"It's a Video Game!" - Assassin's Creed: Rogue

Well, it has officially gotten cold… in more ways than one. Seriously, it was 54 degrees one day and over one night, we got  rain, sleet, and snow! It’s not even winter yet and TN is getting snow. At least this gives me time to catch up on some movies, tv shows, and of course, video games. I finally finished Assassin’s Creed: Rogue during this time, so that’s next on the AC docket.

AC: Rogue was released on the PS3 during November 2014 right at the same time AC: Unity was being released. I guess Ubisoft wanted to make some more money off of the PS3 for one last time. Since Ubisoft was concentrated on making Unity the big one, Rogue was much smaller in scope. It’s pretty short (only six sequences) and takes a lot of assets from AC: Black Flag. Even though it’s small in scope, it touches on a lot in the franchise in an interesting way. Reviews were decent for the game but some felt it was a cash grab at the time. Is it truly that or something more? I’ll elaborate below.

In the Present Day, Rogue pretty much picks up sometime after Black Flag. You’re “Nameless the Game Tester” again. Because of some weird hack at Abstergo Entertainment (kinda made to tie into Unity), you’re pretty much trapped in the building. You’re being ordered around by Osto Berg and his underling to go back into the Animus and live the events of Assassin-turned-Templar named Shay Cormac. Yeah, we get to play on the bad side… sort of.

In the past (1758-1776), you play as Shay Cormac, a somewhat new member of the Colonial Brotherhood. During a mission to find Precurser (or First Civilization) devices, he accidentally triggers an earthquake that destroys a town. He tries to warn the Brotherhood that removing these devices will cause more harm, but they apparently don’t listen. He steals the Manuscript that contains the info and defies the Brotherhood. He gets left for dead, but he is then found by people in the Templar order. He ends up taking up with the Order so he can stop the Assassins from uncovering these devices and help the cause of the Templars.

PROS

Haytham! You're back!

While the game isn’t the greatest, it tried to show something different. We got a taste of this in Assassin’s Creed 3 with Haytham Kenway. This time though, we get a new Assassin-turned-Templar in Shay Cormac. Through Shay, you kind of see the Assassins (or at least the Colonial ones) in a skewed light. The same goes for the Templars. They’re more or less the heroes in the game, but you get the idea that both sides have their good and bad points. Shay’s an okay guy for the most part. We don’t get into him much since this is a shorter game, but he’s a determined man. He does all he can to make sure innocents don’t get killed from disrupting the Precurser devices.

This game also ties into the America-themed games in a cool way. We see characters from Assassin’s Creed 3 return like Haytham Kenway, Ben Franklin, Achilles, and … (clears throat)… “CHARLES LEE!!!” While it would’ve been cool to see more of ‘ole Jackass Haytham, it was cool to see him return here. We even get a holdover from Black Flag: Adewale, Edward Kenway’s first mate. We basically see what caused the Colonial Brotherhood to be in shambles by the time of AC3, and that was actually pretty interesting to see. We also see how Shay plays into Unity, but I’ll leave that sad fact for you to find out. 

The gameplay is pretty much taken from Black Flag. Combat, stealth, the parkour, and weapons are pretty much pulled from there. You do get some new stuff like an air rifle and a grenade launcher which were actually pretty cool. I don’t know how accurate they were, but they helped take out some dudes. You can also have Assassins stalk you in areas, and that was pretty suspenseful. Ship battles are pretty much the same as well. You do get maybe a couple of new weapons, but I was mostly using the usual cannons and mortars. The graphics are pretty fine for PS3 standards, but they do feel a little downgraded from Black Flag. That may just be me, though. Also, the music and voice-acting is on point.

CONS

I gotta kill this guy? Oh man...

While I do like this game, it’s not that great. First off, the story feels pretty undercooked. Honestly, if Shay had just sat down with the Brotherhood and explained what happened with the device, things probably would’ve gone different. The Assassins felt less evil and more dumb here. It also doesn’t help that Shay betrays them so quickly. That was something I didn’t get about the character and I wish there was more time to develop him. A part of me also wishes that we got to  more of what Haytham was doing at this time.

Unfortunately, the game’s length may have played into the undercooked story. Things had to happen quickly in order for Shay to be “Team Templar” for the majority of the game. Once again, the Present Day story is pretty much “meh.” While going around and hacking computers wasn’t great, at least most of the hidden info was kinda interesting. We basically get to see the Templars play up villains like Haytham, the Borgias, and Al Mualim from past games. Also, the ending for  “Nameless” was kinda nuts.

As for the gameplay, I wish there was more original things. They ripped so much from Black Flag, though that may have been the point.  I also felt there were some things here that felt too easy to do. At times, it felt easy to blow up ships on seas, and cutting through soldiers could get a little easy too. Also, the glitches got to me on this one. There were times where the game actually stopped on me. What was up with Ubisoft at this point? Both of their AC games were glitched up! Other than those things and some small nitpicks, this was a fine addition to the franchise.

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In the end, Assassin’s Creed: Rogue told an important part of the mythos. While it was too short, it was nice to play. I don’t know if I’ll come back to it, though. Well, that should do it for the American era for the franchise. Unity went back to Europe, and it looks like the next game will take me to jolly ‘ole England. If I don’t get too burnt out on parkour dudes in hoodies, I’ll be back. For now, I’m off to probably read something. For now, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.