La critique: Assassin’s Creed III Liberation
Wololo has a long tradition of following the underground scene, and that won’t change. But today, we would like to widen our scope and offer a new type of content to our audience. So what is la critique?
La critique is a new type of game review. It is guided by three main principles:
- It does not strive to suppress the author’s subjectivity and personal way of speaking (i.e. “I thought the graphics sucked” does not become “the graphics were not satisfying”);
- It strives to achieve some level of objectivity by including various sources;
- It is not bound to follow current events of the scene. That means the chosen games won’t necessarily be the newest ones. The choices will vary with my mood.
Finally, why that name? Because I’m a frenchy, a big frog, that’s why (la means “the” and critique is a French word from the start).
Assassin’s creed? Really? Yep. A large majority of Vita gamers have probably played this one. I thought this choice was also a chance to get back to the birth of our beloved console. Whatever we think has happened since, we all have to recognize that we were ecstatic on February 22nd 2012 when the machine came out. The potential was absolutely unseen and insane for a handheld. And what was the game I absolutely wanted to play later that year when I bought my first Vita? AC3, that’s why I chose that game for today’s review.
After going through the new-console ritual of checking the hardware and software emotionally, I went for it and started the game. My first impression was very good as I told myself “wow, they didn’t make a reduction, it seems like a real Assassin’s creed”. Gameinformer agrees: “Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation is the first portable entry to feel like a real Assassin’s Creed game”. I felt a little annoyed from the start by the artistic choices regarding the ambiance of the game: a bit gloomy for my taste. But that wasn’t betraying the general AC brand, and I enjoyed the experience very much.
The gameplay was following the tradition closely, making this game very comfortable most of the time (climb s***, enjoy the view, jump in haystack, kill dude). Never mind the clumsy tries to include all Vita features. On this, IGN seems to agree, branding it “the franchise’s trademark gameplay”. Jeuxvideo.com also says that “within minutes, a player familiar with the series will find his/her marks, the gameplay being similar to other episodes on home consoles”. However, there was something new that I hated straight from the start. Let’s meme that:
That what I call killing your own step forward. Not only was it hardly a good idea, it was also annoying in my eyes (you sometimes don’t have a choice). On this point, most video gaming websites disagree with me, highlighting the fact that different appearances give Aveline different advantages. For example, dressed as a lady, she can bribe guards. Dressed as a slave, she can trigger riots or remain unnoticed by faking slave work. I agree with these things but felt that the game forced me using those features.
What about the content of that title? As always, you can feel history happening while you play. God, the Creeds are good at that… Here is a little bit of background both personal and historical. Aveline is the daughter of a rich French trader and Jeanne, a slave that disappeared while Aveline was a child (the game starts with a scene about that). The story takes place during the American revolution, France just ceded East Louisiana to the Spanish, and the vast majority of French settlers don’t like that. Numerous slaves come to disappear in that context and Aveline starts investigating. That is going to lead her to discover more about her mother’s disappearance. The game allows the players to explore some of New Orleans and its surroundings. Later, Aveline goes to Mexico where some nice Maya stuff is to be seen.
How was the reception of this game? Let’s now expose some of the formal evaluations I found while searching around on the net:
Nature of the information | Source | Overall grade |
Score given by a single website | IGN.com | 7.2/10 |
Jeuxvideo.com | 16/20 | |
Destructoid.com | 8/10 | |
Eurogamer.net | 7/10 | |
Gameinformer.com | 7.75/10 | |
Gamespot.com | 6.5/10 | |
Gamekult.com | 6/10 | |
G4.com | 3.5/5 | |
Aggregate score | Gamerankings.com | 71.74% |
Metacritic.com | 70/100 |
What I interpret from these grades is that AC3 Liberation caused quite a large set of reactions ranging from a bit of disappointment to clear joy. This game is clearly a good game but has not achieved the point of being a “system seller” which was what the Vita needed at the time. I do not want to finish with formal grades so I will now list the pros and cons most frequently related:
Pros | Cons |
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Now is the time for my pro and con:
- Pro: there is a minigame that you can play from every hideout. It allows you to by ships and transports merchandise from port to port in the region in order to sell it. It is very profitable if you do it well and I found it very nice. Some bad thing like pirates and storms can happen so you are never sure that you ship will safely deliver. That’s a small add-on that I personally found super entertaining;
- Con: the multiplayer mode. What. The. heck. It seems so annoying that it took me ages to finally test it seriously, and boy when I did, I regretted it very much. Stay away from that thing.
What is the general conclusion to that game? I’m not part of the guys that will describe it going “yeah, fine game but I expected more”. I thought that game was the first to show what the Vita was truly capable of. It surely didn’t become the block buster everyone wanted it to be, but in my mind, it really was a step forward for the handheld world. From that game, the separation between handheld and home systems started to blur in my head.
I thought it was really cool to play AC Liberation in order to write that review. What did you guys think of that title?
The_Guigew
first
Why do you still let these *** post?
Put it in a filter and anyone posting “first” is immediately IP banned.
If they are going to be that stupid then just ban their dumb ***.
aww looks like someone is annoyed for not winning the “first” trophy.
It’s Wololo tradition to try to claim First.
“My first cartridge, I couldn’t believe how small it was. We were finally done with the PSP-thing. Seriously, had games ever taken a worst form?”
Worst form? Well, UMD-ROM will survive ~100 years, but NAND Flash how many, 20 (and not used half of this)? Optical media have it’s flaws but at least it stays with us long enough to preserve them for future generations.
Worst form in terms of portability and load times, yes. Game preservation? That won’t be an issue when you will be able to just dump the ROM to a HDD in the near future xD And besides, flash memory only has a limited number of writes, not reads. It doesn’t matter how old/used a Vita cart gets, you can still dump the ROM to something else to preserve the game. This “advantage” of optical media is insignificant.
I have not in mind write cycles but cell longevity and possible charge jumping (I believe that Vita Card is fully writable as any other NAND Flash, just card controller “blocking” write commands).
Every media You can dump. It doesn’t matter it’s optical media or flash media, but today electronics are quite smart secured so it’s not just easy as before. Sometimes it’s still impossible to make copy 1:1.
And still, It *IS* a issue because after few decades there will be no uncorrupted real media (for comparing, or just for electronic art history). You are very short eyesight…
I agree that cartridges are just small enough, handy and reading device doesn’t consume (waste) energy – especially important in portable devices. But this have high cost which I don’t accept (I hate buying something invisible and/or temporary).
lol optical media, even in archival form (which is an oxymoron for things like CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays), doesn’t have the greatest lifespan… I mean seriously now… Get real.
I will sacrifice and waste my time educating You – so maybe next time before You laugh from someone and make such statement, learn about technology…
All pressed optical discs (with “-ROM” suffix ) will stand in optimistically scenario for 300 years, pessimistically ~50+ (if fabric keep sterility during production). Media writable in our homes we can splitting into two categories: organic/chemical and non-organic. First group dying in approx few years (the first good quality CD-Rs can still be fully readable to this day, but today’s “CD/DVD-R” are very cheap and could evaporate even in few months). The second group are inorganic and they will survive very long time, depends on material used – i.e BD-R HTL (LTH is the same junk as organic) should “live” few decades, “DVD+M”/”BD-M” (M-Disc, much much longer). There are also many firms which could prepare they own pressed or inorganic media like i.e GlassMasterDisc.
Get real…
The disc itself will suffer from “bit rot” sometime, even as early as 10 years depending on factors such as humidity and temperature for the location you store the UMD at. The aluminium reflective layer will fall apart eventually as the disc is gas permeable.
lol i had issues with the disks case falling apart b4 the disk itself, my killzone liberation split in half so i had backed it up :/
Those UMDs were not very durable. I know exactly what he’s referring to. Also Optical Discs have issues with light exposure. They wouldn’t last 100 years with use any more than flash would without use.
omg du bist deutsch o.o
Nur so: Der Autor ist nicht wololo, der ist nämlich auf jeden Fall nicht deutsch.
Abgesehen davon kommen z.B. The_Zett und paar andere Leute auch von hier…
Not interesting. Piracy news are better 😛
newer vita game backup is a great news
haha, comment if you opened this article thinking that assassins creed liberation is the third leaked game for vita 🙂
piracy all the way!
I am conscious it was not the best time to come up with game reviews as the scene is very active at the moment. Sorry if you were mistaken.
Yeah mate, the scene is very active with releases almost every day.
Most people are waiting backups (pirate) games.
But anyway, nice review =)
Hey man, chill, the review still great! I actually liked the game too 🙂
i dont like this game
i dont know why
me neather.
Was my first game, and i dont like.
This is the first article for a long time that doesnt interest me. Reading about a game which has like 5 fps sometimes pff 🙂 NO WAY. But thx for your time, hope that you pick a different one next time.
What’s your suggestion?
Gravity Rush?
Oreshika.
Freedom Wars.
Gravity Rush.
Or something new, like GalGun Dubba Peace / GodEater.
Well, i would like to read something about an online game which still has an active community or something…..this can be hard but hey ^^
Ha talking about this game, i found a bug where u swim in the sky lol which is hecka funny
of you continue to make vita game reviews do Uncharted: Golden Abyss
PS: I don’t have a ps vita but played AC: Liberation on PS3 and it was good especially that mission with connor :p
I like the game and agree with your review. My only con with this game (and a HUGE con I must say) was all the bugs. Some of them prevented me to complete some objectives and was so frustrating that I had to play other games to cool my head and not want to throw the game in the trash. But in the overall, I like the game.
Last
I thought that Killzone was a much better show of the Vita’s capabilities. AC is a bit choppy at times… But that’s just my opinion.
a BO-RI-NG game.. Im trying to get the platinum for this game but i cant stand it. I didnt even know where did i get my patience just to finish the story.. Uggh this game really sucks
Stupid game
I liked the game, everything cool, except the FRAMERATES!!! Sometimes the fps go almost to 14-16, and its reaaaally annoying 🙁
“It allows you to by ships and transports ”
You meant : to buy ship and transport?!
*ships
Continue comme ça , je l’ai trouvé bien ton article , bon je suis pas un grand fan de ac mais tu as bien rédigé et argumenté , bref lâche pas, c’est plutôt cool de lire un collègue français qui gère en anglais 😉
Salut, merci à toi pour les encouragements, c’est vrai que certains sont sans pitié mais je le comprends bien si c’est pas ce qu’ils s’attendaient à lire. On peut pas demander à tout le monde d’être patient 😀
Interesting. I wanted to play this for a long time. I think I’ll finally pick up a copy of it now. I always liked the attention the developers paid to the historical settings and such in this series, I want more games like that.
If you actually do pick it up, the article was worth it for me! Maybe check a video or two on Youtube before you do so you are aware of the framerate problems some people are complaining about, I don’t want you to be surprised by it.
Keep it up man! I looked into it, there is a PS3 version also that seems to have fixed most of those issues, with updated graphics as well. I’ll pick up the Vita ver. since I don’t think you can remote play the PS3 ver. I’m not too fond of digital releases so I’ll probably have to dig around on ebay a bit before I find it. :/ (I’ll probably end up buying the PS3 HD ver also even though its digital lol xD)
As for future reviews.. AC Chronicles maybe?? That one came out this year. For a moment I almost thought Ubisoft had given up on AC for the Vita! I haven’t played AC Chronicles yet but China, India and Russia have all been on my list of settings I really wanted to see in an AC game..
Also maybe you should create a “reviews” section.. many people seem confused that there is “critique” amongst the “news”.
Yep, thanks for your feedback, i will try to satisfy as well as I can 😉
Oh what a ***… Sorry but this kind of news sucks hard.
Spoiler: It’s not news. It’s a review by a guestblogger
Somebody please make a .vpk of this for Hehkaku i want to play.. i purchased the AC:Chronicles but not Liberation. 🙁
This game is the worst game ever.
It makes me sad I bought it.
Never buy this game, or pirate it, not worth anybody’s time.