single player map pack for sixty dollars rather than thirty.

Another new innovation is a hook that supposedly enables Ezio to climb higher. Now, I may not be the brightest gamer on the planet, but I’m pretty sure that hook didn’t change much for the actual gameplay more than add in a few new animations. I mean, a hook that went along his entire arm and let him climb a whole two feet higher would be one thing. This new hook barely reaches farther than his hands normally do. It’s ridiculous.

Fortunately for Revelations, it’s bred into the pedigree that is Assassin’s Creed. It’s hard to screw up a sequel that is almost a carbon copy of the last three games. I think the guys at Ubisoft are just super proud of the first Assassin’s Creed and don’t feel like they get enough praise for it. Everyone, come pat Ubisoft on the back for making an impressive Parkour running game! Maybe if we do that they’ll make Assassin’s Creed 3, Desmond Does Things and end this series. Not that it isn’t a fun series, but I’d rather see something new on the shelf instead of Assassin’s Creed 2.8875: Ezio Kills Chinese People. Ubisoft seems to want to milk this cash cow dry, and I’ll be damned if they’re not succeeding. Unfortunately, they’re not only milking it dry, but mixing in water to increase supply while decreasing quality.

The gameplay has suffered since the original Assassin’s Creed. The combat feels clunkier, and the bad guys aren’t nearly as much fun. I remember occasions in the first game when I spent five minutes running from templars. In this game I don’t run from them so much as I get shot in the face by one of the thirty million of them positioned literally everywhere in the city. It’s like they stopped caring about hard to kill enemies and replaced them with a massive army of cannon fodder.

The bad guys, re-used gameplay, and unoriginal changes to the game aside, Revelations is an oddly satisfying game. It’s still ridiculously fun to throw Ezio off really tall buildings. I still enjoy running around doing pointless things for hours on end. And it’s still hilarious to poison twenty guards standing next to one another and watch them flail around like they’re at a Heaven Shall Burn concert. It’s still Assassin’s Creed, and it works.

The biggest question anyone who plays these games should consider is: do I love Assassin’s Creed enough to pay sixty dollars for Revelations today, or can I wait a few months for when it becomes a thirty dollar game? It’s a wonderful expansion pack, but I wouldn’t call it a game. If you’re new to Assassin’s Creed or the genre, go buy the first game on Steam, don’t waste your time with this if it’s your first entry into the series.

6 out of 10