Description of new Assassins creed 3 Demo

**MrRaverX** Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:06 pm

Description of new Assassins creed 3 Demo (Not video)

(The information on the Demo is kinda scattered around everywhere so here it is put together)

When we first meet Connor Kenway, he's perched on a tree in the middle
of a thick, snow-covered forest. This is the Frontier; a vast area of
countryside that connects the game's two main cities, Boston and New
York. It's bigger than the entirety of Brotherhood's Rome, and densely
packed with trees, mountains, rivers, camps, and forts.

Developer Tommy François is controlling our hands-off demo - running
in real-time on PS3 - and he spins the camera around, showing off
Connor's hyper-detailed character model.
Ubisoft Montreal's costume design has always been impeccable, and
Assassin's Creed III is no different. Connor's military coat is pure
18th Century colonial chic, and colourful patterns on his bow and quiver
hint at his Native American ancestry. We also notice a flintlock pistol
tucked into a holster, and a tomahawk (shaped like the iconic Assassins
symbol) hanging from his belt.Connor begins to move through the forest,
and the animation is stunning. He leaps between trees effortlessly,
ducking under low-hanging branches, and edging through narrow gaps in
the foliage. To reach higher ground, he'll sometimes leap from a tree to
a nearby rock face and ****ber up. Ubisoft hired professional climbers
to make the animations as authentic as possible, and it shows

François drops from the trees briefly to show us the new snow effects.
Some areas are covered in a light powder that you can run through
without any problems, but when it gets deeper, your movement is
impaired. Connor slows down as he struggles through a waist-high drift,
carving a trail behind him. It isn't just for show, either; you'll be
able to follow footprints to hunt down assassination targets.WILD BEASTS

It's always quicker to travel through the trees - and safer. As Connor
treks through the snow, we hear an almighty roar. A black bear, twice
his size, rears up and flashes its claws. It's about to come crashing
down on Connor, but before it gets the chance, he flicks out his hidden
blade and plunges it into the beast's heart, killing it.
The Frontier is crawling with wildlife. Animals can be hunted and
harvested for resources, like meat and pelts. François made a point of
telling us that Ubisoft had come up with this idea long before it
appeared in Red Dead Redemption, and there are a few differences. Unlike
Rockstar's game, the value of materials is affected by how you kill
your prey. If you shoot a deer with a musket rifle, its pelt will be
damaged, and it'll lose some of its value. But if you use a blade to
perform a 'clean' kill, the skin will be worth a lot more.

With the bear dealt with, Connor continues through the forest. He
approaches a sheer cliff and begins to climb. The way he reaches for
outcrops and footholds to pull himself up looks impressively natural.
When we reach the top, we're treated to a dazzling vista that stretches
for miles. The view's made even more spectacular by the new, minimalist
HUD; the top of the screen's now entirely menu-free, while health and
ammo counts are incorporated into the mini-map and weapon icons
respectively, GTA-style.François assures us that everything we see can
be explored. In the distance we can make out a tall mountain, a winding
river, what looks like a small town, and an endless sea of trees. It
makes the rural sections of Assassin's Creed II look laughably tiny.

Suddenly, the quiet ambience of the forest is interrupted by the sound
of thundering drums and flutes. Below, a platoon of American soldiers
are making their way down a dirt road, led by a marching band. At the
back of the group, two soldiers pull a cart filled with hay - which can
only mean one thing in an Assassin's Creed game.
Connor skips from the top of the cliff onto a nearby tree and positions
himself above the convoy. When the cart passes, he dives into it.
François tells us that these new moving 'leaps of faith' might look
simple, but are incredibly difficult to program. Safely hidden in the
hay, the camera pulls back and we see that the soldiers are marching
towards the city of Boston. But just as we get a tantalising glimpse of
the enormous city, the screen fades to black.
CROWD CONTROL

Assassin's Creed III takes place between the years 1753 and 1783, and
the next part of our demo appears to be set several months after, or
before, our trip through the snowy forest. We're in Boston, and it's the
height of summer. This is our first glimpse of the AnvilNext engine's
new crowd tech, which allows up to 2,000 characters to appear on screen
at once. The city is teeming with life, and we're stunned by the way
NPCs interact with Connor, and each other.
A salesman walks alongside us, excitedly hawking his wares, before
giving up and wandering back to his stall. A dapper gentlemen saunters
past, spinning his cane and whistling, and bids us good day. A lady
drops a crate of apples, and a street urchin runs past and steals one.
An inquisitve dog barks at us. This all happens in real-time as you walk
through the city, and it's brilliantly immersive. The term 'living,
breathing world' is seriously overused by developers of open world
games, but in this case, it's warranted.Connor's journey is interrupted
when he stumbles into a checkpoint guarded by British soldiers. They
immediately recognise him, and enter alert mode. Rather than stay and
fight, Connor pushes through the guards and makes a run for it. He
sprints down a wide street, leaping over market stalls, swinging on tree
branches, and skipping across a moving horse and cart. He climbs a tall
tree and swings on a branch towards a building. The window shutters
swing open, and a woman shrieks in panic. Connor jumps through the
window, rushes through the woman's house, and emerges on the other side.
It's a thrilling, dynamic chase sequence, and from what we can tell,
totally unscripted.
François tells us that the streets of Boston are historically accurate,
but that some artistic liberties had to be taken for gameplay reasons.
When they realised that Boston's main streets were huge and wide (unlike
the winding streets of previous settings), they had to place trees in
the middle to give players a way of crossing them without dropping to
street level. When the chase is over, Connor climbs a church tower and
we see the city in its entirety. In the distance, black smoke fills the
sky; a reminder that we're in the midst of a brutal war.
WAR GAMES

After another fade to black, the final part of our demo begins. This
time we're at Bunker Hill in 1775, in the thick of one of the American
Revolution's most famous battles. Connor's mission is to assassinate a
British general, which would be easy if he wasn't in a camp protected by
2,000 musket-wielding soldiers. Of everything we've seen in the demo so
far, this is the most impressive, and the most unlike previous
Assassin's Creed games. The scale of the battle is dizzying, and you
really do feel like you're in the middle of a raging conflict.
Rather than skirt around the edges, Connor charges head-first into the
battle. As the British and the Americans fire their muskets back and
forth, he slips through the chaos, dodging cannon balls. He waits for
the British to fire, then pushes forward while they reload, which takes a
few seconds. In reality it took upwards of a minute to reload a musket,
but François says they had to shorten it to make the sequence more fun.
After a dangerous dash through the battlefield, Connor slips into the
forest surrounding the enemy camp.The detour into the forest is another
chance to show off AC3's fantastic looking animation as Connor ****bers
and swings to mount a tree branch. A group of British soldiers approach
and the next system we're given a glimpse of is the sequel's revamped
combat (Ubisoft hints the game's controls have been totally overhauled).
Connor aims and fires into the first soldier's neck with a new toy, the
Rope Dart, which does exactly what its name suggests. Grasping one end
of the rope our protagonist drops down from the tree branch, brutally
hoisting his target by the neck to hang him from his former perching
spot. Our man then shows off another combat addition by grabbing a
second soldier to hold him as a human shield - useful when armed guards
only have a single shot from their near-impossible-to-reload muskets.
Another addition we're told about - but now shown - is a new cover
system, including cover assassinations, and a redesigned weapon wheel
and only two face ****ons on screen (compared to four) hinting at
further changes.
Connor makes quick work of the remaining guards and approaches the enemy
camp. Whenever you move through foliage like shrubs or tall grass,
Connor automatically crouches. Stealth in general has been vastly
improved, and forest environments are full of opportunities to sneak.
Connor skulks through the undergrowth and come across our assassination
targe. He's on horseback in the middle of the camp, waving his sword and
ordering his troops around. Connor bursts out of the bushes, takes out
two guards with his tomahawk, and leaps towards him. We cut to a
slow-motion cinematic angle of him lunging at the startled general, face
twisted with anger, bloody tomahawk primed, and... that's it. There's a
final fade to black, and the demo ends.