(Review by Robert Murphy)
We’ve finally gotten what we wished for boys and girls, the
first part of the “Assassin’s Creed 3” DLC for “The Tyranny of King Washington”
is available to own for “Assassin’s Creed” fans to enjoy. For those of you who
don’t know “The Tyranny of King Washington” is an episodic DLC that is to be
released in three parts, “The Infamy”, “The Betrayal” and “The Redemption”. For
now though we are only getting to sink our teeth into “The Infamy”, in which
Ratonhnhaké:ton or as many of you know him as Conner, our new assassin for
“Assassin’s Creed 3”, awakens from an unsettling dream to find that, despite
his efforts to deliver justice in the newly-founded United States of America, a
new king had been crowned, George Washington?! That’s right, in this "topsy
turvy" timeline George Washington is a corrupt and cruel man who has gone mad
with power and instead of becoming our first president he decides to rule as a
tyrannical king. Also in this world, Conner never receives his English name and
only known as Ratonhnhaké:ton never
become an assassin to begin with.
(Above:
Your wolf cloak in action)
Having never
learned the skills of the assassins and with a rampaging former president on
the loose Ratonhnhaké:ton must now learn a all new set of skills, this
time from his Native American ancestry. One new ability is the Wolf Cloak,
which allows Ratonhnhaké:ton to become invisible for short bursts but only to
humans and not those infuriating watch dogs, so while you’ll enjoy this new
ability mastering it will take some time but is insanely fun when you do. Another
new aspect introduced in the DLC is the ability to summon familiars, a group of
wolves to be exact *que evil grin*, this wolf pack appears just like your group
of assassins would and attack near by “Blue Coats”. Getting to these fun bits
takes some time however as “The Infamy” doesn’t feature the ability to freely
roam wherever you’d like, like in the game. The DLC is fairly scripted for the
most part as you pursue mindless missions to take out enemies attacking your
Native American brothers, also the story meanders into mysticism cloaked as
Native American traditions while deliberately obfuscating how Ratonhnhaké:ton
even woke up in this crazy mirror universe by incorporating key moments from
“Assassin’s Creed 3” into the story. For instance, an inn where Connor
confronts Charles Lee is now a burned-out husk of a building; this leads you to
figuring out more about how this alternate reality came about.
All in all “The Infamy” is a decent start to the three part series that “The Tyranny of King Washington” is set before us. Missions are nicely tied together with stealth and murder in classic “Assassin’s Creed” fashion with new powers like invisibility plus refreshed existing features, calling on allies which is now calling on wolves, mixes things up in a fun new way. However the beginning to this story is a bit slow going at the start and mind numbing but the game still offers the look and feel of “Assassin’s Creed” with a whole new upside down package.
Good:
-New skills and abilities
-Unique new “Assassin’s Creed”
world
-The lucid memory experiences
where you find the memories from your “real life” are fun and interesting
Bad:
-Slow and mind numbing missions
-Thin narrative that makes the
confusing situation you’re in even more confusing
Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10