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Assassin's Creed III (PC) Review

Jonathan_Leack By:
Jonathan_Leack
11/30/12
PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
EMAIL TO A FRIEND
GENRE Action 
PLAYERS 1- 8 
PUBLISHER Ubisoft 
DEVELOPER Ubisoft 
RELEASE DATE  
M What do these ratings mean?

That’s a nice ruffled shirt, but mine looks even more realistic.


Developers have pushed the hardware of last-generation consoles to the limit. Exhibit A: Assassin’s Creed III. A month ago Ubisoft delivered an absolutely stunning representation of 18th century America, but not all was perfect. Aging hardware, rough shadows, and wild framerate drops kept it from being the graphical firework of 2012. But this is exactly the kind of situation that gaming PCs live foran opportunity to show what modern hardware and technology is all about. Does Assassin’s Creed III on the PC do the game justice?

This review is based solely on the adjustments and additions found in the PC version of Assassin’s Creed III. For a full write-up focused on the gameplay, content, and plot aspects of the title, be sure to check out Daniel Bischoff’s detailed review.



The fast-paced gameplay experience of Assassin’s Creed III for PC isn’t a radical departure from the other versions. Sure, you can decide between playing with a mouse and keyboard or utilizing a gamepad of your choosing, but everything else has gone completely untouched. Guiding Connor, the protagonist, through Boston’s tight alleys and dense population with a mouse is surprisingly effective, so you might not be as quick to plug in a controller as with other action-adventure titles.

The first thing you’re likely to do after watching the introduction is tweak your graphical settings, but you’ll quickly find that there isn’t much to toy around with. You can change the environment, texture, anti-aliasing, and shadow quality, but important values such as field of view are locked. That’s four more than the console versions had, but it leaves very little room for adjustment on PCs that aren’t up to snuff.

Thankfully, it’s easy to forget about the limited settings after you see how gorgeous the game looks. Higher anti-aliasing multipliers wipe almost all existence of jagged edges from the screen. Shaders and shadows are enriched with fine detail and create photo-like contrasts. From the bustling of citizens roaming the city streets to ships docked on the cold waters of the Atlantic, this is hands-down the best virtual representation of the period that the world has ever seen.

What sets the PC version apart from its close console relatives is its use of tessellation, ambient occlusion, and high-resolution textures. When playing on high, the density and characteristics of environmental objects are extremely lifelike. Never has it been more fun to run around in the snow, and you might find yourself slowly walking through the frontier admiring subtle details. Texture fidelity at higher settings is around quadruple what was seen in the other versions, and that makes itself abundantly clear during the game’s eye-popping cutscenes that drive its narrative.



However, toasters and calculators need not apply. Assassin’s Creed III on PC devours every bit of juice your rig can muster. The game tends to ignore some of your GPU’s bandwidth in an effort to make your CPU show what it's capable of. The game is particularly heavy on the first core and doesn’t do well in spreading load across multiple threads. Unsurprisingly, Intel has an edge in performance with even the higher-end AMD CPUs struggling on higher settings.

There are a few additional challenges for those who seek the safe-haven of the modern PC. For one, Boston—one of the game’s major areas—has the same framerate problems that affected the other versions. You can expect your FPS to drop near your baseline whenever in the city, especially when navigating its complex roof structures. You might also encounter some driver issues such as snow flickering. But don’t fret—these issues have been noted publically by Ubisoft and a patch is on the way.

The PC version of Assassin’s Creed III has been injected with eye-popping enhancements that bring its compelling story to life. It’s like personally participating in the American Revolution without the consequences of death. The ticket price of traveling back to the fascinating period of America’s battle for independence, and the fictional story that Ubisoft Montpellier has layered within it, is just a copy of Assassin’s Creed III and a high-end PC. Just remember that you’ll have to leave your social life behind.

Copy provided by publisher.
Assassin's Creed III (PC)
fullfullfullfullfull
  • The original captivating experience…
  • With significantly better visuals
  • Added realism enhances narrative experience
  • Narrow range of settings
  • So if your PC isn’t high-end, then don’t bother
  • Minor performance bugs
Reviews by other members
No member reviews for the game.


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Comments
  • xavier_2000_ie
    xavier_2000_ie

    Joined: Jun 2007
    Posted: Nov 30th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
    any site u can use to evaluate your pc for game running?
  • Jonathan_Leack
    Jonathan_Leack

    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Nov 30th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
    Forget that. Post your specs here or on our forums and we'll help you out. :)
  • 213EDD
    213EDD

    Joined: Sep 2007
    Posted: Nov 30th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
    systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

    because **** the forums
  • WILLS_COOL_MODE
    WILLS_COOL_MODE

    Joined: Oct 2010
    Posted: Nov 30th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
    That site is pretty much garbage. Expect to get wildly inaccurate readings.
  • WILLS_COOL_MODE
    WILLS_COOL_MODE

    Joined: Oct 2010
    Posted: Nov 30th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
    I really wasn't expecting this considering from what I've seen of my brother playing on his 360, AC3 is one of the worst looking games I've seen this generation.

    Probably won't be picking it up due to lack of interest, but it's at least cool they took advantage of the PC capabilities.
  • Jonathan_Leack
    Jonathan_Leack

    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Nov 30th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
    What in the...

    my mind... is BLOWN!
  • xavier_2000_ie
    xavier_2000_ie

    Joined: Jun 2007
    Posted: Dec 1st, 2012 at 11:35 am
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
    8gig Ram
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
    Windows 7 64 bit

    no idea if you need more info. got a mate to build it for me. know nothing about hardware
  • Jonathan_Leack
    Jonathan_Leack

    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Feb 21st, 2013 at 1:39 pm
    That's almost exactly like my computer and I was able to run it no high settings without any issues.

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