Don't Call it a Review - Assassins Creed III: Liberation (Vita)

The console version of Assassin's Creed III is great. For the Vita version, Ubisoft decided to do something a lil' different. It's separate from Desmond's story, and while the phrase "portable spin off" brings with it nightmarish implications, this game does Assassin's Creed on a handheld better than I imagined.

So, yeah, the best way to sum this game up is "It's Assassin's Creed. On a handheld". As far as mechanics and gameplay are concerned, no corners were cut to shrink this baby down to Fun Sized. If you've played an Assassin's Creed game in the past, you know what to expect. Open world, lots of climbing, stabbing dudes in the face. It's all here.


In this game, you take the role of Aveline de Grandpré, a double whammy of firsts for protagonists in the series by virtue of being both black and a sexy lady.

Pictured: Aveline being both black and a sexy lady.

This actually comes into play in the game. One of the big differences between this game and its console cousins is the persona system. At (mostly) any time, you can switch between three distinct identities.

The Lady persona can charm her way through trouble and is less likely to attract the ire of guards. Charming a guard into following you whereupon you stab him and steal his loot is an experience I can't imagine ever losing its appeal. The drawback to this persona is the fact that due to her giant parachute dress, her mobility is quite limited.

 The Slave persona blends the easiest with crowds, and you can pretend to be working your way through heavily guarded areas. You can also incite riots in your fellow workers.

And of course there's the Assassin persona. This identity has all of the abilities you'd expect, and is the only one with full access to all weaponry. The drawback to this persona is it obviously attracts a lot of attention. City Ninjas tend to do that.

"Ohhh yeah, keep walking. I just like to watch."

Rather than trying to reproduce the same locations we've seen in the series before, this game takes the AC story into the Big Easy. New Orleans is a great location for this series, and the action moves into the alligator infested bayous as well.

The missions in this game work really well for portable play, usually taking no more than 10 minutes. And there appears to be a lot of side missions to take on and a lot of things to collect.

The multiplayer in this game is.....well....the less said about it the better.

Just stare at this picture. It's remarkably similar to the multiplayer experience in AC:L

So, the gameplay in this game is really good. Just what you'd expect from Assassin's Creed. Where it stumbles is in the technical side. The graphics in this game are incredible for a handheld system, but sometimes it seems it's just too much for the Vita to handle. The framerate spans from "This isn't too bad" to "Yes it is".

Also, although the sound design isn't bad, and the music is actually quite good, it's horribly compressed. It sounds like a recording of a recording of a recording.




All in all, this game is an achievement in portable gaming. I would have no problem comparing this game to the console ones. It's not "A pretty good approximation of Assassin's Creed", it is Assassin's Creed.