Assassin's Creed Unity

Assassin's Creed Unity is Ubisoft's first effort exclusively for this generation, sacrificing competitive multiplayer for cooperative and adding new abilities while sacrificing old ones. Placed into the shoes of a new Assassin Unity’s beautiful and massive world instantly engulps you with incredible visuals, large and crowds of NPCS but loses head in the process. Numerous glitches, the removal of abilities from past Assassin's Creed game and a bland story causes this vanguard of the next generation of Assassin's Creed games to stumble. Assassin’s Creed Unity is the franchises first step into the next generation of consoles, unfortunately it’s a poor one.

Arno Dorian takes center stage as the game's protagonist. Tragedy strikes when his father is killed and young Arno is taken in by his childhood friend Elise's father. Tragedy strikes again and Arno is sentenced to life in the bastille and escaping only adds more problems, finding out that he's part of ongoing war between Templars and Assassins where he and his beloved Elise stand on opposite sides: her a Templar, and he an Assassin.

As with other Assassin Creed games, Arno is the game's primary focus with another character controlling him through a genetic sifting device called the Animus. Abstergo, the present day Templars, have control over you using their home version of the Animus called Helix and the Assassins have hacked into your feed to recruit you in finding a special item central to Abstergo's Phoenix Project.

Both narratives are disappointing, offering little context to the actual story in favor for a more personal narrative. While Arno attempts to justify his actions, it becomes clear that the Assassin Order is simply a resource hub to pursue his own missions. The present day story doesn't add any weight to the series other than offering one unanswered question from Assassin's Creed Rogue.

The story missions, although varied, can become upsetting at times. Enemies who can’t see you within arm’s distance can suddenly regain their eyesight and spot Arno from over 50 feet away. The variety comes in how you tackle each mission. Right from the start the player is given myriad of options on how they can complete the missions, everything from how many guards are stationed to possible secret entrances are listed for the player’s assistance. The newly improved Eagle Vision is much more useful here, acting like a radar activating this abilities sends out a pulse that highlights all enemies within that area of effect and environmental objects that are be interacting with.  

If you choose to go off the beaten path you'll find various side quests and collectables to unlock. These include chests that are loaded with useful items, unsolved murder cases, environmental puzzles, and random events. Random events occur spontaneously, citizens getting bullied and pickpockets attempting to flee occur constantly and it's up to you whether to participate or ignore. The most entertaining missions include rifts that take you to alternate time-periods. By jumping into these large gaps, Arno is instantly transported into another era such as the Middle Ages, World War 2 or early 1900s.

Ubisoft has found a new way to improve on the parkour gameplay that the series is known for. Players will instantly recognize the new acrobatic animations and quick movements when moving up or across surfaces of buildings and other structures. The biggest improvement is how Unity allows players descend, by holding down the B button Arno quickly descends without having you to make perilous plunges. By holding down the same combination of buttons, Arno can slide under tables and hop over, and through, environmental hazards easily.

Stealth and speed have been split into two different postures this time around. The left trigger drops Arno into a crouch animation, making Arno harder to detect and allowing the Assassin to take cover. It’s very fickle, sometimes it improves Arno’s ability to sneak into areas and other times proves completely ineffective. A cone of view for enemies, coupled with Arno’s new sneaking talent, would’ve made this ability more appealing.

For the most part gameplay hasn't changed. The new Phantom Blade performs similarly to Ezio's crossbow with less ammunition, allowing Arno to eliminate targets from a moderate range. However, what's striking the elimination of certain gameplay mechanics from other Assassin Creed games. Players can no longer use enemy players as human shields to avoid being shot, air assassinations only work if the enemy is unaware of your presence, and instantly killing an enemy in the cover of smoke have been removed.

Unity refers to the game's inclusion of cooperative multiplayer, the first for the franchise. Friends can drop in or drop out of your game at any time with specific missions designed for 2 to 4 players. If you choose the option to take on these missions solo does exist. There's an incentive to stay in the shadows as your final score, and loot, depends on how much you're spotted during the mission. It encourages teamwork and cooperation, but those hoping to just into a match with strangers will find these tasks more difficult without proper communication.

Despite running on current generation hardware expect a lot of frustrating, and game-breaking, bugs through your experience. Arno clipping into the environment, the game sudden freezing and the complete mission screen becoming struck are only a few glitches I encountered throughout my playthrough. Despite the technical issues Unity is beautiful. Paris is an ambitious environment filled with character models, a skyline that goes on forever and impressive interior environments with gold and marble specifically looking exquisite.

Assassin's Creed Unity is a beautiful game, but lacks any major improvement or unique feature that the other Assassin Creed games are known for such as Black Flag's sailing or Ezio Auditore’s double hidden blades. Instead the technical hiccups and elimination of previous gameplay elements leave the game empty, with an elegant coat of paint. It doesn't move the franchise forward story-wise and adds more questions. Unity is a dazzling game, but isn't a revolution for the series.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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