Everyone’s favorite modern day assassin Desmond Miles is back and better than ever. After wandering through the memories of his assassin ancestors Altair and Ezio, Miles finds and acquires two out of the three “pieces of Eden,” ancient artifacts that, when assembled collectively, hold the key to altering the future and thus saving the Earth from the sun crashing into it on Dec. 21, 2012. To find the final piece of Eden, Desmond, with the help of his father and friends, accesses the memories of Ratonhnhakéton (later dubbed Connor), the game’s protagonist, who is a half-English, half-Mohawk assassin born in the midst of the American Revolution.

After losing his mother and fellow tribesmen to an ambush on their village by British soldiers, Connor dedicates his life to revenge and the lust for justice among the colonies. However, being an assassin isn’t as easy as one would think. Through a former assassin’s teachings, Connor learns that the path to being a true, full-fledged assassin takes unlimited courage, determination and conviction.

But of course, that’s not all it takes. An assassin also needs his own set of weapons designed especially for dealing with enemies. Because of Connor’s background as being of both Mohawk and English descent, his arsenal varies from bows to flintlock pistols, from the tomahawk axe to a colonial rapier sword, and anything and everything in between. There’s no shortage of pain to inflict on your enemies in “Assassin’s Creed III.” Besides taking out waves of enemies in campaign, the game’s second disc is completely multiplayer content and for the first time, hunting is also implemented into the game, giving players the true feeling of working for your kill.

Ubisoft has finally perfected the parkour gaming style that the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise has become so popular for, allowing players to swing from branches in a forest like Tarzan or jump across rooftops throughout Colonial America. The cinematic aspect of the franchise didn’t surface until “Revelations” but there’s plenty to drool over in “Assassin’s Creed III,” giving that sensational theatric feel that gamers long for these days. Combat has also gone through drastic improvements- enemy AI is smarter and enemies progressively grow stronger, but these do not take away from the franchise’s classic fluid fighting style that gives players unending satisfaction when they counter-kill an enemy in cinematic fashion. Literally almost everything you do in the game is pretty- from taking on squadrons of enemy soldiers to simply strolling the countryside while horseback- taking the fight to the enemy never looked so good and never was so much fun before.

On the contrary, “Assassin’s Creed III” in several ways does not live up to the hype that it was built upon. The game’s main storyline is weak in comparison to its predecessors, leaving the player with an unsatisfying ending to a potentially incredible game. Unlike most games, in the “Assassin’s Creed” titles, players take control of two characters- Desmond Miles and whichever assassin ancestor he is accessed to. The balance of gameplay between these two tends to lead more toward Connor, making the Desmond sequences seem ultimately pointless and a waste of time. Because the gameplay is built upon the parkour aspect, players will sometimes find themselves running up the corner of a building instead of going around it. Also, “Assassin’s Creed III” is considerably harder than its predecessors, which may not appeal to every gamer. Missions with time constraints in addition to the smarter and more challenging AI enemies will leave gamers with headaches and broken controllers. Beating this installment of the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise won’t be necessarily hard, per se, but it will definitely be tedious.

Overall, “Assassin’s Creed III” if anything is an ultimately satisfying addition to the series. Longtime fans will celebrate how visually pleasant the game is and how extravagantly it flows, resulting in wasting multiple hours at a time eliminating enemy soldiers or hunting bears and bobcats. Although beating the game will be a pain and ultimately end in disappointment, the variety of the game’s revolutionary multiplayer mode will surely make up for any time wasted.