I've been on an Assassin's Creed tear since Black Flag arrived at my doorstep for the Playstation 4. While being wholly aware that the previous games aren't required to fully enjoy the latest one, I felt that if I played 4 it would be difficult to go backwards. So I burned through Revelations and Liberation, enjoying the former and loathing the latter. I paused on whether to play 3 given the bad criticism it received, and its collective dismissal as a worthwhile entry in the series on the Giant Bombcast was persuasive if only for an instant. I resolved to push through it though, and I'm glad I did.
Assassin's Creed 3 has problems. It feels like a project that laid the groundwork for many different ideas, few of which were fully executed. Maybe it was due to incompetent direction or lack of time. The series has been reported to be headed through the annual release treatment, which no doubt puts undue pressure on teams to commit to a final product that deserves more time. Indeed, that's my biggest complaint. AC3 has an unpolished quality to it that leaves a player wondering, did they mean for this to be this way? Did they intend for naval missions to be almost entirely optional? Why are Assassin's Guild missions and the assassins themselves almost completely irrelevant to the game as a whole? Were they meant to be fun unto themselves? The developers seem to fall down when guiding the player to utilizing everything the game has to offer aside from the main quest, or just as much fails to assign real value to the side-content. It feels extraneous and unfocused.
There's the main quest though, and in that you'll find a fairly interesting chapter in the struggle between the warring Templars and Assassins. Connor's struggle is more interesting than Desmond's, and I found myself wanting to spend all my time in the Animus rather than outside of it. The story is a sympathetic one that is not unlike the the conflict between Luke Skywalker and his misguided father. While the story falls apart toward the end, I enjoyed the intensity between Connor and Haytham. The game's true villain, Charles Lee, reminded me of Daniel Day Lewis's portrayal of Bill Cutting--a passionate but ruthless figure. Otherwise, it's Forrest Gump in the Revolutionary War as you fight alongside Sam Adams, ride with Paul Revere and save General Washington's army from disaster. It's fun.
For me, Assassin's Creed's true value lies in Ubisoft's attempts to create authentic period pieces that you can interact with. AC3 does a great job of selling what it may have felt like to walk around in the days of 18th century Colonial America. That is what kept me playing, to be able to experience the time period in a way that movies and books can't do. This series is one of the closest means to a virtual vacation you can find, taking you to Damascus, Rome, Constantinople, and the New World. For this reason alone, AC3 is worth picking up on the cheap to see what's on offer.