Follow Genre: Action
Modes: Single Player, Multiplayer
Released: 01 Dec., 2011
Audio: 5.1 Surround
Publisher: Ubisoft

OnLive: Assassin’s Creed Revelations Review

December 22, 2011 - David Probyn

OLF Score

8.5

Good: New Addition in the Hookblade Makes Platforming fun, Incredible Story

Bad: Boring Tower Defence Mini Games, Desmond's Memories are no fun.

User Score

9.2

(25 votes)

Click to vote

OnLive has become known for some of it’s great deals and by offering a free MicroConsole with pre-orders they persuaded me to wait the extra 2-3 weeks and get this game for OnLive. I’m a huge fan of the entire Assassin’s Creed series, but admittedly I had some concerns that this latest installment would disappoint me and other fans of the series.

Assassins Creed Revelations is the 4th game in the series and explores the final adventures of Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn-La’Ahad through the eyes of their ancestor Desmond Miles. This time Desmond is in a coma and stuck in the animus.

The game opens with a magnificent cinematic experience which gives new players an insight into the previous three games and sets the scene really well for this latest installment. The first thing that jumped out at me was how well the game was implemented into OnLive. It looks great and everything has been customised for the OnLive service as you would expect and even has Ubisoft’s U-Play system implemented.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations is set in a stunning recreation of 16th century Constantinople and has added many new additions to the gameplay mechanics. Upon entering Constantinople you encounter a fellow master assassin named Yusuf Tasmin. Yusuf introduces Ezio to the hookblade, a unique device that changes the way Ezio fights and more importantly the way Ezio navigates the environment around him.

Using the hookblade makes exploring Constantinople a joyous exercise and I had hours of fun flying across rooftops at great speed and then zipping down zip-lines taking out a guard on the way. It really does make travelling from one end of the city to the other a lot quicker, which is useful as they appear to have taken the ability to travel by horse out of the game completely.

Another new feature in Revelations is the ability to craft your own bombs, with each design having it’s own devastating effects. I was a little disappointed in this feature to begin with as the crafting process was basic, however there were a lot of missions where i couldn’t have done with out that tactical bomb i had made, which took away the guards attention so i could easily sneak by.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations isn’t just about the final memories of Ezio and Altair but about Desmond’s story, who’s mind we have been using to play through the memories of our two favourite assassins. As mentioned earlier Desmond is stuck in a coma and attached to the animus, which is keeping him alive. In previous Assassin’s Creed games we have always had a sanctuary to return to and explore, this game is no different in that respect but the sanctuary this time is a virtualized sea-side island inside the animus with shimmering doors that lead back to Ezio’s memories.

You are not alone on this island and are joined by subject 16 whom you will remember from the previous games as being a complete mystery, I’m afraid to say he remains a mystery and doesn’t really answer any questions you may have had from his involvement in the previous games.

Another feature of the island is the ability to play through Desmond’s own memories, which need to be unlocked by collecting animus fragments while you play as Ezio.Upon entering Desmond’s memories I was expecting to be shown flashbacks and play through his earlier life. Instead I was presented with Digital Rivers and Grey platforms / columns in which I had to navigate round in an unfamiliar first person mode while Desmond rambled on about his painful memories from the past. The whole experience of Desmond’s memories were boring and the game certainly didn’t benefit from them in any way.

Thankfully this is a small part of the game and you spend the bulk of your time playing through as Ezio and Altair who we met in the first Assassin’s Creed. Altair’s memories are unlocked as you collect each of the five Masyaf keys needed to unlock Altair’s library, with the goal of getting there before the Templar’s do. Ezio has got old and tired, the game’s story reflects his weariness and gives you an insight into his softer side which we have yet to see in the previous Assassin’s Creed games.

You meet several new characters one of which is Sofia an Italian bookseller that falls for Ezio’s formidable charms. The main plot however surrounds the sultan and his family members in which Ezio is entangled in the political unrest. He must see out these missions in order to find the last Masyaf key. Whilst the story surrounding the sultan was great. I didn’t make any connections with the characters, like I have in previous games as it just seemed to lack that personal touch.

As with the previous Assassin’s Creed game Brotherhood you can recruit assassins and send them off on contracts to earn money and experience. The other benefits of having these recruits is you can call them into battle at any time to help you take out a single target or multiples using the arrow storm function. In order to gain new recruits, you will have to travel to the Templar Dens and kill the Templar Den captain, upon completion you ignite the Den tower and it becomes an Assassin Den.

With the Assassin Den comes some really annoying and seemingly pointless mini tower defense games. Like with the Desmond memories the mini game is another attempt at forcing a feature that brings nothing to the game. You might be mid mission the other side of the map when the Templar’s attack one of your dens and after making your way back across the map to protect them, you soon realise there isn’t much point and it has no effect on the story in any way. Towards the end I didn’t protect any of the dens as I hated the mini games that much and it had no adverse effects on my game. I understand the need to expand the game’s mechanics to stop it becoming stale, but the tower defense mini game and Desmond’s memories only interrupted the flow of the story.

The combat in Assassin’s Creed Revelations is more difficult than in the previous games, which is mainly due to the guards having rifles, so when surrounded by 5 to 6 enemies it’s no longer a case of taking them out one by one in the defensive stance and countering, you have to think ahead and watch out for guards with rifles as they shoot without any warning. I enjoyed the difficulty increase as it made the combat more interesting and the repetitive easy combat was one of my previous low points of the Assassin’s Creed series.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood was the first game in the series to introduce us to multi-player and it has made a most welcome return in Revelations. There are many new characters, abilities, maps and modes, however it is worth noting the core mechanics remain the same.

In Assassinate everyone starts out with a compass where they need to identify a target to kill, you will only get points for killing players not NPC’s so it’s important to ensure you are targeting a player, killing NPC’s will expose your position and your Assassin may have been trailing you waiting for confirmation that it was you.

Wanted was the most popular multiplayer game on Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and so far seems to be the same on Revelations. There is a minimum of 6 players per game and a maximum of 8. At the start of the game each player is given a target to hunt and assassinate. The goal is to assassinate your target without exposing yourself to your Assassin.

Artifact Assault is a new multiplayer mode based on capture the flag and the first team to capture enough artifacts or has the most at the end of the game wins.

Chest Capture is made of two teams consisting of three or four players, each partnering with Templar’s to either defend or capture chests. Only protectors within a certain range will know where the chests are, so it’s a case of using your eyes for the most part.

Deathmatch is another new multiplayer mode, it works as you would expect and is a free for all where you want to take out your targets as you can without exposing yourself.

Escort returns from the previous game and is where players separate into two team and are assigned a different NPC to protect. The NPC will be labeled VIP and has to move through checkpoints without getting killed. The more check points they walk through, the higher the defending teams score will be. Halfway through the game the roles are reversed and the winning team is decided by who has the most points.

Manhunt is another returning multiplayer mode where players are given the choice of either the first team or the second team. Team one hunts team two during the first round and visa-versa in the second round.

Corruption is a new game mode in Assassin’s Creed Revelations where when corrupted your objective is to find and kill your targets as quickly as possible in order to spread your corruptions. When uncorrupted the player must survive as long as possible.

Training Ground is a new multiplayer mode and is a non competitive, un-timed mode where you can explore the maps, practice your abilities etc.

As much as i like the Multi-player mode options it was all about the single player story for me. New additions like the hookblade are brilliant and I’m still delighted with being able to run across rooftops, jumping for the next building and reaching it with the hookblade where i wouldn’t have previously. Not every new addition was great though, Desmond’s memories and the poorly placed tower defense game really marred the experience for me and the score given reflects that experience.

Fans of the franchise will get all the kicks they were expecting from this game, a great story and even more questions..

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