There can be no doubt that many of us loved Assassins Creed 3 and as with any port, especially with Nintendo’s history, I approached the Wii U version with a certain amount of trepidation unrelated to the game itself and more to the anxiety I felt that the game pad would disappoint. In the short time I’ve known
it I’ve come to love the Wii U and didn’t want to see it fail. Luckily for me that’s not the case, and here’s why. I’ve never made any secret that I was not a fan of the Assassins Creed franchise after Assassins Creed 2 - somehow I managed to lose momentum after that, and could never maintain my interest in the story. Assassins Creed 3 however, renewed both my interest in the storyline as well as in the gameplay where, despite its niggling bugs, it managed to make huge strides forward. The gameplay (across platforms) is innovative, the story is gripping, the graphics are incredibly pretty, and overall the game scores top marks for being one of the better releases of 2012’ even with the small complaints that accompanied the reviews.
So how does the Wii U version fare against the others? Assassins Creed 3 on the Wii U is Assassins Creed 3. Period. With some additional if not entirely innovative features thrown in. There is not a feature missing, and Ubisoft appear to have made every effort to ensure an equal experience across multiple platforms, not skimping on Nintendo’s new baby as other developers may have done.
It’s not just the single player experience that matches up either – from what I can see multiplayer is also exactly the same although granted I have heard reports of empty servers, but the capability is fully functional nonetheless. And then there are the Wii U exclusive features, designed specifically to benefit the game pad.
The map on the game pad makes searching for missions one heck of a lot easier. Switching between inventory items is also improved on the Wii U as you can whistle for your horse without having to change up any of Connor’s weapon slots, a huge bonus if you’re like me and don’t like fiddling around with weapons all the time. The menu interface on the game pad is also intuitive and the flow between the touchscreen and the concept of the Animus is flawless.
It does have its problems mind you, which include some somewhat weird looking textures at times and a few
additional bugs here and there, but on the whole the game is almost indiscernible from its “big boy” console brothers. The major noticeable difference is the fact that in more demanding areas the frame rate drops a bit, something that will have purists up in arms, and is indeed a mild irritation, but nothing that will bother most people too much. Cut scenes also occasionally suffer from this malady and I hope that these are merely teething issues for the console. Honestly I feel that Ubisoft could have made better use of the game pad, but this seems to be a common criticism of mine for these initial cross platform release titles. It appears to only be titles that have been designed specifically for the Wii U that are taking huge strides forward in this department and as such I don’t feel I can be too critical here. The fact that I actually enjoyed playing Assassins Creed 3 on this console to me demonstrates that while it might not be perfect, there is no real difference between versions of the game.
Pippa Tshabalala
Publisher: Ubisoft
Distributer: Megarom
