Poor Connor. You’d think that after Assassin’s Creed III’s roller coaster of drama (spoiler warning for the next two paragraphs, by the way) — witnessing his mother’s death, enduring an odd love-hate relationship with his absentee dad, trying to determine right from wrong in the midst of war — he’d get a break from his frontier soap-opera of a life.
Unfortunately for him in The Infamy, the first installment of the three-episode Tyranny of King Washington add-on pack, he gets anything but a breather. Instead, Ratonhnhaké:ton’s plunged into a chaotic alternate reality in which his mother has been alive all along, he never joined the Assassins or adopted the name Connor, and George Washington somehow got his hands on an Apple of Eden and has let its power go to his head. Predictably, our hero’s goal by the end of Infamy is to stop the despot from running a fledgling United States into the ground.
A new power, Wolf Cloak, spices up the AC III formula.And that ending is wonderfully classic Assassin’s Creed, involving the kind of mission that feels plucked straight out of ACII — you’ve got a clear target but can blend together stealth and murder as you please to take him down. It’s an especially delightful blast from the past due to the inclusion of a new power, the Wolf Cloak, which allows Ratonhnhaké:ton to become invisible for short bursts…but only to humans. So when you’re faced with a bunch of alert guard dogs and the mandate of remaining undetected, it takes some pondering to figure out the right mix of lures, skulking about, and death-dealing to even get started with your assassination task.
Getting to that fun section, though, is a bit of a slog. Early on, you’re given mindless, nearly scripted busywork like chasing after Bluecoats intent on lighting powder kegs, and overall, the first half of Infamy’s 2.5-hour journey is a jarring mix of rushed action and s-l-o-w activities, without the freedom of ACIII’s open world to balance it out. The story also meanders into mysticism cloaked as Native American traditions while deliberately obfuscating how Ratonhnhaké:ton even woke up in this crazy mirror universe, with no clear reason for that approach. Hopefully, the next episode can carry on the strength of Infamy’s closing mission — and fill us in on just what the heck is going on.
Your wolf pack can be summoned the way your Assassins could. Unfortunately, wild wolves haven’t gotten the message.PUBLISHER: Ubisoft • DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Montreal • ESRB: Mature • MULTIPLAYER: None • ACHIEVEMENTS: Routine • COST: 800 Microsoft Points ($10) • RELEASE DATE: February 19, 2013
+ Final mission nicely ties together stealth and murder in classic Assassin’s Creed fashion.
+ New power (invisibility) plus refreshed existing feature (calling on allies — this time, wolves) mix things up in a fun way.
- Uneven pacing; thin narrative gets confusing; a few bugs.
? Think we’ll see any Star Trek–actor cameos in this mirror universe?
