TristanH12 reviewed Assassin's Creed: Revelations for the PlayStation 3...

...and gave it a 7.5.

Before I begin, I would just start by saying you really should only play this game if you have played the previous game, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Revelations begins with a video overview of what happened at the end of the second game, which, I consider a huge revelation and spoiler for the series thus far. The game, as the final entry in the Assassin's Creed 2 series, is the culminating event and brings the story together fully, and one would miss out on a large and important portion of it without playing the former.

Revelations begins differently than the previous entry. Instead of having players start in the real modern world, they spend the time in the Animus. It is shown that after the events of the previous game, that in order to keep Desmond from experiencing total mental collapse that he had to be put in the Animus. Subject 16, who, was revealed to still be alive, serves as the only other real life contact Desmond has in the majority of this game. He states that we must relive parts of both Ezio's and Altair's (from Assassin's Creed 1) life in order to separate the three from Desmond, which would allow Desmond to come back to normal. It proves to be quite interesting as we do get to spend a majority of the time as Ezio, who is seemingly in his 40's or 50's, and as Altair through several points of his life after the experiences in Assassin's Creed 1.

The gameplay is much of the same that players have expected from Assassin's Creed. The characters can basically climb, run, and jump on everything. A new item introduced, makes climbing much faster. Melee combat has been enhanced with the new aspect of a slow motion effect when doing various counter kills in combat, which feels more refined than in previous games. This was the most impressive part as I continually stayed in combat just to see it.

The only part of gameplay that does not feel refined is the Den Defense. In this game, players have to defend the zones they capture by playing a minigame in which they have to station various units such as barricades, archers, shooters, on rooftops as they defend their assassin's den for the zone. It is quite aggravating at times as they have to rely on some morale meter that builds up over time so more units can be stationed, as well as anticipating where enemy units will come from, as well as needing to pay attention to any units that fell, not to mention at times the enemy will bring up some mobile unit that can smash through any barricade quite quickly. The game also feels as if it takes at least ten minutes each time. With practice I can imagine it to be easy but I found that rather than go through with that, just lose the den on purpose then recapture it by killing the enemy commander(s), an effortless task usually which takes five minutes tops.

My favorite aspect of gameplay was the use of the Assassin's. Similar to the previous game, Ezio can recruit Assassin's that can be ranked up. With more assassin's, most missions became quite easy as they could be called in to defeat enemy units, or just to keep me from being detected. The whistle Ezio does to summon them is quite cool and it is also nice to sit and watch how they take out opponents.

And closing out on the gameplay, platforming as Ezio in various monuments was fun. There is something fun about the fun euphoria of jumping from platform to platform, climbing, and running through at times gorgeous landscapes to reach some treasure uninhibited by enemy units. The game features many of these which was always something to look forward to over the duration of nine sequences (chapters).

Presentation wise, the game looks like a step up from the previous games. Cutscenes have character models that look quite real at times, blocky fingers of Assassin's Creed 2 seem to be gone, and the landscapes and Constantinople look gorgeous. Blood doesnt look flat this time. For sound, the language of Constantinople is great and I always get a blast when the people of different languages interact. Similar to the last the player has the choice of voiced dialogue to play beyond English. I play in English and all characters sound great. Altair seems different than I remember, but still decent. Music is quite amazing and its great they give the soundtrack with the game.

Overall, the game is interesting. The lack of much gameplay in the modern world was missed, however with the circumstances of the games story it is to be understood. The best moment of the series happens in this game as well, which will be a spoiler if I say it but it is just as impressive as a set piece in Uncharted 3. The game feels short overall, as there just is not as much to collect. They ditch the 100 collectibles idea and just focus on collecting animus fragments (for some gameplay as Desmond and unlockables), there are no monuments with hidden truths in them like the previous games, and the metagame of rebuilding the city feels kind of old as it is in the previous two games. I think the game could have used a bit more content, but that is most likely what Assassin's Creed 3 will do. However the games story concludes great and left me browsing the internet for speculation and theories on the future.

The game is definitely a must play for Assassin's Creed fans and the Assassin's Creed 2 trilogy is a must play for everyone. This game also has a multiplayer mode that feels silly at first but overly addicting. The reason I say silly is that people are supposed to be assassins yet other human characters will run and jump while not being sneaky. It takes a while to get used to but quite addicting. Its a nice multiplayer mode in this age of the first person shooter. The game also includes a 3D mode for polarized lenses as well as Assassin's Creed on disc.

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