Slipping on the well-worn wrist blade and donning my well curled wig, I
slip awkwardly into the grey mass of people that appear to be butchering the
framerate. Now closing rapidly on my target, I am halted, distracted, by
something smelling… off.
Assassin’s Creed Unity
Arno Dorian; in another time he could easily slipped into the role of
Florentine nobility, or a hacker on the streets of Chicago. It is uncanny how
well Ubisoft’s modern big-budget action games run together, narratively and
mechanically. Assassin’s Creed Unity has managed to stand out, unfortunately
for all the wrong reasons.
Through Abstergo’s consumer grade version of the Animus, the Helix,
Unity launches you through servers back to revolutionary France, predominantly
Paris. Narratively, Assassin’s Creed Unity is an incoherent mess. The main arc
the story consists of the miscreant Arno reeking revenge for the death of his
adoptive father; uncovering clues and following up leads that see you
decimating the Templar order. There are frequently large leaps in the logic of
the storytelling, scenes and missions that don't quite flow, but close enough
that you can eventually patch them together with your imagination. There are
scenes where a side character will acknowledge next step, then arrive at the
next mission only to ask you why they are here. Conversely, some characters
will appear out of nowhere and have apparently witnessed everything, including
scenes they were certainly not present for. It does not help that few of the
characters are actually given any personality to work with, there are some
quirky side characters, but the main cast is as stereotypical as one can
imagine, and the support characters are never sufficiently explored.
The cinematics, which are all in-engine do look visually impressive
though, faces are detailed and well animated and Unity has some of the best
hair technology seen to date. Many of these scenes broke; random non-playable
characters walking into the scene, camera angles not changing, quick time
events not triggering and so on. The characters deliveries leave much to be desired;
there is a lot of audio that sounds blown out and doesn’t fit in-world and
considering you are in France, the French language is used sparingly at best,
usually for swearing. I can understand not subjecting the English player based
to a dozen hours of reading subtitles, but really not even an accent?
Assassin’s Creed II protagonist, Ezio at least sounded somewhat authentic, Arno
doesn’t sell himself as anything other than a voice actor in a sound booth. As
with all Assassin’s Creed games, there is a certain amount of story set in the
modern day, which is made all the more jarring in Unity by the inclusion of
‘server bridge’ levels every couple of sequences. These interludes, albeit
brief, will transport you to a number of different time periods as you jump
between Abstergo’s servers. It is largely pointless in terms of gameplay and
story, all it accomplishes is to suitably interrupt the flow of the narrative
you theoretically care about. Which is a feeling is have always harbored about
the modern day ties in the Assassin’s Creed series.
A revolution is happening around you, but you’re never really part of
it; in one mission you're sent infiltrate a royal Palace that is being overrun
by the mob, but when you get there you are greeted by the same red clad bandits
you have been fighting the entire game. Despite being often squandered, the
setting of Unity is by far in a way my favourite element; the meeting of thrown
together buildings, roofing joining at odd angles, combined with baroque
interiors, really sold me on period and place.
Traversing the environment is less of a pleasure however, every gameplay
interaction and experience is marred by bugs and technical inconsistencies.
Arno will leap and bound off objects that don’t exist, or through those that do.
He can be killed by falling through the map into the endless abyss, or perhaps
by getting caught in the level geometry. The frame rate is the most abhorrent
of these issues, it can jump between an acceptably smooth flow and a grinding
mess. Of course, this permeates all elements of the gameplay. It is worth
noting, Ubisoft continue to update the game, the most recent patch containing a
6.7GB “Refurbished Paris”. I have noticed no tangible change in performance
since this patch, the framerate remains wildly inconsistent.
“Here we go again, back inside a mess of broken
code.” - Generic modern day assassin lady.
The combat suffers equally by the poor performance and legion of bugs; I
encountered multiple un-hittable, and hittable but not killable enemies. It is
also the part of the game most damaged by core design changes. In a bid to
encourage stealth, new cover and crouching mechanics have been added, useful
given that quite a portion of Unity takes place indoors. The combat has been
made considerably harder, the smooth fluid executions of chain kills of
previous Assassin’s Creed titles has been cut, you have to beat each enemy
yourself. And I do mean beat, most enemies will take many more hits than you
will, even with health upgrade. Furthermore, just about all enemies are
equipped with a ranged weapon and will happily line up and take pot shots, some
also have flash bang
grenades, making seeing the dodge and counter prompts even
harder – though perhaps one-in-three prompts never show up anyway. Naturally,
you can offset this difficulty by purchasing new weapons, armour and skills
using one of the many currencies in the game, including Helix credits, which
you can purchase with really money. You use Helix to “hack” the game, micro
transactions themselves I don’t mind being present, but the prompt on death,
telling you buy new gear to stop dying, coupled with the ridiculous prices of
the upper tiers of equipment, felt really quite disgusting. Furthermore, it
also makes me question why the combat is so hard in this game, is it really to
create a greater emphasis on stealth? Or is it to pressure players into paying
real money for single player unlockables?
The stealth of Unity yields pretty inconsistent results; sometimes you
are spotted despite obscuring objects and huge distances, other times you can
just walk, or run right up to people and stab them undetected. elements well.
There are often a few routes of attack, some highlighted as optional
objectives. But the core mission structure is not one that supports the
stealth, enemy encounters remain the same as previous games in the series, you
will regularly be pitted against groups of two to eight enemies and expected to
hold your own, some fights can theoretically be avoided but others are
mandatory. Previously the chain kills would have made these fights bearable –
if not fun – whereas in Unity they are constant source of death and anguish.
Beyond speeding up the messy combat, chain kills served as a reward for
players, a reward for your patience and timing. Simply removing them wholesale
has reduced the combat to a state that feels broken. Perhaps worse even the
original Assassin’s Creed, because least then the enemies weren’t stacked
against you in such overwhelming force.
I have witnessed enemies literally zoom meters, without moving their
feet, and stab me, taking of half my health without a block or dodge prompt on
screen, and trigger a badly synchronised execution animation. Arno’s own combat
executions are well animated, for the most part, but there is no weight or
tactile feel to them and many animations don’t synchronise with the other
character model, making much of the combat appear awkward and broken. However,
you cannot execute an enemy on the ground until you have purchased the upgrade,
in fact you can't blend while sitting on a seat until you have purchased the
upgrade - it is ridiculous and more than a little gross if you think too hard
about their monetisation.
The structure and objectives of missions haven't changed, it is still
riddled with tailing and tackling missions with hard fail states, apparently
the Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag rating system didn’t yield fruitful results.
The open world of Assassin’s Creed hasn't really evolved either, though plenty
has been taken out. You do not really interact with the crowd, which is
impressively large; they simply run around, and through, each other. You cannot
even eject, or equip your wrist blade, it is only seen during the
assassinations. You don't enlist the help of small groups of bandits or
courtesans, nor can you call on your fellow assassins, or send them on
missions. There are plenty of different colored chests however, that can be
unlocked by using services outside the game, such as Assassin’s Creed
Initiates.
Unity introduces cooperative multiplayer missions, and heists, which are
basically the same as single player missions only you are joined by up to three
other Arnos. Only thanks to the dire state of Unity, the multiplayer is a
breeding ground for bugs and glitches. The missions I played were all quite
bland, and the experiences I had were so rotten and so broken it is almost
laughable. Almost.

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