WeView Verdict: Assassin’s Creed: Liberation

Assassin’s Creed: Liberation is one of those games that seems quite tough to analyse. For starters, it comes from a franchise that many gamers hold very contrasting opinions on, it only received ‘so-so’ reviews, and there are two different versions of the game. All of that had me thinking we’d get a pretty wide range of opinions, and the great community of TSA didn’t disappoint.

One fairly dominant opinion about the Vita version of the game is that this was a good amount of content to be packed into a portable game. A few of you also alluded to the fact that there aren’t all that many big games on the Vita, and that this might very well change how high a recommendation Liberation receives on that platform.

It seems this game is easy to compare to Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry as that’s what a couple of you did, though there was a split in how it stacks up.  tactical20 noted that it was “better than Freedom Cry,” but MrYd thought the exact opposite. There was also a split in the technical proficiency that some of you noticed, as Youles said it was “one of the glitchiest games I’d played in a long time,” and Gaztee reported a similar experience, yet several others didn’t seem to run into the same technical hurdles.

There was also a split in thoughts on the main character, as JR. wasn’t a big fan (more on that below), yet a few of you really enjoyed playing as her. SamBeThyName said that “Aveline is the best character in any AC game,” while hunterstryfe said it was “a nice break in the franchise to play as a character with next to no similarities to the already existing personalities.”

Probably the most overwhelming opinion of Liberation on the Vita was the quality and size of content provided. Tuffcub said that the developers “squeezed a hell of a lot into a tiny console,” while JustTaylorNow also had a nice review, stating that it “just did what it was meant to do, to be an enjoyable portable game.” Simplebob had a similar thought of the game, and said it did a “very good job of capturing the feel of Assassin Creed on the go,” though he also noted that the multiplayer mini-game was “not much fun and probably not worth touching unless you’re going for trophies.”

However, while there was plenty to do, the game still felt a little stripped down in comparison to the diversity of content in the main entries of the series, but for jimmy-google, that wasn’t really a bad thing. He stated that “it was a bit like playing ACII on the vita” and that “it was nice not to have all the extras they’ve tried to throw at AC over the years which simple haven’t worked.” As someone who has played all of the main entries on consoles, I can certainly appreciate this opinion.

Perhaps the most interesting comment this week came out of JR., who had very fascinating thoughts on the story and protagonist.

The problem with Liberation and every other AC game since AC2 was the story. In AC2 we saw Ezio’s family betrayed and murdered in a very powerful scene which made you root for Ezio and his quest for revenge. No other AC game since has come anywhere close to this level of emotion. AC Liberation had an opportunity to push the boundaries of story telling (as far as AC games are concerned) but it failed on every level. She’s a black woman in slave times for crying out loud. If you can’t make us feel something for this character then you have failed on an epic scale.

Liberation and Liberation HD managed to stay almost completely out of the ‘avoid it’ column, with just one person branding it with that judgement, but it wasn’t exactly an overwhelming winner, either. We got 2 votes for Buy it, 5 for Sale it and 5 for Plus it, with just a partial mention of avoiding it, depending on how burnt out you are on the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

On tomorrow’s WeView we’ll be taking a look at Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and you can vote for next week’s game below.