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There's something about playing a character whose face consists of nothing more than floating eyes and teeth that will pull you right out of your immersion. If you played Assassin's Creed Unity at launch, you'll probably know what I'm talking about, just as you'll know about highly-trained killers who like to run on the spot for no good reason and Nobles of the Robe who are apt to collapse on the floor in rubbery puddles mid-conversation, like discarded Halloween costumes. Ubisoft's swing at revolutionary Paris felt half-finished on release, less Les Miserables and more just plain miserable. I suspect a lot of Unity disks ended up as coasters as a result.My winter was assassin-free however, so, by chance, I came to Unity fresh, long after the game had been blessed with over 300 bug fixes. Instead of gaping, skinless nobility and Benny Hill chases, I found a game that is utterly astonishing in other ways - if not quite for the reasons that games often astonish. Yes, there are lots of fabulous buildings to crawl all over in Ubisoft's condensed and hectic Paris, and there are plenty of powder-wigged heads to lop from shoulders, but none of that is a surprise. What I didn't for a second count on was finding a level of detail in the animations of the citizens of this embattled city that verges on beautiful lunacy. I didn't expect to be swept up with revolutionary zeal, either - and of a far more topical nature than anything that pertains to rich king Louis and his spoiled family.
Seriously, though: those animations. It didn't take me long before I stopped actually playing Unity in the sense of collecting things or driving the plot forward, and would find myself just standing, staring at individual Parisians who seemed to be living their lives in the virtual space around me. The streets here are filled almost to bursting with hundreds of people, protesting, demonstrating and generally revolting against the ruling nobility and church.
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