Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

ABOUT ME: I loved the Assassin's Creed series. I got such a thrill out of the morally-grey Altair, Ezio's conviction, Connor's naivete, and good lord, did I enjoy playing Edward Kenway. The series was story-driven, even if the gameplay was repetitive and slightly boring at times. When I heard that Unity was coming out, I didn't pre-order, but I did manage to get a copy on launch day. I felt secure in the fact that Ubisoft would provide me with vibrant characters -- inside and outside the Animus -- that I could connect to, cheer on, and inevitably mourn... or at the very least, remember fondly. I haven't been let down this badly by a game developer in a long time. CHARACTER ISSUES: I can't bring myself to give a crap about the protagonist, Arno. It was mildly endearing to play as a younger version of him in a game of chase at the beginning of the game, but beyond that, he is utterly boring. There is no delving into the psyche of the character, from what I have seen so far. He's just a soulless, slightly-bratty automaton who doggedly does as his cult-y order tells him. Even the mentor in this game is remarkably unmemorable; as of my play-through, he's just another NPC standing statically in the caves below the Cafe Theatre. COMBAT / GAMEPLAY PROBLEMS: The parkour is frustratingly unresponsive -- even more so than previous titles. Combat, honestly, is similar to Black Flag, but for some reason, Ubisoft saw it fit to slow down the responsiveness of the controls and call it "challenging." The lockpicking is a needless addition to the game. I think I tolerate it in other RPGs because it is the nature of the genre, but to add something like that to such a long-running series strikes me as a waste of development resources. GATED CONTENT: One of the huge turn-offs this game had for me was the gated content: chests that required the use of a third-party Android app or a certain Initiates ranking were the main ones. The one thing that actually angered me about the game was the blatant money-grabbing in the form of micro-transactions. Helix points, apparently, are something you can purchase with your actual money in order to get quick boosts in-game. When I saw that, I was absolutely disgusted. I am half-expecting to find one of the many cut scenes to show a character mention these Helix points. GLITCHES / BUGS: There are times when I have to restart the game in order to continue missions that bug out on me. Character "pop-in" is common among the massive crowds. Buggy textures abound, and NPCs have a tendency toward climbing on nearby furniture. The one that took the cake, however, was approximately 5 minutes before I started writing this review: the game made my console freeze up when I tried to move to a new phase of a mission. Once I am done with this review, I will restart my console, eject the disk, and drive to Gamestop to trade it in at less than half the price I paid for it. THAT is how frustrated I am with this game, and with Ubisoft. TL;DR: I am a huge fan of this series, and I find this game unplayable. The characters are dull, the combat is unresponsive, and the story is utterly boring. The glitches and bugs in the game are unforgivable for a company of Ubisoft's status as a game developer. DO NOT PURCHASE THIS GAME. DON'T EVEN STEAL THIS GAME. It is not worth the money or the effort.