My gallery doesn't show it, but I am.. or at least.. Used to be a massive Assassin's creed dork. It all began when I picked up AC1 for five bucks during a steam sale.. A fun, if buggy adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed to the point where I pretty much 100%'d it on my first play-through. Found out shortly after that a second was in the works and due to launch much later that year, and so began an obsession that would carry me on for a year and a half tops.

Where Assassin's Creed 1 dared to step outside of the comfort zone of brown-bloomed-waist-high-ledges-corridor-shooters and stereotypical adventure games (those three years really weren't that exciting. I seriously cannot remember a single franchise or game I was excited about at all during that period), Assassin's Creed 2 said 'Hold my beer, watch this' and did everything AC1 did, but better, with more flash, while adding even more to the first unique gaming recipie we'd seen in years. AC2 quickly climbed the ladder to become one of the greatest games I've ever played (And trust me, i've played alot, both Indies and AAA titles alike). To this day, AC2 holds a special place in my heart.

Naturally I was excited about Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. At that point I was certainly hoping the series would let us get more hands-on time with Desmond and while we got some, it wasn't exactly the fix I was looking for at all... Plus we were playing Ezio. Again. Don't get me wrong. I love our favorite Italian Stallion. Its just I felt they ended his story quite nicely in AC2. Replaying Ezio in Brotherhood was like watching Schwarzenegger coming out of retirement to do the Expendables: a rinse and repeat of the first time around, but a lot more painful to watch. What Brotherhood lacked in compelling narrative and engaging character development, it made up for with the addition of new game play features- a tradition it followed faithfully to its predecessor, AC2. One of the most upsetting things about Brotherhood's announcement though was the fact that they centered around Facebook for their advertising.

I get it, Facebook is used by an obnoxiously big number of people all over the globe, but I for one can't stand the privacy-invading time-wasting piece of shit website. But, me being the ever loyal fan of Assassin's Creed (I even had my AC tattoo by this time), I decided.. Hey, i'll finally take it up the ass and get a Facebook account. So I did. but I only logged onto it from my laptop, Lopez because guess what, I could afford to wipe my HD and re-install windows without a care in the world. Its just a gaming/software laptop after all. However my interest in following news about Brotherhood waned rapidly as I realized that Ubisoft had switched almost exclusively to using Facebook for all its advertising and community involvement, rather than.. oh yaknow, hiring a web developer to make them a fucking WEBSITE that had absolutely nothing to do with Failbook. But whatever. Who am I to tell them how to do their jobs. I bought Brotherhood like any self respecting fan and played the shit out of it. I was even part of the Multiplayer Closed Beta (Which was fun, but.. entirely too easy. even at level 2, I was out-killing the devs and all the higher level players because they all ran around like a bunch of fucking mindless chickens with their heads cut off.) It wasn't uncommon for me to end a match with more than twice as many points as every other player in the round. I was earning between 700-1000 points a kill, and when I'd come out with 15-20 kills.. Well I got bored very quickly.

Barely a few months since Brotherhood's been on the shelf, my disc still brimming with that 'new game smell', News about Revelations hits. And its got Altair! Sweet baby jesus! I won't lie, I was excited as fuck that it looked like AC was going back to its roots, focusing on what the series is really about.. Assassins! Templars! Ancient artifacts with untold power created by a dead civilization! I certainly did enjoy the parts where I got to play as Desmond, though the first person puzzle parts could've been -wwaaaayyyyy- better. Revelations was good, but it wound up being a polar opposite to Brotherhood: It lacked greatly in engaging gameplay, with lots of added pointless mechanics that just seemed like a big waste of time and offering little to no innovation as the series had routinely done. It made up for this partly with a really nice storyline. The ending cutscene really psyched me up for AC3 (and Once again I was left praying that we'd get a title with much more Desmond!)

Then we were introduced to a new assassin. I wasn't impressed. Honestly the decision to make him an English/Native American mix felt less genuine and more like an excuse to say 'look at us! We totally did this!'. Connor was a flat, boring and lifeless character. I hated playing him. I felt no attachment to his mentor. I'm dissapointed that the only cool character isn't even the main character. Haythem was easily the most original character in the entire series. The game focused so much on Connor's pointless origins as a member of a Native American tribe (for pointless drama I guess), and wasted entirely too much of its breath on completely irrelevent shit like.. Being present for the signing of the Deceleration of Independence which was such a boring and uneventful cutscene that I almost didn't realize what was happening by the time the signatures were in place, or that annoying cannon sequence during the battle of Jefferson. The Hunting mechanic is useless and a waste of time. Assassin's creed 3 Might as well have been called "Sim City 1807 Homestead Edition", because the only fucking endgame content is to go around building up your stupid fucking homestead and make money, which you don't even fucking need. AC3 was such a massive dissapointment that I didn't even bother to redeem my free Season pass to play that King George DLC.

I realized something a while back though. The Assassin's Creed franchise has been farting its way along entirely on its namesake for the last 3 games. Its less and less about Assassins and Templars and age old conflicts, blood oaths to your brotherhood, ancient artifacts forged by a dead empire... There's hardly any stabbing to speak of. Now the series is just faffing about, making a fool of itself like a drunk old person trying to be one of the cool kids.

And then came Assassin's Creed 4. I've still got the bitter taste of 3 in my mouth so I'm not even going to bother showing up for the Midnight release on this one, as I have done since Assassin's Creed 2(Which I seriously need to replay to remind myself of what a good Assassin's Creed game is). Hell, I'm going to wait a few weeks maybe before even picking it up.

I don't even see why they bother even calling it an 'Assassin's Creed' game anymore.

Desmond is dead, and honestly he was the single most important plot thread to tie everything together, aside from the Assassins and Templars, and their age old conflict over humanity's rights and the ancient artifacts. With Desmond's story officially over(As stated by an interview with the AC team), my hopes for the series are absolutely abysmal. AC3 was a sad way to end Desmond's story, and wasn't the exhillerating ride I had anticipated. Instead, I'll quote Yahtzee, "It was not a glorious explosion, but instead the sound a balloon makes as it farts its way around the room before falling to the floor". They built Desmond up... No, WE built desmond up from this.. Nobody bartender living in some hole to this badass Assassin that gave the last pocket of Assassin Resistance their only fighting chance against the world-ruling Templar.. and goddamnit I was seriously hoping we'd get to have an entire Assassin's Creed game dedicated entirely to Desmond. Not everyone liked him as a character (I agree he wasn't very well written) But goddamnit, there was just something so... awesome about playing as him once you get to run around with all the skills you learned from Ezio and Altair.. Solving puzzles in Brotherhood(including that massive one inside the Colliseum and the church beneath), or those awesome sequences in AC3... Those were the most fun I had in the series!

Ugh.. I just.. I don't know if I have the energy to bother anymore.. V.V' I hate to see what Ubisoft is turning it into.

If not for the fact that I want to see where the series is going, I wouldn't even be buying 4. But i'm in it for the long haul.

Please Ubisoft. I know you'll never read this but please... If you know whats good for you, you'll take a step back and look at what you've turned the Assassin's Creed series into.