In defense of Assassin's Creed Unity

You’ve just completed one of Unity’s black box assassination missions, an infiltration with multiple diversions and entrances to find and exploit. The next mission has you meet up with Elise, your templar girlfriend, on the streets of revolutionary Paris. She’s being pursued by a mob of templar thugs—her faction aren’t fans of her or you at this point in the story—and you get roped into the chase. Literally. Her escape route leads to a demonstration of a hot-air balloon, the same model the Montgolfier brothers used just nine years previous in the first manned balloon flight. Of course, she jumps in. It’s your job to cut the ropes while fighting off the first wave of pursuers.It’s a perfect setup for the kind of over-the-top pseudo-historical hijinks the Assassin’s Creed games specialize in. This is Ezio piloting Leonardo da Vinci’s prototype tank, or Lydia Frye shooting down biplanes over London with an experimental anti-aircraft gun. The Montgolfier springs into the air with Elise in it, but not you. You have to parkour after it while Elise leans out to shoot snipers. When the Montgolfier gets tangled on a rooftop you cut it loose, with just enough time for a dramatic leap into the basket and a romantic moment as the wind whisks you far away from the chaos of Paris in 1792.For a few moments, Assassin’s Creed Unity is perfect. It’ll come crashing back down to Earth eventually, but you’ve probably already heard about that.The framerate. The clipping. The instability. The…

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