Assassins Creed Liberation HD

Xbox 360 Version

Originally released on the Playstation Vita alongside console iterations of Assassin’s Creed 3 comes Assassin’s Creed Liberation, now in high definition. Liberation HD is the first game in the long running saga to ever feature a female protagonist, named Aveline. The game once again takes players in a virtual time warp back to pre-Revolutionary America between 1765 and 1777.

One of the very first elements of the game that series veterans will notice is the absence of both Desmond Miles and an extensive modern day story. With that said, Assassin’s Creed Liberation is a game changer in the saga, starting a trend of story related modifications that echo far into the future of the franchise as a whole. There’s no more Desmond Miles or exciting modern day story sequences… Those thrilling and cryptic moments originally seen in Assassin’s Creed 1 simply have no part in the Liberation environment, and fans are still debating whether or not this is a good thing as the saga goes forward.

From the modern day point of view, Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD is nothing more than a trip back in time, and into the Animus, specifically designed by Abstergo Entertainment to portray the Assassin’s as an evil entity in order to provide cover to the Templars – who are one in the same with Abstergo. Throughout the Liberation story, however, players are able to make contact with a group of hackers unlocking the ability to see through Abstergo’s censorship.

The story of Assassin’s Creed Liberation isolates itself from previous titles in the franchise with the exclusion of many key elements, some of them already mentioned in the above paragraph. The lack of a full scale modern story and Desmond Miles already weakens the story enough… But the down-scaling of the Assassin versus Templar struggle and talk of the Precursor Civilization makes matters even less exciting. With the downgrading of the overall story, players are left with nothing more than a bare-bones, and sometimes shockingly tedious, story of Aveline de Grandpre in the middle of New Orleans.

Liberation’s plot leaves players right in the middle of a newly occupied New Orleans by the Spanish government, which citizens aren’t very happy with. Aveline is more than happy to investigate all of the current circumstances and finds herself on a quest of freeing slaves, locating ancient artifacts, and unveiling plots of evil. Compared with previous titles in the series, however, Assassin’s Creed Liberation simply lacks that Mike Tyson knockout punch in terms of delivery, despite its excellent ending. Glorious titles, like Assassin’s Creed 2, simply make Liberation look like a mid-tier featherweight hopeful compared to a heavyweight champion on a winning streak.

Thankfully enough, many of the mechanical gameplay improvements from Assassin’s Creed 3 directly carry over to Liberation, with Aveline having the ability to smoothly enter in and out of combat, and navigate various terrains. The combat system is virtually identical to Assassin’s Creed 3, which is excellent… All of the classic Assassin’s Creed features make a return once again, with players able to participate in side quests, locate viewpoints, and purchase additional weapons and gear.

Also making an (unfortunate) return to the saga are the tedious missions from prior series entries, such as following missions. The only problem this time around is that there seems to be more of them than ever, which completely annihilated my interest in the game (at times). I very often found myself struggling to play the game for more than ten to fifteen minutes at a time, simply because the mission system and story came across as extremely weak. Indeed, there are areas in the game, such as Aveline’s visit to a Precursor Civilization temple in Mexico, that were pretty spectacular – although the majority of the game simply does not share that same level of excitement.

Dampening both the environment and gameplay of Assassin’s Creed Liberation even further is an all new feature giving Aveline the ability to utilize three different personas – two of which are designed to provide her with a form of cover. Aveline has a Lady, Slave, and Assassin persona to choose from; all three of which can be changed into at any time. Some of these personas are required for certain missions, and one of them (the Lady persona) even disqualifies Aveline from climbing. These new abilities, almost certainly designed to shake things up and make the game more interesting, actually do the opposite, and the majority of players are likely going to utilize the Assassin persona as much as possible, simply because of its superior abilities.

Even more bad news is the fact that Assassin’s Creed Liberation features mediocre voice acting (at best), even for lead characters like Aveline herself. Since Aveline has the ability to go undercover in different personas, she sometimes changes her accent along with the disguise, and the voice acting (in these sequences) can come across as fairly poor – not even in the same league as legends among the franchise like Altair and Ezio Auditore. Also worth noting is the fact that Liberation does not feature any form of competitive multiplayer, which is probably a good thing for a title that feels thrown together.

The very fact that Assassin’s Creed Liberation is one of the few games that I struggled to keep an interest in playing likely places it among the worst console iteration of Assassin’s Creed 3D titles. Despite the fact that the game has an exciting ending, and its interesting moments here and there, I can’t help but feel like Liberation took a gamble by distancing itself too far from other great titles in the Assassin’s Creed saga, with a downscaling of prior story related elements. With that said, and as a long-time fan of the franchise, I sincerely hope that Assassin’s Creed Liberation was nothing more than the occasional misstep that even the best developers in gaming history sometimes end up making.

OVERALL RATING

6.8/10