5. The Consistency
Bugs. Glitches. Sound Issues. Weak missions. Boring side quests. Creed 3 has become notorious for it's technical flaws, but under the surface the lack of polish can also be felt. I was surprised to see some very boring missions crop in AC3. Like 2, I expected every main story mission to be planned well in advance to utilise Connor's physical gifts and the player's reflexes and smarts. So when I was faced with the prospect of throwing boxes and boxes of tea overboard as part of an actual story mission.. I groaned. I actually groaned. Hell, even the naval sections were often more fun than the actual game missions. The thing that kept me going wasn't so much the gameplay, but Connor and Haytham's story, which was compelling enough to hold my interest right to the end. But the gameplay should always come first. Then there are the bugs. I won't go over all the technical issues AC3 has (they're well documented online). I've been stuck inside walls. I've fallen through earth. I've jittered and froze and I've even seen a character - mid cut scene - speak without moving his lips, as if by telepathy. I sure don't remember AC2 having a 10th of the problems this game has - and STILL has even after being patched all to hell. Twice! These things do add up, and you can't help feeling that somehow, some way, the game was a little rushed out of the gate. But how? They developed it over 5 years! There is some polish in the game ofcourse, especially graphically (the frontier looks amazing and the cut scenes look more life-like than ever) but when you compare that to the list of annoyances and bad decisions and lack of testing.. and when a game did it all and did it without much of a hitch - 5 years ago - something feels a little out of whack somewhere.