Assassin's Creed 3

I have a long history with Assassin's Creed, I'm a huge fan.

I use it to describe what can be done in a modern game, how you are doing more than playing - you are a participant in a digital book.  I describe with great enthusiasm the moments where I climb a tower to rescue someone, only to find you have been tricked and she is actually about to be hung in the courtyard - how I turned around and leapt from the heights with chills and a "NOOOOO!!" to come save her.

A.C.3 tells a few stories.  First you play as Haytham through some introductory missions, who you later learn is a Templar - and then as Kaniehti:io, his illegitimate Indian son who trains as an Assassin.  The story follows the early America's with the Templar's siding with the British, and inspiring Kaniehti:io to revenge by burning his village.

The game does a good job in pointing out that no side is really "pure", the Assassin's want freedom - the Templar's want order and control.  You see evils done by both sides, and Kaniehti:io teams up with his father at some points when they have common cause to do so.

Also interwoven through the game are missions with Desmond to retrieve power supply modules to fuel the complex they have found and eventually open "the big blue door of energy".  As he travels through the area, Juno the hologram speaks with him about all the attempts they made in the first civilization to try and deal with a massive solar storm that threatened the world.  Nothing they tried worked (without "too obscene a cost"), the only semblance of surviving was to build themselves into a computer matrix to warn future civilizations.

Apparently this massive energy surge was going to happen again, because Desmond chooses to sacrifice himself (the obscene cost) - to restore Juno, despite warnings that she has a more nefarious purpose.  Juno is somehow now able to shield the planet from the cataclysm, and then apparently go dominate all mankind or something.

At times I felt like this game dialed it in as far as actual gameplay is concerned, there WERE fun missions - but oftentimes my mission was simply "Travel from A to B to get your next cut scene", or my personal favorite "kill this rabid dog standing here."