Entertaining game. Tightly focused story, it's greatest strength, hampered again by a checklist sandbox, it's biggest weakness. Big worlds are cool, but not when you have to drive around for 10 minutes to get to the next part mission, and definitely not with nothing to fill in the gaps. The world also felt sterile. Filled to the brim with lovely miscellanea, yes, but not lived in as it should have.
Graphics are pretty, but again far too sterile artistically. Pretty water effects and pretty smoke effects and pretty rain effects and pretty textures doesn't hide the poor models and terrible facial animation and horrific slowdowns and bad optimization.
The sound actually kind of blew me away, the explosions were loud and had impact, each car crash sounded like one, rather than a generic clunk i've come to expect form games like these. Voices were mixed a bit low for my liking, and the tweaks weren't enough to really sort it.
Story was good for what it was. Doesn't break new ground, but still good. I may have been asleep at the wheel, but a couple parts i did not see coming. Good overall, though it is very clear they are holding back on concepts and factions and mysteries to grub for more money down the track, and possibly a sequel. It is annoying, the buildup to a really intriguing clash, and it's delayed.
Overall it is a good game. Not Game of the Year, but a good game none the less. Let's face it, this is just a gamble by Ubisoft, just like the original Assassin's Creed. That was a mediocre game, and it spawned greatness. Hopefully that is the case here.
