Assassin's Creed Unity Review

It's November again and as inevitable as Christmas coming our way, Ubisoft have released yet another Assassin's Creed game. But why have one when you can have two this time? One (Assassin's Creed Rogue) is an Xbox 360 only game focusing on pirating and the other (Assassin's Creed Unity) is only for the new generation consoles, namely the Xbox One and Playstation Four.

For this review we will be focusing solely on the latter which is set during the French Revolution. For those uninitiated with the series, Assassin's Creed is a game series that follows the eternal war between two factions of humanity, the Assassin's and the Templars. You play as an assassin (yes, it's hard to believe that they're the good guys when I describe it like that).

In Unity you play as Arno, and orphaned aristrocrat (at least I think he is), who grows up to be a waste of space. But after being accused of murder and thrown into the Bastille, and learning of the Assassin's Brotherhood - who Arno's father worked for - you begin your life training to become a master assassin while trying to unravel the mystery of who killed your father and why.

Unity makes a welcome return to the core gameplay I loved in previous titles, namely the stealth and the endless freerunning over rooftops as far as the eye can see. More recent titles like Creed 3 and Black Flag scrapped this to focus the games on other things, but for me it always left the impression that both were missing something. Besides the reintroduction of all the freerunning though, there is not really much new weaponwise or movewise brought to Unity.

Visually you can also see a clear difference in the definition and detail between Unity and older titles. The detail on the buildings and the quality of the characters faces are most notable. Even very recent Creed games like Black Flag, which only came out last year, still suffered from what I like to call "cardboard box" head characters.

The multiplayer mode has had the biggest facelift. While playing the single-player mode you can join mini missions with either friends or random players. There is a wide range of different missions and playing them can really help towards upgrades to your character in the single player game. In previous games I found the multiplayer was often repetitive and got boring very quickly.

But sadly, besides the multiplayer, Unity has not really brought anything new to the table. This is a good game with great visuals and a lot of play in it, but it does rely a little too heavily on its core mechanics rather than trying new things. Like many other reviewers I really wish this game was held back in development for a few more months as the number of glitches it had on the first day of playing was inexcusable.

It gets 7/10. 

Hit the Dirt: Trials Fusion Game Review

Trials Fusion is the latest game to come out of the Ubisoft stable of the dirt bike racing series. Despite being set in a futuristic environment and a move to the next gen consoles, the core game play mechanics are still there. 

For the uninitiated, Trials is a racing game for one or more players on dirt bikes. While the game is 3D it plays as a side scroller, unlike other typical racing games where the camera is usually angled behind the vehicle of each player. 

The single player mode is enjoyable with a variety of different tracks. 

However, the game does begin to get very frustrating in the later stages as you must perform difficult tricks to progress over ever increasingly difficult obstacles. You can go without doing these stages but avoiding them means you cannot unlock and play the later tracks. I felt the trick reliance on later tracks was too heavy and it reaches a point when playing that the game’s simple racing style fun is replaced only by seething frustration.

There’s no doubt there will be people out there who have mastered the tricks and completed these stages but I found the monotony of doing the same tracks repeatedly to achieve this level too much personally. 

On the other hand, the multiplayer aspect of the game is just as good as it predecessors. It’s fun to watch the bikers hit obstacles, fail tricks and find ways to kill themselves at the end of each stage. With its simple controls it is a good game to play with the family or friends, if not as cute as Mario Kart. 

Track Creator also allows you to build your own tracks as well as play others. While it can be a lot of fun the internet is plagued with broken ones. These can be hilarious a lot of the time but I would not recommend playing them if you are a serious racer.