QUICKIE -- Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a historical action-adventure open world stealth video game developed and published by Ubisoft, initially as an exclusive title for PlayStation Vita. Sony announced the game at its press conference during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012, few days after first leaks about the game presented in Game Informer. It was released on October 30, 2012 alongside Assassin's Creed III, with which it can be linked. The game was re-released as Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows via the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam, respectively. It was later packed as part of "Assassin's Creed The Americas Collection" for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, along with Assassin's Creed III and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

The game is set between 1765 and 1777, and primarily features the series' first female protagonist, Aveline de Grandpré, an African-French Assassin around the end of the French and Indian War, in 18th century New Orleans.

The Plot: (FULL Spoilers)

In the modern day, Abstergo Entertainment, a subsidiary of Abstergo which is in charge of producing multimedia goods, releases their first major product, Liberation, a video game about the life of the Assassin Aveline de Grandpré. The game, however, is heavily censored, with any details regarding the Assassins - Templar war being omitted, in an attempt to portray the Assassins as the villainous force. As the player progresses through the game, they are greeted by messages from a group of hackers known as Erudito, giving them access to the full story hidden behind Abstergo's censoring attempts.

The main portion of the game takes place in Louisiana near the end of the French and Indian War, where France's defeat caused the city of New Orleans to be taken over by the Spanish government. The citizens were upset over the transition from French to Spanish control and Spain's new occupation within the city. However, in 1765, the French governor Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie made a negotiation with Templar Rafael Joaquín de Ferrer to stay as governor of New Orleans. This plot was later uncovered by Aveline, who infiltrated the governor's mansion and assassinated him.

Following this, de Ferrer made another deal with a man named Baptiste, who was hoping to defect from the Assassins to the Templar Order. Baptiste took on the identity of the recently deceased François Mackandal, as a ruse to attract followers to his cause. His plan was to poison New Orleans' nobles and take control of smuggling operations within the Louisiana Bayou, although his sole purpose was actually to force Agaté, Assassin and mentor to Aveline, out of hiding in the bayou. His plot failed however, as Aveline tracked Baptiste down, killed his followers and assassinated the false Mackandal.

In 1766, the Templar Antonio de Ulloa arrived in New Orleans, to serve as the Spanish governor. However, he left control of the area to French officials and allowed the French flag to remain over the city. Two years afterwards, he made strict trade restrictions and set up a covert slave-trading operation to transport slaves to a Templar worksite in Mexico, creating a rebellion among French officials and the citizens of New Orleans.

Agaté ordered Aveline to assassinate de Ulloa to eradicate Templar presence in New Orleans. Aveline ambushed de Ulloa's carriage and confronted the governor, who told her that slaves had been taken to Chichén Itzá. However, Aveline spared his life and let Ulloa leave the city, in return for a lens used to decode Templar documents and a map leading her to the Templar worksite in Chichén Itzá. Aveline's act of mercy destroyed any trust Agaté had in his student, as she had disobeyed his explicit orders.

Aveline disguised herself as a slave bound for Mexico and made her way to the Templar worksite at Chichén Itzá. Whilst there, she came across a defiant slave who mentioned that Jeanne, Aveline's mother, was stationed in Chichén Itzá. Aveline investigated thoroughly and uncovered a page from Jeanne's diary and a map that lead to an artifact located inside a cenote. Upon exploring this cave system, she came across an ancient chamber filled with ruins from the First Civilization, along with a fragment of the artifact she was searching for, known as the Prophecy Disk. Aveline then encountered de Ferrer, and killed him and his men. She was reunited with her mother, who warned her not to let the disk fall into Agaté's hands.

Two years later, Aveline returned to New Orleans to find that a man by the name of Vázquez was using Spanish soldiers to seize control of the bayou. She suspected him to be the head Templar of Louisiana, a.k.a. the Company Man, who de Ferrer had mentioned in Chichén Itzá. After retrieving the final piece of the Prophecy Disk in Chichén Itzá, Aveline went back to New Orleans once more to begin her quest in freeing slaves in the city. Her stepmother, Madeleine de L'Isle, became aware of her work and asked her to help a slave named George escape north. Whilst escorting him through the swamp, she met with her smuggler allies Élise Lafleur and Roussillon, helping them to deliver supplies to American Patriots who were fighting in the American Revolutionary War. Vázquez attempted to stop Aveline and her allies by sending Spanish soldiers their way, but Aveline defeated them and ensured George and the supplies reached their destination. After returning to the city, Aveline attended a governor's ball under disguise and managed to get close to Vázquez and assassinate him. However, to her surprise, Vázquez revealed that he was not the Company Man. Following this, Aveline learned that her father, who had been ill for some time, had died.

Sadly, Aveline and Connor only team up for a brief portion of the game and it's
over as quickly as it began. I can see why she doesn't pop up in his game at all.

In 1777, Aveline headed to the New York Frontier, and teamed up with the Assassin Connor to find a Templar officer who was working for the Company Man. She discovered the officer to be George, the same slave she had freed years before, and the Company Man was none other than Madeleine. After confronting her stepmother at her mansion, Aveline traveled to the bayou and met with Agaté to inform him of her discovery. Agaté was unable to accept his failure and believing that Aveline had sided with the Templars, attacked her. Aveline overpowered him and attempted to convince him to leave Louisiana for his own safety, but Agaté could not live with the humiliation and instead chose to dive to his death. On realizing this, Aveline quickly attempted to save him, but only managed to grasp his necklace which tore away from his neck.

Following her mentor's death, Aveline saw her situation as an opportunity to infiltrate the Templars and eradicate it from within. Upon returning to New Orleans, she made her way to the Saint Louis Cathedral and gave Madeleine Agaté's necklace to show her allegiance. Following this, she was inducted into the Templar Order by her stepmother. Aveline then gave her the two halves of the Prophecy Disk, which Madeleine placed on an altar and added another piece to hold the two fragments together. However, she could not make sense of the scrambled messages within. Aveline saw this as her moment to strike and reclaim the Prophecy Disk. She eliminated all the Templars inside the cathedral and assassinated Madeleine.

Now alone inside the cathedral, Aveline stepped up to the altar where the Prophecy Disk had been placed. She connected the locket she wore around her neck, which once belonged to her mother, to the artifact, causing it to display a holographic recording detailing a message from the time of the First Civilization. This message recounted the election of Eve as the leader of the rebellion during the Human-First Civilization War.

The Verdict:

I have been sitting on this review long enough and don't worry, I'm not going to make this longer than it needs to be. Keep in mind that this review is on the HD port of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation NOT the PlayStation Vita original.

To make a long story short, this game is literally Assassin's Creed III but with a few extra bells and whistles in terms of combat and how Aveline approaches each mission as she has the means to adopt 3 different identities throughout any point of the game, as long as you have the means of finding a "Changing Booth" to change clothes in. Aveline has the ability use what I'm dubbing the "Dress System" in this game, which allows her to adopt the guises of a assassin, slave, or a maiden.

Aveline's three personas for the game: (left to right) assassin, slave, and maiden.

This is a VERY unique concept, which offers Aveline multiple options to tackle assassinations and various objectives. Sadly, most story missions are bound to the player using just one of Aveline's identities for the duration of that mission. It would have been cool if you could swap identities on the fly but that was asking for a bit too much as this game is a mere HD port of the PlayStation Vita original.



At least they made an effort to make the graphics stand out with the console port.

With this port there's a few graphical hiccups with the visuals and a minor glitch here and there, but it's nowhere as bad as the original Assassin's Creed III's glitches and bugs were. If you want see and how how I felt about that game, I suggest going back to my Assassin's Creed III review here.

In terms of narrative, it's a rather condensed affair as it's still the same handheld adventure from the PlayStation Vita that it was originally designed for. You won't get all of the finer details unless you hunt down the six memory glitches (known as Citizen E) throughout the course of the game's chapters in Eagle Vision to unlock hidden cutscenes that Abstergo Entertainment has hidden from you.

Buy it, Rent it, or Don't Bother?

If you already own the PS Vita original, I wouldn't even bother, but if you're a fan of the franchise, it wouldn't hurt to give this downloadable title a fair shot when it's on sale on PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. Otherwise, I wouldn't pay that full price of $14.99 that normally goes for. If you can get it as part of the Americas Collection for Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, then definitely give this a shot.

At this point, you should know what to expect from the Assassin's Creed franchise. It's one of the most unique experiences in the franchise up to this point in the timeline (or order of games if you're playing them in chronological order of their release). If I may add, playing as a female protagonist is a welcome breath of fresh air in what is normally a male-oriented affair. I personally found it entertaining to see how a woman would handle the emotional hardships, burden, and responsibility of the life of being a part of the Assassins' order. And to say that this took place during Connor's time period was even more gratifying as I expressed in my Assassin's Creed III review that I felt that game's world was extremely lacking in terms of content to keep you engaged and willing to give a damn about that world outside the main campaign's constraints.

That being said, this game is a port of the PlayStation Vita original that was a mediocre port of the already glitch-filled Assassin's Creed III. The game is playable for the most part but not without a few hiccups here and there, but the improved visuals and better control layout make up for setting for the PS Vita version.