My New Years Resolution is a simple one…stop losing my blog posts. And maybe try to keep up with Dick of the Month posts a little better.
Here’s my first step toward my resolution…I finally found the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations review I’d written, which was supposed to go up between the PS3 unboxing and the AC III review(s).
So here it is, in it’s entirety…keep in mind, at the time I hadn’t yet played Assassin’s Creed III and had just beaten Revelation the night before.
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Altair is an Arab man beloved by millions of Americans. He’s the first step to ending the wars in the Middle East!
So, now that I’ve gotten my PS3 opened up and had a bit of time to actually play some Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Now, like I said in the unboxing video, I’ve played the original which I fell in love with immediately; Altair ibn La Ahad is one of my favorite characters, although in retrospect he is written in a rather lackluster fashion. I also played Assassin’s Creed II which introduced Ezio Auditore da Firenze; at first I was a little skeptical of changing the protagonist, especially since I didn’t particularly like Ezio much at first. But he certainly grows on you as he matures throughout the game(s), from a lazy playboy to a calm, warm-hearted, leader of men.
Ezio…the ladies’ man of the Assassin’s Guild.
Now we have Revelations which is supposed to bring the stories of Altair and Ezio to a conclusion. I’ve played and finished the game, as of this writing, and I have to say that if you’ve played Brotherhood, you’ve played Revelations. The hook-blade is nifty and the zip-lines are fun the first few times, the only problem with them being they are one-way and rarely go in the direction you need to be headed, to you use the zip-line rather sparingly for the most-part (in my experience).
Revelations is kind of a small game, basically more like a Brotherhood mod than its own game, really. But the story is pretty good; on-par, if not better than Brotherhood’s story in some ways.
My main problem with Revelations, actually, is the other side of the game: The Desmond Files wherein you play in a 1st Person Platformer style of game. It’s not the system, the reasoning, the story, or anything like that…it’s the fact it didn’t work. I don’t know if my disc is bad or what or if it’s just that I can’t get an update to fix it, but I can’t play the Desmond files. My system locks up and freezes as soon as I try to play it.
Along with the other bugs and glitches (fair warning, do not try to assassinate someone with the crossbow in a story mission, because your arm will freeze and the crossbow won’t be able to fire and you won’t be able to draw another weapon or climb) this is a pretty big one.
Speaking of big glitches…when your tutorial has a game-breaking glitch that makes it unbeatable (it took me 20 minutes to succeed in a routine roof-climb act because the roof would glitch and hurl me in a random direction) then you automatically have low expectations for a game. But that’s a pretty big glitch to have in a AAA game.
I’m glad I didn’t buy it when it first came out, but it is a good play in the end. I would have to suggest, unless you’re a die-hard fan and have to own every Assassin’s Creed game (in which case you probably already own it) I’d suggest renting it or borrowing it from your die-hard friend (and no I won’t lend you my copy).
I’m sure Ezio was disappointed, too. This is the first game he hasn’t had sex in.
Needless to say it’s, in the end, an okay game. Good story, short game (I beat it, including all of the secret locations and stuff in a little more than 21 hours), and basically the same Assassin’s Creed you’ve already played twice in II and Brotherhood; which is actually kind of a plus, because I enjoyed both of them. Although in the end Revelations would have been a really great ‘second city’ (along with Rome) or ending chapter of the game Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood instead of being it’s own game. It could have made a great $20.00 DLC instead of a $50.00 game, I think. Well, you know…if it worked at all; I still haven’t beaten the Desmond Files stuff because I can’t play them.
On that subject I did contact Ubisoft Customer Service about the situation. I was told in a confirmation e-mail I would receive a response in about 1 business day. I submitted it on a Friday morning and got a response back…Wednesday. So not scoring high on that.
And their answer was, “Try adjusting the video settings on the system”. If that doesn’t work try deleting all the game files on the system and put the game disc back in to let them re-update (they did, at least, tell me that my save files would not be affected by this). And if that doesn’t work…put the disc in a second system and see if the disc is faulty.
Keep in mind doing the last-ditch effort would require actually playing a significant portion of the game, because you have to unlock at least the first set of Desmond’s files.
Wait a minute!
Who the fuck has two PS3 systems sitting around in their house to try the disc in a second system? I’m certainly not going to buy a second PS3 just to test one possibly faulty disc. Only after I’ve done all that will Ubisoft even consider the disc is faulty and offer to maybe fix it.
So Ubisoft kind of fails on the whole customer service aspect, I have to say.
~RCS
Richard C. Shaffer 