Assassin’s Creed Revelations

The Assassin’s Creed series has become one of the most popular gaming franchises in history. It was a relatively bold move on the part of Ubisoft to create a totally new game with a different setting, style, and game play when Assassin’s Creed first came out in 2007. The first game takes place during the third Crusades, near the end of the twelfth… century CE (circa 1190 CE). After several iterations of the game, including the fantastic Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, 2011 saw the release of Assassin’s Creed Revelations. Since the Assassin’s Creed II and the introduction of the debonair and lethal Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the subsequent games in the series have seen a steady progress of Ezio’s character culminating in the riveting ‘finale’ of his story in Assassin’s Creed Revelations. Part mythology, part history, Assassin’s Creed Revelations is a fascinating story woven around splendid action, gameplay, and graphics, especially on the PC. Thankfully, the people at Ubisoft decided to add NVidia Surround/AMD Eyefinity support to the game in an update and we at ThirtyIR couldn’t be more thrilled! We played Assassin’s Creed Revelations at 5160×2560 with all settings maxed out, including 8xAA and also added an injectAA method called SweetFX! The results speak for themselves in terms of the beauty of the game. Constantinople, or rather, Istanbul, has never looked better!

Gameplay

Assassin’s Creed is a game that is best played using a controller. We know, blasphemy! Yet, games like these require constant use of various buttons simultaneously and it is most comfortable to use an Xbox 360 Controller for the PC. Once plugged in and the driver(s) installed, it is simply a matter of selecting the controller as the “device” in the Options menu at the start of the game. At Thirty Inch Reviews, we found that the Options menu, especially for the Graphics, was very intuitively designed and simple to navigate. It is quite amazing how many companies overlook this seemingly simple aspect of gaming. Menu design and ease of use is paramount to the overall “feel” of the game. Assassin’s Creed Revelations makes it so simple even a caveman can do it! Of course, being the mad doctors we are at Thirty Inch Reviews, we turned up ALL the settings to their maximum level including 8xMSAA. This, unfortunately, was not the best form of using anti-aliasing for this particular game. We will touch upon this shortly.

The Single-Player campaign in Assassin’s Creed Revelations is the real star. It is, after all, an action-adventure game that is more focused on platforming, level-design, story, and artwork rather than combat and mechanics. Like its predecessors, Assassin’s Creed Revelations has brilliant platforming that enables Ezio to glide from rooftop to rooftop and scale up steep walls with little effort. Each mission follows a similar pattern to the previous games where Ezio tracks, follows, fights, and assassinates people with a plethora of weapons at his disposal. This time of course, Ezio has his trusty “hook-blade” that helps him climb higher faster and swing across rooftops on a rope! Combat is improved in this iteration of Assassin’s Creed since Ezio can use his hookblade to vault over his enemies and trip up unsuspecting pedestrians (we all wanted to do that right?). The most breathtaking aspect of Assassin’s Creed Revelations is the level-design; specifically Constantinople in the late 15th and early 16th centuries CE. The city has been extensively designed by Ubisoft with several prominent landmarks such as the Hagia Sophia making a big presence in the game. We found ourselves just wandering the city and exploring the rooftops both during the day and at night. Players can choose to engage in a variety of side quests and of course, help citizens in distress only to conscript them into the Assassin fold and send them off to far away places such as Damascus and Jerusalem to take care of business for you. Constantinople itself can be renovated like the previous games where tailors, banks, and blacksmiths can help you get the gear you need to kick some ass. This time around, you can actually make “bombs”. Yes, bombs! From using three different gun powders (Indian, Arabic, and British) to using several different encasings (fuse shell, stick pouch etc.) to using lamb’s blood to shrapnel and datura powder to incapacitate, suffocate, and deafen your foes in the game.

Watch Ezio climb high in an abandoned tomb and take out a series of guards while gliding through the rooftops of Istanbul!

5160×2560

Our Uber Rig went under the knife about a month ago and we have upgraded several parts to our, and we’re sure, your delight! After enjoying the EVGA GTX-580 Classified 3GB GPUs in 4-Way SLI, we figured even 3GB of VRAM was insufficient at the resolution we use (8100×1600 or 5160×2560). Hence, we upgraded the GPUs to the EVGA GTX-680 Classified 4GB in 4-Way SLI. Assassin’s Creed Revelations, at 5160×2560 with all the settings maxed out plays extremely smoothly with no stuttering, flickering, or slow-down at all. On average, we were seeing framerates of about 75FPS and sometimes as high as 100FPS! This was with 8xMSAA turned on. To make the game really stand out, we used an SMAA injector known as “SweetFX’ developed by a guy who has created profiles for systems that are in various ranges (low, medium, high, and ultra). Naturally, we chose the “ULTRA” preset and turned the in-game anti-aliasing down to 4xMSAA while all the other settings were left untouched (maximum settings used). With the SMAA injector, we saw framerates around 60FPS on average.

Although the developers at Ubisoft made Assassin’s Creed Revelations a DX9 title (actually, left it as a DX9 game since it was ported from consoles), the game looks absolutely gorgeous in NVidia Surround and plays really well. Using an Xbox 360 Controller, the PC version of Assassin’s Creed Revelations is an absolute “must-have” for any gaming enthusiast. With such a great storyline, animation, graphics, and gameplay, this title really makes having high-end hardware worth it. This is why we build rigs that non-enthusiasts look at us with curiosity and ask us the same belabored question, “Why spend so much money on a computer when you can just buy an Xbox 360 or PS3?” Only if they played these games on the Uber Rig!

Conclusion:

Assassin’s Creed Revelations is one of the best games in the world, hands down! Part of a large gaming franchise created in 2007, AC Revelations continues in the tradition of strong story, gameplay, and platforming elements with improved combat and missions. The main question for most gamers is whether these types of games are better played on a console. The answer is an unequivocal “NO”. As PC gaming enthusiasts, we at Thirty Inch Reviews recommend Assassin’s Creed Revelations on the PC mainly because of the improved graphics and immersive experience overall. Optimized for Surround/Eyefinity, the folks over at Ubisoft have created an awesome experience for fans of the Assassin’s Creed franchise!

Verdict:

Gallery:

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