Assassin's Creed Unity Limited Edition - PlayStation 4

First off, a caveat: I apparently got a gold-plated copy of Unity. Clipping errors, falls through the world, cutscenes out of horror movies, I had a grand total of 3 glitches, all online. This is written from that perspective. Unity is a wonderful experience, and a great co-op opportunity, if they ever get that aspect to work. Unity is the first game that feels like a next gen in terms of raw display and sheer amount of gameplay. A major gripe I've heard is how brief the story is, but to me that feels like eating only dessert and skipping 4 other courses, as I've put in 15 hours and am maybe halfway through the whole game. Otherwise, Ubisoft is working on the bugs with co-op, so this will focus more on single player.Graphics are beyond sublime. The detail, the coloring, even the shadow play you can tell really gets the PS4 horses behind it. The number of random strangers also makes the city feel like a city. Audio is also wonderful, and just listening to the city is worth just stopping and watching for a while.Combat is steadily improved and has more layers and possible courses. Guns are as bit overpowered now, and you don't get as easy a prompt as you used to to grab a human shield, but everything gradually stacks up your abilities. Doing combat well has a benefit of granting customization cash, rather than just grinding up the housing market and becoming a billionaire used to be. Upgrades to your cafe are also more than just go hear and spend money to get more money, but layer in more story. The only downsides are that the splinter cell esque "last position" make escaping a bit of a trial, and snipers have both perfect vision and apparently NV, as every rifleman on the map will see you at the first alert, and enemies can see you from the ground way too easily.The story for Arno is wonderful, and has to be experienced as giving away anything is too much. While Ubisoft is pulling a lot of miles from their psychedelic vision quest missions, its still awesome. Your(the players) story is very meh and papered on and includes quite a few bizzare and offputting moments, as I don't think I'd join a group of self described Assassins after a single video chat from my sofa, but as you do. There's not much that can be done with the starting setup which is actually rather cute, and once you're past the alright I'll buy that moment it becomes much more enjoyable.While the other characters are hit and miss, Arno and Elise are well developed and tastefully delivered. Their love story is not shoved in your face at every opportunity, but spread out and slowly built on, with side bars, love letters, and out of mission conversations. Its actually a romantic story set in place so gently and subtly its a treat to experience when an opportunity arises.Co-op currently has serious issues. While my connection is partly to blame I'm certain, within 5 minutes of play I hit a frame rate issue that was horrific, and I fell through the floor during an air assassination into oblivion. Also, all the missions from the first one star heist requires you to have completed the single player story, as you basically must have all of the major abilities (lockpicking/double air assassination/6 star equipment) to be at all effective or to get all the benefits so it feels greatly unbalanced. Initiates is also struggling along, and is something I'd been looking forward to since AC3. Uplay must be inundated, so I may have to reappraise after the system is up and running, but currently it is just awful. The Companion App is cute and adds a bit in terms of story but feels very half-baked and is full of synchronization glitches.Side missions are revamped and almost more fun than the Assassin side bars. The murder investigations are wonderfully done and actually make you both work and at least rub two brain cells together. The Nostradamus Disc clues are hard. I wanted hard back after how much fun the Animus gltiches were in Brotherhood, and this almost swings the pendulum a little far in the other direction. But they're well done and if you are attentive the layers of the onion can be peeled away. I do like that you'll get a prompt so if you're hopelessly lost you can still find your way.Theres very few nits. The chests are a bit weird, and they all but force you into the companion app. While I'm addicted to all things Assassins Creed, that's just wrong. Collectibles is still far too much of drinking from a fire hose, and being forced to clear the map of chests that're basically worthless after about a 1/3 of the way through the game for a single trophy is annoying. A few minor bugs at random moments in single player, but nothing game changing, though that is with the caveat that I apparently got a gold plated copy, as many, MANY others has had more glitches to the point that the whole game could be called a hot mess. I wish you could see open doors and windows with your eagle vision, as trying to get into some buildings is a scavenger hunt for the one open window.Overall, this is great. Wonderful story. Engaging and challenging combat, fun, cute, and tough side missions in equal measure, and a environment that is gorgeous enough to just sit and watch. Just give Ubi a few more weeks to try and get some multiplayer aspects of it to actually work. Otherwise this is a great display of what the PS4 is truly capable of.Dead Kings DLC: Dead Kings tacks on some more story following the end of the main storyline of Unity, and is really more blah of the same variety. There're a handful of nifty environments to explore, such as a massive crumbling cathedral, but many of the missions are beyond crazy hard if you're trying to get all of the bonus points. The story opening for it is underdone and lame. The underground environments are pretty well done, but they needed a better rationale for introducing a lantern rather than imply that Arno is afraid of bats and/or cockroaches. The guillotine guns are laughably terrible, and I've yet to see another person use them, munch less use them well. I'm not through DK story yet, so maybe theres a couple good puzzle quests, but the fuse has really fizzled out already for me. I still love how massive and open the city is and all of the single player magic, but they did really drop a lot of balls from previous incarnations. AC Initiates sputtered to life and promptly died again, so maybe this'll quietly get folded off. But given out of 11 games they've managed to do 8-9 of them to the 4-5 star level, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that this is mostly growing pains of handling a new level of software.While I plan to expand on this once the co-op mechanism has its major bugs ironed out along with AC Initiates, please comment why if you do not find this review useful as I'm not used to this many negative votes.

Ok, so let's put this up front: the issues this game launched with seem to have been patched out. I've been playing it for weeks and have not experienced any problems. Now to the review of the gameplay.First off, a little about my history with the AC franchise. I have been playing since the first one, and the only major one I skipped was the American Revolution one. My favorite is Black Flags, followed very closely by the AC II. I have played these on both the Xbox and the PlayStation.Story line:This is a good story. The plot links are there and the quests are varied. Following the murder of an important figure to you, the story moves you through the investigation to unravel the conspiracy. It's set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, and there is enough chaos in the streets that killing thugs barely attracts any attention.The only knock on story I have is that Arno, our main character, somehow already possesses the agility and training and needed to be an assassin. Prior to joining the guild, he's already parkour-ing his way around the city, etc. About the only thing he got from joining the guild was the hidden blade.Immersion:The graphics are gorgeous. The voice acting is stellar. And most important, the "out of history" portion - that part that reminds you that you're some nerd strapped to a machine in a lab - is kept to a minimum. I don't miss the "game company" part of Black Flag at all (while that was interesting at first, it was far less riveting than sailing my pirate ship and looting other ships). I haven't finished the game, but I've spent almost all of my time in the story-line thus far.Skills:Couple of new things here, but nothing major. As with every AC game, you earn them a little at a time, so you get pretty good at each one before you get the next skill. You also get some choices on each unlock tier.Online play:So this is the big one for this game - the first time you get to play mission modes with other people. Which means that you need to talk into your mic and hear what others have to say. The "social club" is part of your hideout, and it adds a nice element of feeling like you belong to a secret society of your own (a secret society of assassins within the assassin's guild, no less!). It's fun, but by no means a required portion of the game. Co-op missions are spread throughout Paris, but there is more to do in the game that is single player than co-op. FYI - you need a PSN or Xbox Live account to play online.Mechanics:Money comes fast, so you can buy your upgrades as you need them. Missions are rated based on difficulty as compared to the gear you have, so upgrade your gear to have a better chance of completing higher level missions. They give you multiple ways to achieve you assassinations, so you can tailor it to your play style.Face-to-face combat is standard - the usual block / roll and counter routine. They said they wanted to push us away from that type of game play this time around (as we're assassin's, not soldiers), but you can still get away with swash-buckling 6 guys at a time in many cases. One way that they encourage you not to linger, however, is that a lot more of the baddies in the group are willing to step back from the sword fight and shoot you with their guns, meaning you either better kill everyone quickly or start thinking about dropping your various grenades and disappearing. It only takes 2 or 3 bullets to kill you, and a long distance marksman can kill you with one shot.You can pick the different types of weapons that suit your play style and follow an upgrade path suited to that play style. Ditto for outfits that offer enhancements to various skills in your arsenal.Repetitiveness:This is always a question in the AC franchise, ever since the first. They do a good job of hiding that here, with the varied city districts and the adaption of the environment to the progression of the story. For example, I went into a mission once around a building where the streets were packed with throngs of people. At the conclusion of the mission, the building caught fire. Thereafter, going back to that spot revealed empty, quiet streets, and you only had to look a little up and down the plaza to see the roadblocks set up by French troops and the crowds of curious onlookers on the other side. It was a neat little trick, and I noticed it immediately because I had gotten used to the streets of Paris being a lot more chaotic than an organized military presence.The quests are varied, too, and even the ones that share a theme (e.g. "investigate a murder") are still varied enough in their details. You'll get hours and hours of game play here, and you'll enjoy it.Conclusion:Will this game rival Black Flags or AC II for me? I'm undecided, as yet. It's certainly excellent and certainly worth the price of admission. The scenery and city environment alone is the best it has ever been - the crowds, the setting - it just feels marvelously alive. Get it and enjoy it!