I am pursuing a man in a tricorner hat through the streets of colonial New York. In the top-left of the screen, Assassin’s Creed III instructs me to chase him. In smaller text just below it, there is a secondary objective: ‘do not shove or tackle anyone’. I turn sharply into an alleyway and barge past a woman, earning myself a red X on the mission log and losing my ‘full synchronisation’ bonus. I’m not sure why I want to be fully synchronised, but the completionist in me insists that I try again.

A few attempts later, I’ve figured out a system. Stop sprinting when the alleyways give out onto open streets, edge carefully around pedestrians, and continue. It’s ludicrous - why on Earth would I not shove someone, if the fate of a nation was at stake - but I’ve not incurred the red X, I’ve not lost my bonus. I chase the man and, as is tradition, wait for the cutscene where I catch him. It doesn’t come. We pass through the same fishmarket for the second time and I realise that we’ve done a lap of central New York. The game is waiting for me. Oh! I think. This is an assassination. I do those.

I can’t get close enough to use my hidden blades so I wait until we’re running down a clear alleyway, pull my flintlock, and fire. Desynchronised! Target was killed. Try again.

It takes another couple of tries before I figure out that the game wants me to catch him - tackle him, if you will. My objective is to give chase. My sub-objective is to not tackle anyone. The solution is to tackle someone. You may Google your own facepalm jpeg.

Assassin’s Creed III features the silliest and most self-defeating mission design in the the series’ history, and it’s a huge shame. When it isn’t directly hamstrung by constrained mission areas, flakey AI, and imprecise movement, it manages to steer you into the path of these flaws anyway with optional objectives that encourage you to game the system - and Assassin’s Creed III’s systems do not hold up well to gaming. When full sync bonuses were introduced in Brotherhood, they were designed to encourage creative use of the tools at your disposal. Here they more often tamp down your options, exposing the emptiness of the game underneath. You can ignore them, sure, but you can’t ignore the signal sent by that big red X.

Lafayette got a street in New York. Connor fights in every battle in the revolution and doesn't even get a bench.

There’s a lot more to an Assassin’s Creed game than its missions, but the fifth in the series drops the ball with such regularity that it resonates through the entire experience. A pervasive sense of frustration is the snare drum that accompanies Assassin’s Creed III on its march through the American revolution.

You undertake that march - for the most part - as Connor, a young assassin with a British father and a Native American mother. Connor’s quest to negotiate a future for his people against the backdrop of revolutionary war is well written and often well acted. The game’s treatment of issues of race, class, democracy and empire even manages to be insightful, and Ubisoft have no qualms about turning America’s founding mythology on its head. Characterisation is strong. Connor will get some flak simply for not being Ezio, but he comes into his own in the second half of the game. Assassin’s Creed III has a cracking villain, too, in a senior British Templar that the writers seem to like more than they do their ostensible lead.

The game suffers for a lack of female characters - the only real exception being Connor’s mother, who after a brief period of activity retreats from the stage to usher in the series’ next male protagonist. It’s a shame that the game does not do more, given how laudably it addresses themes of repression in other contexts.

There is also, of course, Desmond. Creed’s sci-fi metanarrative splutters to a stop, pulling together its various precursor races, ancient artifacts and cosmic threats for a conclusion with the dramatic impact of a wheezing cat finally sicking up all over the carpet. It’s not all bad: a handful of present-day missions let you see what Desmond’s time in the Animus has taught him, and Danny Wallace’s character has somehow metastasized from the human equivalent of Clippy from Microsoft Word into a likeable person with something to say about history.

"Why?!" "Why?!" "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!"

There’s a lot going on, then, and a lot to do. The new Animus bombards you with side-missions, collectibles and challenges, often without heed to what you’re doing or whether the tone will be ruined by the sudden notification that you’re in the top 50% in the world for whistling. Its three main explorable areas - Boston, New York, and the compressed frontier that links them - are liberally sprinkled with men to stab, lists to fill out, and every other form of open-world busywork you can think of.

"Oh wow, that goat really does yell like a man."

Crafting returns, expanded from Revelations’ bomb-making into something far larger and far harder to rationalise in the context of a game about a man who stabs people. Combining materials gathered through hunting and purchased from settlers in your homestead allows you to make a wide array of items for further crafting or trade - from barrels to booze, venison jerky and Franklin stoves. You can top up your supply of arrows and other consumables in this way, but it’s far quicker and not very much more expensive to just buy them. The system feels irrelevant and the cumbersome interface prevents it from simply being a breezy distraction. It’s one example of the many ways that Assassin’s Creed III manages to draw the player away from what is fun or meaningful. It’s like thrusting a pile of dried fruit and a bottle of Captain Morgan into the hands of a pilot and telling him that he’s allowed to make rum and raisin ice cream now. That’s nice, Assassin’s Creed III. Do you mind? I’m flying a plane.

Puppeteer-style controls are gone, replaced with traditional keybindings: interact, attack, secondary weapon and so on. The verisimilitude suggested by the old arms, legs and head system has been lost, but the new way is clearer and for the most part it’s a worthy change. The animation team deserve credit for the way that Connor moves through the environment - the seamless transitions from ground to tree-branch, from street to interior, from attack to canned takedown animation. Assassin’s Creed III manages to incorporate detail that other games would force into quick-time events into the flow of regular play, and as a result it’s substantially less compromised than you’d expect by its cinematic ambitions. If ‘less compromised than you’d expect’ sounds like guarded praise, then that’s because it is.

Counter-riposte combos are still the dominating force in combat, but what exactly constitutes a riposte has been diversified: firing lines mean grabbing an enemy to use as a shield, and heavy foes are better responded to with quick, aggressive jabs at their defences than waiting for them to attack. No more Ezio-style multi-man murder sprees spring from a single tap of the attack button. Hoisting the leader of a roaming patrol into the trees with a rope dart before slamming to the ground and taking out his friends with a few precisions strikes builds on the best of what the series is good at, which is self-contained, satisfying bursts of action. Moments like this are one of the key things that protect Assassin’s Creed III from outright mediocrity, but the problem is that they have to be staged by the player in the open world: the game’s main missions, which should be an opportunity to encourage creativity, more often actively punish it.

Tree-climbing feels and looks great.

The game looks substantially better on PC but otherwise this is an underwhelming port. Keyboard and mouse controls can’t be rebound and feel like an afterthought, so play it with a gamepad. The game ran at 30-50 fps on full settings on an Intel i5 760 system with 8Gb of RAM and a Radeon HD 6970. A few dips to 20 fps while in busy cities necessitated dialing back shadow quality a little. The game uses Ubisoft’s Uplay system, but a permanent internet connection isn’t required and all you lose for switching to offline mode is a few entirely missable unlockables.

The root of my issue with Assassin’s Creed III is this: that for as much stuff as it provides, the amount that it actually allows you to do feels thinner than ever. A vast amount of its content can be reduced to ‘get from A to B and push a button’, and stealth rarely strays from minigame territory: ‘try to stay in the circle’, ‘try to stay in the circle when it’s moving’. It’s about pattern recognition rather than creative thought, binary reactions with no room for life or dynamism. Ubisoft clearly hope that top-grade presentation will be enough to convince you that holding forward to make Connor walk between cutscenes is somehow satisfying - but it isn't. Players deserve the freedom to make up their own minds. Isn’t that what Assassin's Creed purports to be about?

Assassin’s Creed III’s basic mechanics fare much better in multiplayer, where human opponents - or allies, in the co-op Wolfpack assassination challenges - provide the depth and dynamism that the single-player game lacks. The other area where the game excels comes entirely from left field: naval combat.

Connor's dapper Captian's garb is only available outside of naval missions if you pre-ordered from specific retailers.

Connor moonlights as a privateer captain in a series of optional sea missions that thread in and out of the main plot. During these you take the helm of an Assassin frigate, barking orders at your men and steering your warship into broadsides and boarding actions. It’s absolutely spectacular - weather and ocean effects create a phenomenal sense of place, and control is just arcadey enough to be exciting while retaining the heft associated with 18th century naval warfare. What’s more, the mechanics are actually interesting, rewarding tactical thought in a way that sits flush with Assassin’s Creed’s broader historical mission statement. Why is Assassin’s Creed suddenly the best Master and Commander game ever made? I have no idea, but I’m glad that it is.

It is not that the rest of the game feels rushed. The production values on display hit the heights of what this industry is capable of. It’s quixotic, but often admirable for it. Assassin’s Creed III is not a half-assed game: but it is approximately half ass. Frequently during my twenty hours with it I’d find myself wishing that other body parts had played a bigger role. Brains, perhaps, for rethinking the necessity of crafting or trading or courier missions or Desmond. Hands for testing and determining that, no, it is not fun to be whacked with a great big red X for failing to abide by pedantic and inartfully implemented rules. Assassin's Creed III rises above mediocrity by virtue of its ambition, its writing, and the set-piece moments where its best ideas form ranks and push. It's the sequel that proves that a revolutionary rethink is needed, but not the sequel that pulls it off.

Ubisoft have perched themselves on the top of a tall building, hoping to scan for clues as to the direction to take the inevitable next entry in the Assassin's Creed series. TGL have posted a series of screenshots of a survey sent out by the company, hinting at possible features that may be introduced.

The most interesting avenue they're exploring is a drop-in co-op mode, designed to let a friend help out at any time during the campaign. The site also reports (although doesn't have screengrabs of) questions probing players' interest in a second title feature AC3's lead Connor (spinning out his frontier adventures into a Brotherhood style meta-franchise), and the continued inclusion of mopey bland-face Desmond.

Does co-op Assassin action appeal? Tying it to the single player campaign sounds like a curious plan. While it'd be nice to muck about in the series' parkour playgrounds, I can only imagine my dogged insistence on completing every mission as stealthily as possible would just infuriate any potential playmate.

Thanks Kotaku.

Console players will get their paws on Assassin's Creed 3 next week. We'll have to wait until November 20 in the US and November 23 in Europe, sadly, but you can absorb a 90 second montage of the action courtesy of the launch trailer, which features fighting on the high seas, some great big battle scenes, a bit of tragic back story and one particularly cruel groin kick.

Find out whether your rig will run AC3 with the help of these system requirements and get a sense for how the sequel's shaping up with an account of some adventures in the wilderness in our Assassin's Creed 3 hands-on.

An analysis of the Windows 8 app certification requirements by programmer and tech blogger Casey Muratori suggests that games with a rating over PEGI 16 or ESRB Mature will not be allowed on the Windows 8 storefront.

This means we won't be seeing many of the current crop of games on the store, or, given the proliferation of rating-baiting neck-stabbing seen at E3, many of next year's either - not unless publisher's are willing to heavily sanitise their content.

The guidelines are pretty explicit about creating a walled-garden within Microsoft's hitherto anything-goes OS. As section 6.2 of the certificaiton requirements state: "Your app must not contain adult content, and metadata must be appropriate for everyone. Apps with a rating over PEGI 16, ESRB MATURE, or that contain content that would warrant such a rating, are not allowed."

As Kotaku pointed out, this might not be such a problem in the US, where relatively few games receive a mature rating, but it will be very significant in Europe, where games such as Dishonored, Skyrim, Sleeping Dogs, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty all fall foul of the restriction.

Of course, you'll still be able to buy and install these games on the OS - you just won't be able to get them from the official Windows storefront. So is this a problem? Perhaps - games that don't make the cut won't be able to make use of Windows 8's bespoke features, and by bifurcating the platform Microsoft risks fragmenting the PC gaming marketplace. If games are rated as mature in one location and not in another, will that create stark regional differences? And what's more, from a creative perspective, it may force developers to censor themselves in an attempt to reach that wider audience.

It's a curious direction to take for a platform which prides itself on being open, and the reaction among devs is sure to echo the fears already annunciated by the likes of Gabe Newell, Blizzard's Rob Pardo, Notch and others.

In interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Stephanie Perotti, Ubisoft’s worldwide director for online games, has said that the company has decided to remove the need for a permanent connection to play its PC titles.

In fact, she claims the decision was made way back in June, after which point Ubi’s singleplayer games have only required a one-time activation upon install.

Ubisoft’s approach to DRM has been widely lambasted by gamers, partly because of the inconvenience for the consumer, but mostly because it often didn’t seem to work, dropping connection to the server mid-game, booting you out and erasing progress. And now, finally, it seems Ubisoft have heeded this wail of despair, with Perotti explicitly confirming that the singleplayer component of Assassin’s Creed 3 will not require any online connection.

She also suggests Ubisoft will be doing more to get their games onto PC quicker - so good news all round. We’ve got a man in the field, chinwagging with Ubi bigwigs as we speak, so we’ll be bringing you more news on Ubisoft’s plans for PC, and specifically their intentions with uPlay, very soon.

Assassin's Creed 3 isn't all about the new setting and locations, it also contains many new ways to hit people. Hatchets, bayonets and rope darts are a few of the more brutal tools at Connor's disposal. Capturing those kill moves takes a lot of time, effort, and serious stuntmen men in ball suits. The latest Assassin's Creed 3 gives us a look at the processes that go into realising all that on-screen violence, and contains a few tips for British troops from historians.

'Don't walk down open roads in bright red suits' being the soundest pearl of wisdom of the lot. Watch Connor break people in ways you couldn't imagine in the trailer below.

The latest Assassin's Creed 3 trailer is framed as an Animus advert created by the ever-friendly but obviously evil Templar front, Abstergo Industries. Here they show off a few new Assassin's Creed 3 multiplayer modes, including "Domination," a team-based, four vs. four point capture contest, and "Wolfpack," which sadly isn't about a gang of wolves hunting lone assassins through the snowy wastes of early America. It's a co-op mode that has you hunting AI targets against the clock. Every successful kill lets you kill again. See? Abstergo: evil.

An improved unlock system has also been demonstrated, showing how players who earn accolades and complete challenges can earn bonus experience towards further rewards, and seems to include a system that lets you unlock adverts for future updates. Woo?

Assassin's Creed 3 launches on PC on November 20 in the US and November 23 in the UK.

Live action trailers are all the rage now aren't they? Yesterday there was the Rome 2 announcement trailer and now CVG have spotted this one for Assassin's Creed 3. The two are so similar it's almost like the cast of the Rome trailer ran behind the scenes and changed outfits in between the two.

I'm not entirely sure why live action trailers are suddenly so popular, since they don't seem to convey much about the game. For instance, this Assassin's Creed 3 trailer informs me that the primary cause of the American Revolution was that people really weren't happy with all that slow motion stuff happening behind them. I'm also not entire sure a schoolkid not wanting to learn the history of a country they'll never visit is the best foundation for a revolution, or even a very good education system.

Still, it certainly looks very classy, although I can't help but be reminded of the Assassin's Creed Lineage videos they made for Assassin's Creed 2, which were far better.

If you'd rather see a trailer with actual gameplay, check out the Assassin's Creed 3 E3 trailer

Ubisoft have released a new trailer for Assassin's Creed for US Independence Day. You might think it features a curious lack of assassins, as protagonist Connor Kenway appears only at the very end, but you'd be wrong. In reality, Connor actually appears in every frame, you just can't see him, because he's so damn stealthy. If you look carefully at 0.10 you can see he disguises himself as a rank and file soldier, while at 0.30 he impersonates a dead body and at 0.26 you can just about make him out hiding in a man's hat.

Connor's sneakiness may be impressive, but it's difficult to see how well it will serve him in the large battles depicted here. It is very hard to assassinate someone when hundreds of men are firing guns at each other. For a better idea of how this problem might be approached, check out the Assassin's Creed 3 E3 trailer

Ubisoft are having a sale on Steam this weekend, with 33% off the vast majority of games in their catalogue. There are also daily deals - until 6pm GMT tonight you can get the Ghost Recon Complete Pack, including every game up to GRAW 2, for £6.24/$7.49.

See below for other highlights and links to our reviews.
Excellent platformer Rayman Origins for £13.39/$20.09.
Futuristic city-building sim Anno 2070 for £23.44/$33.49
Driver: San Francisco for £13.39/$20.09.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations for £20.09/$26.79
Might & Magic Heroes VI for £23.44/$33.49
 
Check out the Ubisoft publisher page for the full list. Anything catch your eye?