Assassin's Creed Revelations
Last week I opined that Assassin's Creed Brotherhood represented a further step along its predecessor's path of adding half-baked features, neglecting the core game, and generally ignoring subtlety and meaning in favor of bullet points. In that light, what's surprised me most about Assassin's Creed Revelations so far is that it actually attempts to extend the free-running and sneaking gameplay that's barely seen any refinement since the first game -- and that it succeeds.
Which isn't to say that Revelations has finally turned the franchise into something really respectable. In fact, even given that the Assassin/Templar plot has been laughable since the final moments of the first game, this one manages to reach a new low from the outset: Desmond is in a coma. While the second and third games at least made a token effort to frame the modern-day story with basic NPC dialog, this time around you're stuck, alone, in a computer-generated purgatory ("Animus Island"); you'll very-rarely overhear some conversations happening outside, but these are all weakly delivered. They do foreshadow some plot, uh, revelations, but they do it with the subtlety of a Mack truck.
The retarded little hidden-puzzle segments are gone, replaced with collectible items that unlock bonus levels on the Island. These levels are, somewhat inexplicably, first-person platform-puzzlers, like Portal but without any of the interesting parts. Desmond reminisces about his past - growing up at the Assassin training ranch - while doing these levels, but there is no other narrative involved; and the puzzles have only begun to get engaging in the third of five levels. If the challenge continues to ramp up, that may at least feel like a significant addition to the game, but so far - between having more dumb little collectibles, and the utter insignificance of these levels - it certainly doesn't seem any better than the (again, retarded) puzzles.
(As a side note-- at least on the PC version, when you enter one of these bonus levels, the game closes and then reopens in the level; finishing the bonus level again exits, and reopens the main game. I can think of no rational explanation for this, save my assumption that the bonus levels were done by a development studio completely independent of the core game, and that they could not be integrated into the main framework in time for launch. I wonder how well this works in the console versions?)
With that said, Revelations is deadly-focused on Ezio's adventures in Constantinople, and while his story still isn't very interesting, it is at least making a better effort than last time. Where Brotherhood was content to recycle AC2's characters, Revelations introduces new ones, granted that there aren't very many so far. What's particularly notable is that when you take over an area - in a mechanic that is at first identical to the last game's Borgia Towers, but I'll explain more in a bit - you can assign a recruited assassin to be in charge of it, and some missions proceed to open up involving this random character. Since the game's real story missions weren't very well-written to begin with, these optional missions with interchangeable characters have no problem coming up to their par.
Constantinople feels less dense with activities than Rome was, but at the same time, these activities feel more involved and meaningful. The city still begins as mostly taken over by Templars; you'll have to infiltrate a stronghold and take out a Templar captain, then light a signal fire, to clear the rest of the Templar agents out. But unlike the miniscule tower areas in Brotherhood, the strongholds in Revelations are of such a size (and possessing enough enemies) that you'll actually need to use subtlety mechanics like sneaking, blending, and distraction to make it to the captain. Frequently (and this is true both of missions and of stronghold infiltration), you'll also need to really make use of Eagle Vision to tail and identify the target. Not to oversell it, but this genuinely feels like a return to form for Assassin's Creed.
Once the Templars are gone, the area becomes property of the Assassins, and you can take care of guild business there (e.g. send recruits out on missions). But if Ezio becomes notorious, from killing dudes, buying property, or being spotted in restricted areas - keeping in mind that you'll be fully notorious immediately after taking a stronghold from the Templars - an Assassin stronghold may become contested, and you'll have to go defend it. The defense itself is handled in a poorly-implemented tower defense minigame, which is pretty dumb, but the fact that there is a need for defense is pretty cool.
I've managed to come a long way without mentioning the Hookblade, which is a welcome addition to Ezio's toolset. While I could take or leave its combat moves, it extends acrobatic reach even further by allowing Ezio to pull himself up far-off ledges, and can also hook onto some ziplines scattered around the city. Yeah, ziplines.
I still have complaints about these games, most significantly that the story is god-awful and the core missions aren't very fun. But I feel like Revelations is finally making some real progress.
Progress: Sequence 4