Recent reviews by Injection101

As a gamer, I'm having a great time playing this game. Love the management skills that this game teaches and the relaxing pace that you can approach everything with. Don't even have to finish a car before you can sell it, if it becomes overwhelming to figure out everything that you need or the best way to acquire it all. Once you unlock the repair benches and brake lathe, money almost becomes a non-issue, either because you can fix a lot of the parts that the customer is asking to be replaced, or from fixing up junkyard/barn parts and selling them for a massive profit.

As someone who works in the automotive field, this shop is a nightmare. No diagnosis, everything is just by specific request of the customer, which leads to replacing brake pads on one side of the axle and a brake rotor on the opposite side. This game doesn't teach any of the good habits of being a mechanic, like the aforementioned symmetrical services, or fastening wheel bolts in a star pattern to ensure a proper seat. Speaking of the wheel bolts, being able to spritz them with a bit of DW-04 to extract them drives me up a wall. Would have preferred a late-game challenge of having to forcibly extract the bolt using the welder upgrade, or something with a mini-game. To see a process that frequently takes multiple real-time hours reduced to looking like a basic home maintenance chore hurts the credibility of the folks putting in the real life work to keep our cars running.

All in all, a great game that thankfully doesn't copy my work day too exactly, otherwise I wouldn't play it for fun. If you're not in automotive, you probably won't be bothered by all the same things I am, but don't treat this like learning how to be a mechanic irl. It's a great stepping stone to mapping out different engine types, but ultimately it's a series of puzzles all shaped like various vehicles.

Let's start with probably the most important thing: This is for all intents and purposes an amalgamation of past AC games. It uses the sailing mechanics of Black Flag with some of the places, characters and climbing of AC3. That said, it is perhaps the best parts of each of them.

The only problem was that it was too short, only 6 sequences. It felt much more like a place-holder or an explanation of the intervening years, than a full entry. Before I knew it, I had already accidentally finished most of the side missions and made it through the story.

The main character is interesting though and it's clear why he does the things he does, but the problem isn't with Shay. You never have to ask why he turns against the Assassins, but you will wonder why the Brotherhood is doing what it is that makes him leave. And the Templars don't have any better motivation in their grand plan other than just combating the efforts of the Assassins.

The modern day storyline is similar to Black Flag in that you play as another nameless, faceless Abstergo Entertainment employee who gets to go around providing IT support for coworkers while they're away from their desks. Every now and then you're pulled back to modern day to run an errand and find some misplaced iPads and then you get to go back to Shay. Sadly, Abstergo has gotten better at covering up their dirty laundry and the only information you get from hacking computers is about the people you're working with and the upcoming projects that Abstergo/Ubisoft have in the works. Maybe some day they'll actually make good on their teasing for a full-fledged Assassin's Creed entry set in China or Japan or India.