Assassins Creed - Revelations Limited Edition (XBox 360, Digital)

Assassins Creed is a series that draws much of its temperament from the character of its protagonist. Under Altar, the game was grimy and obsessive, an adventure that felt like mild flagellation as a 12th-century killer pursued targets through a landscape of medieval squalor. With Ezio Auditore in charge, however, Ubisofts open worlds have been transformed by a knockabout lead bringing a touch of renaissance roguishness to proceedings. Vengeance and backstabbing aside, its all a bit of a lark to Ezio. There are plots to foil and Templars to silence, but there are also maidens to seduce, and gadgets to test. Revelations final confrontation wouldnt be out of place in one of the stupider Bond films, but it almost works. The Italians charm is irresistible.

As leading men go, Ezios the equivalent of a well-travelled and slightly tipsy dinner host: voluble, rangy and devoted to ensuring everyones enjoying themselves. Three games in, though, its clear hes also easily distracted. In the Auditore years, Assassins Creeds narrative has travelled sideways as much as forwards, while the world, which players once complained there was nothing to do in, has expanded greedily, its streets filled with innocents to recruit and bookshops to visit. Its mean-spirited to complain about so much content, particularly in a game where the setting is more important than the plot, but is it always the right content? If anything, being an assassin is in danger of getting lost among all the other trades international spyrunner, say, or property developer. Assassins Creeds ancillary systems tend to be thin in execution: levelling up guild members and banking blacksmith profits is rewarding rather than genuinely entertaining, and with a shift to Constantinople, Revelations only adds to the distractions.

Like most of ACs cities, Constantinople is huge and hard to learn your way around in the flesh. Its built for speed of traversal rather than tourism, and while its a delight to scramble over, its monuments struggle to arrange themselves tidily in your mind, leaving you to navigate, as usual, by the clutter of icons on the mini-map. These include a new den-defending minigame thats Desktop Tower Defense by way of the 16th century, but its cleverer than it is engrossing, hampered by mundane units and an awkward view. More importantly, its another aside in a series that already has plenty; another diversion that obscures rather than enhances.

Elsewhere, Revelations is defined by the slightest of incremental improvements. Bomb crafting is smartly implemented as you pick recipes and gather ingredients, and theres an amusing sense that Ezios behaving as a perky barman rather than a master killer. Its hardly game-changing, though, even if it does give you new options distract, confuse, destroy during combat and stealth. The Hookblade, meanwhile, introduces a little complexity to the traversal, allowing you to leap higher and farther and even slide on ziplines. It speeds up both movement and fighting, but its another minor embellishment; its still the animation that makes AC sing, conveying a majestic blend of agility and effort while you sit back and hold down a few buttons.

As the game swells outwards, the plot becomes thinner. Political rivalries aside, the core of Revelations focuses on Ezios attempt to open a door thats studded with five locks. Its a dangerously direct premise for a 15-hour adventure, and its simple tug can make everything else feel like youre wasting time a mistake for a series with so many extra-curricular options. At least theres variety. Everything is permitted, a character says at one point, and they could be discussing Ubisofts missions, which can segue from pummelling minstrels to picking tulips. Its pleasantly freewheeling, but the core of the game is being gently eroded, and the end result is a narrative that wallows.

Fortunately, the dungeon sections in which you track down the keys themselves are one of Revelations real successes, not just in the manner that they chain platforming together with elegant challenges, but because they provide this wayward game with a sudden burst of momentum. In the caverns beneath Constantinople, theres no armour to repair or landmarks to buy, no dens to defend and no tulips to pick. You simply engage with both environment and gadgets, and make off with a fresh piece of narrative.

Beyond that, Revelations most interesting elements lie outside the campaign, with an expanded multiplayer suite that still hinges on some ingeniously murderous twists on hide-and-seek, and some exploration missions as Desmond, who spends the adventure stuck inside the Animus, sifts his past by picking a firstperson path through vast concrete memory palaces. The puzzling is bland Desmond can conjure platforms at will and interact with a simple range of tractor beams and switches but the architecture is stark, mysterious and timelessly religious. As an exercise in backstory, its far more stylish than the Altar subquests, in which you go on a brisk tour of the assassins life while sticking, rather cannily, to a single location.

Revelations? Not really, unless you count a tease for the games true third instalment. Ending with what amounts to a CGI advert only reinforces the suspicion that Ezios legacy is an accidental trilogy, the happy by-product of the characters undeniable charm and the publishers willingness to cobble together mega-teams capable of churning out new locations every year. Its been fun, but its also been something of a gymnastic dawdle. Unlike the elegant lead, whos grey-haired but unbowed by the end of the adventure, Assassins Creed has been quietly compromised by age.