Assassin's Creed III

Assassin's Creed III is an abomination. This game is everything I hate about videogames. I'd like to think it's a commentary on videogames as a whole.

The game starts with a three-hour tutorial starring Haytham Kenway. Haytham is a charismatic Englishman sent here to find a thing. Eventually, he fucks a native and inducts Charles Lee into the Templar order.
The reveal that Haytham is a Templar was very well-done. Everything is so vaguely worded, but you figure it's because the Assassins work in secret.

Getting out of the tutorial, you are now Rhinohawk, a native boy. As Rhinohawk, you must endure another five-hour tutorial in which your mother is burned alive.
After this tutorial, you are met with a barrage of unlikable characters and boring missions. Things change for the better in sequence 7, where you participate in the Battle of Bunker Hill. This is where the game hits an upswing. From there, Connor meets Haytham, and Haytham just makes you wish you were playing as him instead. It is always a problem in a story when your villain is infinitely more likable than your hero.

The downhill slope (more like cliff face) comes when Connor kills Haytham. He says that it is OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE to find Charles Lee, but first he gets his hair and makeup done. You may think that's a joke, and you'd be wrong.

The second-to-last mission has Connor chasing Charles Lee through the city streets. The guards are positioned just so that one of the following will happen:
A: Connor will run straight into the end of their musket, causing him to stagger and Charles Lee to get away.
B: Connor will skirt around them, and begin climbing something for no reason because of the "improved" controls. Charles Lee naturally gets away.
C: Connor won't start running at all, and Charles Lee will get away while Connor shuffles forward.

After finally getting to the boat thing that's on fire, you can fail the mission in one of the following ways:
A: Connor will run straight into the fire, killing himself almost instantly.
B: The player will get lost and go the wrong way, letting Charles Lee escape.
C: The player will miss the correct way to go when the game hides it so cleverly, and Charles Lee will, again, escape.
This, naturally, sends you back to the street chase.

Once you finally catch Charles Lee, a cutscene takes over. Connor is impaled by a stick of some sort, and shoots Charles Lee in the stomach. Connor must then walk very slowly to the end of a dock (the long way), and take a ferry to a tavern. Once he slowly walks into the tavern, he meets Charles Lee, forgetting about his troubles with a bottle of whiskey. The two share a nice drink, and Connor stabs Charles Lee and steals his jewelry.

Afterward, Connor goes back to his native village and gets lectured by a goddess or something. She's really cryptic and basically says Connor can't do shit to achieve his goals, then she tells him to hide the jewelry he stole and fucks off. Connor naturally does this without question.

They fucked the control scheme. You don't have to hold A to climb a thing any more, which sounds good, but fucks over running. The multiple ways to counter an enemy's attack were cool, though.
There's a glitch I kept encountering after I got the second pistol holster where it would just disappear randomly, leaving me with two shots instead of four.
Climbing trees and cliffs fucking sucks. They're hard to read, and are just annoying to climb.


On the positive side:
The naval missions were really cool, which is why Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was actually good. The Homestead missions were interesting, and were probably the best examples of Connor as a character. Achilles' death was really well done, and probably the best part of the game, objectively.
The optional assassinations and mail delivery runs were great, as were the Boston Brawlers fights. The Boston and New York Underground were amazingly done, and have the best atmosphere in a game I've seen in forever.
The Captain Kidd missions were a worthy successor to the Assassin Tombs and Lairs of Romulus. All of them were great and fun and interesting and unique, and the rewards were great.
Shame the rest of the game is absolute shit.