Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Preview
Ezio and Altaïr finally cross paths
by Josh Butler
previewed on PS3
Reinventing the kill (cntd)
Ezio also now has the ability to craft new types of bombs from ingredients he discovers in his travels. These craft stations are scattered around the city and allow for bombs to be designed for specific requirements. Basic types include the familiar smoke bomb, the volatile impact bomb, and the spike-strip caltrop bomb, which can slow both pursuers and targets. This is, however, just a taste as the alchemy of fine-tuning allows for up to 300 potential bomb variations.
One neat twist is that bombs can now be placed on guards. Tripwires can be placed on a downed guard to kill any that might discover them. Stink bombs can be placed on a living guard to alienate them from the pack. With all bombs falling in to categories of lethal, tactical, or diversionary, and the possibility of altering a bomb’s casing to produce a secondary affect, they could well prove to add more than just an increased arsenal but a whole new way of using it.
New ways to compete
Two new multiplayer modes bolster the online play. Artifact Assault is a capture-the-flag style game which plays with the predator/prey dynamic with territory lines which, once-crossed, leave you capable only of stunning the enemy if discovered in their base. Deathmatch is a tense affair, doing away with the compass in favour of a simple portrait of your target with an alert when they cross your field of vision. In Deathmatch there are no skin replicates, so survival is a matter of active evasion rather than relying on camouflage.
This reflects the much greater customisation settings of your online persona. In a seemingly counter-intuitive move, you can now personalise your assassin. While this might appear to make you stand out from the crowd the NPCs are similarly varied. Weapon sets are no longer reliant on the character type and can be modified on the fly. There are also new multiplayer abilities including the tripwire bomb (seen put to good use next to the ‘flag’ in Artifact Assault) and ‘closure’ which can bring down chase-breakers to either prevent or aid a kill.
Where simultaneous kills and stuns still work out in favour of the assassin these now qualify as ‘honourable deaths’, with the target receiving 100 points and the assassin taking damage and being opened up to enemies. Assassins’ defence are also lowered when performing less stealthy head-on kills which produce longer animations in an attempt to shift the dynamic seen in Brotherhood's multiplayer to favour the unseen assassin.
New perks have been added for the dedicated leveller, with a level cap of 50 only leading to prestige loops of a further 50 levels with their own benefits – this process can be repeated almost infinitely. There is also clearly plenty of minor tweaking going on underneath the hood, with one example being that throwing daggers are showing a noticeable increase in effectiveness.
An honourable death
In Revelations’ current state it will undoubtedly be a day-one purchase for most Assassin’s Creed initiates. This won’t be the title that sways the outsiders – apparently a mission laid out for III when it arrives – but as a final word on the trials of Ezio and Altaïr it is unlikely to disappoint.
Whatever revelations lay in wait for fans at the end of this saga, it’s worth bearing in in mind that Desmond entered the Animus in September 2012. Perhaps this won’t be the last book for long.
