![]() ![]() It's only when you explore Paris' many districts do you realise that the sheer scale of the city is incredible, not only in terms of its explorable limits, but in the huge number of citizens wandering its streets. The benefit of Unity's exclusivity to the latest generation of consoles isn't immediately obvious, particularly if you're focused on face-value aesthetics, which look only slightly more impressive here than they did in Black Flag. As the story progresses, the city crumbles before your eyes, the streets becoming awash with citizens burning effigies and waving flags in protest, while loyalists and revolutionaries battle over the future of their homeland. The attention to detail that's gone into the city is nothing short of astonishing. ![]() Similarly disappointing is how little the story ties into its setting, particularly since Unity's portrayal of a Paris scarred by the civil unrest of the French revolution is one of its greatest triumphs. This might be par for the course in Assassin's Creed, but given the effort to reign in the sprawl, it'd have been nice to see the same effort extended to adding more variety to the dialogue-and I don't think we need to see yet another Assassin's Creed start with the death of a family member. ![]() It doesn't help that the story is filled with all manner of clichéd conversations of deceit, and betrayal, and gibberish about honour. But, given the singular focus, that all-important chemistry between its two leads just isn't strong enough to tie the whole thing together I cared enough to want to see things through to end, but not enough to be truly moved by any of its events. So it's hard to get bored, or at least hard to be indifferent to Unity's story. It evolves from love story, to revenge tale, to murder mystery, and then circles right back to love story again, all at a heartier pace than one might expect from an Assassin's Creed game. With fewer of those secondary characters around, many of which tended to play a more lighthearted role, the story is much darker in tone than anything else in the series. Unity shies away from having a vast collection of ancillary characters, focusing instead upon its lead Arno and his love interest Elise. Now Playing: Assassin's Creed Unity Video Review Arno is certainly one of the most charismatic and well-acted Assassin's Creed leads I've seen-cocksure, mischievous, and just enough of a jerk to still be lovable-but the story never exploits his charms to the fullest.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's This isn't so much of a problem if, like me, you found the Abstergo stuff to be a distraction anyway it's nice to be able to focus on the historical narrative without too many jarring interruptions from the "real world." This does mean that the historical narrative had better be a great one, but Unity's doesn't quite meet the mark. Its opening-a trailer for Helix, a commercialised version of the Animus intended for entertainment purposes-might suggest otherwise, but if you were hoping for a deeper dive into the muddled mysteries of Abstergo, you won't find it here. Unity ties itself into the wider Assassin's Creed universe, but does so only briefly and rather apathetically compared to its predecessors. The sprawling narratives and endless procession of historical figures that have come to define the series have given way to a sharply focused, personal tale that eschews moments of joviality for something altogether much darker in tone.īut where else could the series have gone? Its complex Abstergo storyline has long since jumped the shark, leaving more recent entries in the series to wade through the mess and attempt to find some coherency. For all its recognizable tropes, and for all its throwbacks to Assassin's Creeds of old, Unity is surprisingly progressive. Assassin's Creed Unity is at once comfortingly familiar, yet drastically different. ![]()
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