Assassin's Creed: Rogue

Rogue is, putting it plainly, a lower-budget "spin-off" Assassin's Creed game meant to capitalize on the last-gen console market while Assassin's Creed: Unity makes its mark on next-gen (current-gen?) consoles. It's by and large a decent game that does nothing at all to expand the gameplay of Assassin's Creed, but does everything the previous games did pretty well—for the most part.


Story

The big "twist" in Rogue is that the protagonist, Shay Cormac, begins his story as an Assassin, but quickly switches sides and joins the Templars. It's an interesting idea, and it's nice that it was tried, but it comes off as slightly manufactured and odd.

In as simple and spoiler-free a way as possible, this is how the story progresses: Shay has a moral issue with the Assassins, leading him to betray them and flee the guild. He later meets the Templars, who he finds to be pretty nice folks all around. He then sets off on a long quest to kill all his old Assassin friends.

The problem with the story is that it hinges upon Shay's motivation, which is stupid. The conflict between Shay and the Assassins is based on confusion more than anything else. The Assassins barely even understand why Shay betrays and attacks them, and he doesn't know for sure that they're actually evil—at worst, they're somewhat ignorant. Both sides essentially just point fingers and declare the other evil without talking anything out.
Also, Shay joins the Templars for "moral reasons," but somehow misses the fact that the Templars he's working with are cruel murderers. A few Templars in Rogue seem to be legitimately good people, but others are characters we've seen be horrible villains in other games—yet somehow Shay just doesn't seem to notice all the evil. Shay doesn't come across as very smart—which may be intended by the story—but still, it becomes very hard to appreciate Shay's moral resolve when we know he's on the wrong side.

That said, there are still moments where the story is entertaining. It does a decent job of connecting Assassin's Creed III, IV, and Unity, creating an overall continuity that works pretty well. Seeing both the beginning of Unity and the ending of Rogue is a really cool experience.

The "modern-day" story in Rogue is completely pointless. I won't even go into it.


Visual Presentation

Graphics-wise, it looks near-identical to Black Flag, though it seems to run at a lower frame rate for much of the time. The same motion capture animation and voice acting is there at the same level of quality.

The art style is where Rogue's visuals suffer the most. Instead of the lush, colorful Caribbean, we're treated to colonial New England in Winter. Lots and lots of wooden houses, snow, and random icebergs. It's not all that pretty.


Music

The music is above average for a video game, but on the lower end of Assassin's Creed scores. After Black Flag's rousing main theme and sea shanties, this one just feels "there." Like Jack in the Box. But without clever commercials.


Gameplay

There is almost literally nothing in Rogue, on a mechanical level, that wasn't already in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. A few things are borrowed from other games in the AC series—like Brotherhood's ability to take over gang hideouts—but on the whole Rogue is basically Black Flag's gameplay set in the New England world of Assassin's Creed III.

In the end, Rogue doesn't even come close to living up to Black Flag's example, but it's not as abysmal as 3, either. One of the core ideas that made Black Flag work so well was the pirate theme. Edward Kenway was a likable roguish captain who didn't much care for being an Assassin unless it suited him at the time, almost encouraging players to have fun and explore rather than be bogged down by the story. On the other hand, Rogue's seafaring gameplay actually seems to contradict the story. Unlike Edward, Shay Cormac isn't a sailor. He only uses a boat to get from Point A to Point B, sometimes with sea battles in-between. Also unlike Edward, Shay is motivated purely by his desire to fight the Assassins, making all the side quests and collecting somewhat contradictory pursuits.


I realize that so far, my review has been almost entirely negative. I don't mean to say that this is a bad game by any means. It's a decent game for sure. The problem is that it's almost literally an inferior version of a better game.

Should you play Assassin's Creed: Rogue? If you're a completionist, yes. Otherwise, go play Black Flag instead. If you've already played Black Flag, play it a second time.

6/10

Super Mario 3D Land

The first 3D Mario game made originally for handheld systems, Super Mario 3D Land attempts to mix the classic level design of 2D Mario games with the open platforming of the 3D console Mario games. The result is mixed.

Good things out of the way first: the production values are great; exactly what you'd expect from a Nintendo first-party game. It runs flawlessly, and the polygon count is high enough that any and all visual flaws are below the threshold of what the 3DS can display. Which is to say that it looks as good as any 3DS game can look.

As said before, 3D Land is essentially a hybrid 2D/3D Mario game. Instead of focusing on exploration like Super Mario 64 and Sunshine, 3D Land's levels are obstacle courses leading to an end goal. This is somewhat reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out nearly as well this time.

The biggest problem with 3D Land is its slow, cramped control scheme. In keeping with 2D Mario titles, Mario can only run while the "run" button is held down. This doesn't really make sense on the 3DS, which has analog controls. Furthermore, the default run speed for Mario is painfully slow. Holding down the run button is a must for most situations. And therein lies another problem: even the faster run speed is too slow. It doesn't make sense. The courses have a time limit; there is very little reason to move slowly and every reason to run like crazy. It's especially frustrating because the other 3D Mario games (64, Sunshine, Galaxy 1 and 2) have set a precedent for how Mario moves and handles. 3D Land breaks that tradition and constantly makes the player feel like they're wading through molasses.

Another big problem with 3D Land is its incredibly low amount of content. 3D Land's environments are claustrophobic, feeling like miniature bite-size Mario levels instead of full-fledged ones. This is in sharp contrast to the original Super Mario Land on the GameBoy, which felt every bit as "big" as the Super Mario games on consoles. This is undoubtedly the "handheld version" of Mario, and that kinda sucks.

In the end, Super Mario 3D Land is still a good game. But it's not amazing, which means that it falls well below normal 3D Mario standards. You'd probably be better off replaying the DS version of Super Mario 64 than buying this game.

6/10