Video Game Review: Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (PS Vita)

I'd like to clear a couple of things up before going into this review. Firstly, it's a game that runs parallel in some sense with Assassin's Creed III and is not the next game in the main series (even though it has the 3 on it). Secondly, this will be the only review I do of a spin off(ish) AC game as it's unlikely that I'll get a chance to play the other spin offs and judging by the way the gaming world is going, it's likely that I never will. That aside, let's get on with the review:

Story

Unlike the main games, this game is what Abstergo call, a "product", meaning that it's used to show part the century old Assassin and Templar war. The story takes place between 1765 and 1780 during the end of the French and Indian war and eventually leading up to the middle of the American Revolution. We follow the story of the franchise's first female protagonist named Aveline de Grandpre, a female assassin of French and African descent who gets recruited into the Assassin Brotherhood by her mentor, an escaped slave called Agate. She joins the brotherhood when at a very young age, gets separated from her freed slave mother. Like with all Assassin's Aveline's job is to stab Templars and that's as far as the story goes without spoilers. The story is one of the game's major flaws in that it doesn't go in depth with the protagonist's story like it does in the main games. Despite this however, it's good that we finally have a female protagonist for a change. 7/10

Gameplay

As far as gameplay goes, it's just your average Assassin's Creed experience. You get the tools to take out your targets, you have areas and ways to make you incognito, you have viewpoints to sync with, you have shops to buy goods from and you'll probably know the rest if your a fan of the franchise like me. In addition to this, the game uses the same engine used in AC3 so if you've played or are continuing to play that game like me, the gameplay will be the same in some sense. The new stuff in here is the ability to change into different personas via a outside wardrobe so you don't get to wear that assassin outfit all the time, and the use of the Vita's features such as the front and rear touch screens and the rear camera. Comparing this to AC3, this is just your average AC game with all the AC gameplay that you'd expect. 8/10

Graphics

The graphics by Vita standards, are just OK. You get to explore New Orleans, The Gulf of Mexico and The Bayou (which is Liberation's equivalent of AC3's Frontier) which are filled with detailed buildings, trees and in the case of the Bayou, swamps. It goes to say that the graphics are as good as Uncharted: Golden Abyss which is a good thing as it makes the game better than what it is. For the most part, the graphics are OK. Its not the best I've seen on Vita, but its still worth looking. 7/10

So overall, it's an average AC experience with the only difference being the setting and of course, the protagonist. I'd doubt that there will be a sequel, but you never know. 8/10