As I’m certain you’re all well aware of, AC: III is only days away.  That’s right, folks, we’re in the single digits.  Before Connor’s story is released, however, I took the opportunity to introduce a non-Assassin’s Creed fan friend to the franchise.  Over the last month I have played AC: II, AC: Brotherhood and AC: Revelations, the last of which I only wrapped up days ago.  I had never played the three games one right after another before and what I found was extremely interesting.  So, here’s a shotgun review of each one, now that I have some perspective.

AC: II, while innovative for its time (because oh my gaming gods, the architecture/history porn), lacks certain key elements from many other good games of its day.  The character animations, while interesting could have been done better.  The eyes and mouths of all the characters seem to be back-lit.  This probably has to do with the engine, or the memory they used for the architecture/free-run map.  I’m not tech savvy, but there is probably a reason why they all look like jack-o-lanterns.  Despite this, the story is interesting and fairly solid (though it does get a little hard to keep track of all the historical characters, my mind enjoyed the challenge) and they turned what could have been a simple “Man kills everyone in Italy for revenge” story into something with heart and character.

AC: Brotherhood I had previously listed as my favorite AC game of all time.  It’s a claim I’m going to have to redact.  When put into context with the other two games, the plot not only feels shallow and sort of hap-dash, but the game-play isn’t nearly as fun.  They did add some elements I really enjoy, such as using your assassinlings to shank people from a distance, but its lacks the depth of II and Revelations.  It very much feels like a game that was made to get 60+ dollars out of me because they knew I’d pay it.  Some of the DLC missions are really interesting, like having to save Leonardo da Vinci, but even the end of this mission feels disappointing and a bit contrived.

AC: Revelations is my new favorite game.  It is a step in the right direction and I’m hoping that AC: III continues this upward trend.  It dealt very nicely with wrapping up Ezio’s life and giving us a glimpse into who Desmond Miles actually is.  We finally got some closure about subject 16, we got more of Ezio’s flirting, which was adorable.  But the tone of the game is somber and to-the-point.  They show you how human Ezio is, they give insight into his mind and you watch him even make mistakes.

As far as gameplay goes I could have done without the bombs at all, but the hookblade came in quite handy.  My one complaint is that (in the x-box version at least), you don’t seem to go into combat mode automatically.  You have a number of occasions where to complete the mission at 100% you have to take no damage.  That’s really hard to do when Ezio refuses to see that the armed guards have detected him and are coming to kill him and therefore doesn’t block at all.

I will continue to watch this series with fervor, and I am looking forward to picking up my copy of AC: III.