TAG1138
Played on PS4 via the Ezio Collection. My personal favorite in the series. While the story isn’t as good as 2, the gameplay improvements here are welcomed and recruiting assassins and trying to manage them throughout the game is fun! Rome is great to explore and stealthing around is a delight. Same issue with copy and paste missions here as in the previous two games, but this game has a much better sense forward momentum gameplay wise.
2009
This review contains spoilers
Played on PS4 via the Ezio Collection. A vast improvement over the original game! A more entertaining protagonist and story paired with good gameplay and missions. Filled with many eccentric characters and story beats. The missions are still copy and pasted alot, but it’s a lot more fun to traverse the world and experience the story with a singular goal of avenging Ezio’s family and seeing him become more mature and experienced as the game progresses is very satisfying.
This review contains spoilers
Ever since 8th grade, I’ve wanted to play this game. The release coincided with my American History unit in school (one of my favorite historical eras) and for whatever reason I was so hyped to experience this game and was the main reason I wanted to play through the entire series in the first place. After playing the game however, it is rife with serious flaws that’s almost ruin the experience.
The twist of Haytham being a Templar is one of the greatest reveals in the series, but the pacing of the story is so awful. You go for 6-7 hours playing as Haytham with pretty boring tailing / stealth missions only for the game to practically restart when you start playing as Conner and many of the games tutorials repeat as the story rebuilds it’s momentum. This leads to imho one of the clumsiest and sluggish first acts in modern gaming.
Once you are set loose upon the open world however, the activities can be so fun. Sailing and naval battles are added here, and while Black Flag would expand upon this mechanic greatly, it’s fully functional and super fun here and some of the games best missions involve it. I felt the process of unlocking fast travel points through the tunnel systems throughout New England was far too arduous a task and disrupted the flow heavily, so I didn’t bother for the most part. Hunting in the country side is simple but fun and selling pelts to trappers and starting your own trading business has fun advantages.
When the story finally reaches a head, the conflict between Haytham and Conner is settled far too quickly to feel satisfying and the game ends somewhat abruptly (check out Conners deleted final monologue on YouTube if you can, it would’ve added so much to the story and themes if they had decided to keep it in the game). This is also where I stopped caring about the modern day story as I felt Desmond’s death was handled so badly it killed any motivation I had to keep up with the present day timeline.
Despite all of this, stealth and combat is a lot more fun in this game and there are still plenty of missions worth playing through and the remastered version smooths over some gameplay quirks of the OG release (plus all the DLC), so this game gets a cautious recommendation from me if you’re a fan of the series or the colonial/revolutionary time period.
The twist of Haytham being a Templar is one of the greatest reveals in the series, but the pacing of the story is so awful. You go for 6-7 hours playing as Haytham with pretty boring tailing / stealth missions only for the game to practically restart when you start playing as Conner and many of the games tutorials repeat as the story rebuilds it’s momentum. This leads to imho one of the clumsiest and sluggish first acts in modern gaming.
Once you are set loose upon the open world however, the activities can be so fun. Sailing and naval battles are added here, and while Black Flag would expand upon this mechanic greatly, it’s fully functional and super fun here and some of the games best missions involve it. I felt the process of unlocking fast travel points through the tunnel systems throughout New England was far too arduous a task and disrupted the flow heavily, so I didn’t bother for the most part. Hunting in the country side is simple but fun and selling pelts to trappers and starting your own trading business has fun advantages.
When the story finally reaches a head, the conflict between Haytham and Conner is settled far too quickly to feel satisfying and the game ends somewhat abruptly (check out Conners deleted final monologue on YouTube if you can, it would’ve added so much to the story and themes if they had decided to keep it in the game). This is also where I stopped caring about the modern day story as I felt Desmond’s death was handled so badly it killed any motivation I had to keep up with the present day timeline.
Despite all of this, stealth and combat is a lot more fun in this game and there are still plenty of missions worth playing through and the remastered version smooths over some gameplay quirks of the OG release (plus all the DLC), so this game gets a cautious recommendation from me if you’re a fan of the series or the colonial/revolutionary time period.
Played through the Ezio trilogy for the first time through this collection and throughly enjoyed my time! Copy and paste mission structure is still a problem, but the environments are so fun to traverse through and Ezio just has an overall more entertaining and intriguing plot to follow than the first game in the series. Couple that with the many eccentric and fun side characters found throughout all 3 games and the improved / increased mission variety adds a lot to these worlds. Would highly recommend!
2007
In this first game, the story and switching between present day (circa 2007) and the past set in the Crusade era Holy Land is such an intriguing premise and the authenticity of the world and character design can be admired. That isn’t to say the game is the worst thing ever, but it truly is soooooooo tedious and repetitive that it’s tough to recommend. The parkour system is very cool and has a lot of attention to detail put into the running and climbing animations. Scaling towers and doing Leaps of Faiths is so fun which somewhat makes up for the overabundance of sync points. There are many other menial side missions that, while not lacking in variety, are just copy and pasted everywhere and it gets tiring very quickly. Play it if you’re curious as some of the stealth is fun (and a little more low key compared to later entires in the series), but don’t be surprised if it gets dull very quickly.
The touch screen QTE’s can go to hell. Fun to play through the first time and shows off the Vita’s power and features very well, but the story and environments are bland and the game is super repetitive as a result.
Best way to play this game! 60FPS boost and photo mode for the win!
Best way to experience this classic! 60FPS and photo mode for the win!
Still bland but the PS4 version has improved AI and less bullet spongey enemies.
Best way to play the original trilogy. Uncharted 1 has some improvement to enemy AI and bullet sponge isn’t nearly as big of an issue as it was in the original PS3 release. Plus 60FPS for every game is a massive plus for playability! Brutal mode is cheap af tho, but I wanna go for the trophy still at somepoint 😭
The greatest presentation and story in the series. The pacing is slow to start, but it helps to show the difference in Nate’s life from the previous 3 games while showing off some great visuals. The combat is expanded with better emphasis on stealth and the rope mechanic adds so much to this game in particular feeling like a modern day Indiana Jones. While there are some plot holes, the character interaction and more grounded narrative spark intense emotion leading to an amazing and fulfilling ending. Always go back and forth between this game and Among Thieves as my favorite in the series.
Great gameplay and the pacing of the gunplay is far more restrained than the last two games which is really good! However, the story while entertaining as always thanks to excellent acting and character interaction, is filled with plot holes and side plots that go nowhere which is why I deducted the extra half star from the score. Besides that it’s an on par if not slightly improved gameplay experience from Among Thieves.
Infinitely better than the first game! The pacing and execution of the story and set pieces is perfect and most locations have at least a few exceptional “cinematic moments”. The train sequence may be one of the greatest levels in any game ever and it’s so fun to play through. The integration of climbing and shooting improved the gunplay substantially and while the later half of the game has some dull combat sections, the vast majority of them are super entertaining and the puzzles have been improved a lot too. Overall a great sequel and tied with A Thief's End as my favorite in the series.
Absolute meme material, but the game is dripping with atmosphere and is an interesting mix of both the book and film versions of Hogwarts (it’s clear the devs were fans of the source material). The game is very basic with story progression through Hogwarts can be railroaded at times, but the environments are always changing keeping the pace up. I appreciate the patient atmosphere of the game as many sections feature only ambience and little music (although what music is here is just as good as the John Williams Theme in my book), and the overall design of the castle is very appealing. Too many gimmicky mini-games for my tastes and the upgrades aren’t worth it, but the hidden rooms featuring wizard cards are fun to search for. For all praise I’m giving the presentation, the voice acting and script are so bizarre that’s it’s worth playing the game solely to see all of the unrealistic and crazy justifications the game will give for doing just about any simple task.
Great foundation for the rest of the series, but imo this game isn’t very good. A bland island setting that rarely changes with a tedious gameplay loop filled with bad puzzles and repetitive gunplay (fuck bullet sponge enemies if they’re just normal human beings). Only thing that is great in this game is the character interactions and every actor gives it their all even tho the story itself isn’t very exciting. Also FUCK the final boss!