ASSASINS CREED REVELATION

Well somebody at Ubisoft’s been watching Inception. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations begins with chronically plank-faced protagonist Desmond washing up on a sad-looking desert island. He’s told, by a digital ghost, that this is the default setup of the device that lets him explore his past lives – the Animus. Essentially, he’s trapped inside an autoexec.bat file.But in a move that would make Christopher Nolan blush, while you control Desmond’s Renaissance ancestor Ezio in Constantinople, Ezio is himself discovering magical memory-unlocking keys left behind by his 12th century ancestor Altair. If time travelling, science-fiction oddness is what put you off Assassin’s Creed in the past, prepare to groan a decade of groans as Revelations routinely expends drastic countermeasures trying to avoid doing what it does best.

What it does best, of course, is death, and the third game in the trilogy has entire morgues of the stuff. Arriving in Constantinople in search of his keys, a bearded, greying and creaky-shouldered Ezio ends up embroiled in a conspiratorial Templar powergrab. Cue the series’ most championed features: Ezio shadowing targets, infiltrating enemy strongholds, free-running and executing choreographed, riotous assassinations. Stabbing somebody in the neck has never looked so much like ballet.Bombs and bomb-crafting have arrived too, in case you don’t remember requesting this feature. Ezio can use bomb ingredients to construct dozens of different kinds of exciting explosives, from sticky shrapnel bombs and stink bombs to poison-gas tripwires and pedestrianslowing caltrop grenades. The usefulness of these devices varies depending on whether or not you remember they exist, and it’s remarkably easy to forget that they do. The game seems awkwardly obsessed with its new bombs. Almost every chest in the city contains a sort of gunpowder or bomb casing, and the cities you conquer shower you with daily deliveries of bomb ingredients. But bombs feel as brash, blunt and clumsy as Ezio isn’t, requiring you to reconfigure your fingers and brain to unfamiliar positions to use them. The alternative of open combat or impromptu parkour requires less mental effort, and you’ll find yourself relying on these escape methods more. Rather more saddening is that you’ll soon be carrying as many bomb ingredients as is permitted, until your magpie instinct for looting chests withers and drops off entirely. Instead you’ll ignore those hitherto glistening treats, with glum resignation.
Minimum System Requirements:
- Windows XP or Vista
- 2 GB RAM
- Dual core processor (Intel Pentium D or better)
- 256MB Direct3D 10 compatible video card, or Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader Model 3.0 or higher
- DirectX compatible driver
- DVD-ROM dual-layer drive
- 16 GB free hard disk space
- DirectX libraries (included)
- Vista compatible sound card
- Keyboard, Mouse
- Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller (optional)
Recommended System Requirements:
- Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo, or better processor
- 3 GB System RAM
- ATI HD2900 series, Nvidia GeForce 8800 series, or better video card
- 5.1 sound card
- Microsoft Xbox 360 controller
- Supported Video Cards at Time of Release
- DirectX10 compatible cards, recommended ATI HD2900 series, Nvidia GeForce 8800 series
- Direct3D 9 card compatible with Shader Model 3.0 or higher
I should recommend having a dual analog controller while playing, check out my post on Gamepads for more help .