Christmas is a-coming. Can you feel it? Can you feel your game store filling up with games you’ve never heard of? Have you seen the annual signs yet like the Call of Duty or Professor Layton games lining store shelves? If you haven’t you’ll see one this week.

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher. The following are subject to change without any warning.

Releases To Watch For This Week

Assassin’s Creed III (Xbox 360, PS3)

Tuesday October 30, 2012

Tired of Renaissance era Europe? I think Ubisoft was too. No longer set in some fancy shmancy Italian city or Constantinople, Assassin’s Creed III takes us to the American Revolution era of Boston. Instead of Ezio, we get to muck around the memories of another assassin by the name of Radonhaa... Ratonhnehcay... Ratoonhawka... Kamehame... Connor Kenway. This half Native American, half English fellow has taken it upon itself to fight the tyranny of the redcoats and will ally himself with the likes of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, undoubtedly to fill the roll of Q/Leonardo Da Vinci.

Unlike Renaissance Era Italian cities or Constantinople, Revolution era Boston and its surrounding areas lack tall buildings of any kind, and even Boston itself span a much smaller area than Rome or Florence. This means Connor won’t be navigating the streets and rooftops of Boston nearly as much as the trees of the surrounding forests. Here Connor will prove his proficiency as a hunter given his ability to move through it silently and efficiently to track down his prey. Unfortunately for Connor, bears and wolves and various other aggressive animals will prey on him as well making every stroll through the woods an interesting one. Eventually, Connor will explore a large portion of the East Coast.

A first for the series, Connor will eventually have access to a ship, and it won’t just ferry Connor from location to location. He’ll have to take the ship into battle with other ships. Use your ship’s cannons to soften up the other ship before getting close to board them. Aside from the standard cannonballs, you can also opt to use chain cannonballs that can slow down an opponent ship or use flaming cannonballs that only work up-close. Like any ship of its day, the ship can only fire to its sides, which means making yourself a bigger target.

Assassin’s Creed ambitious story has took its sweet time back in the Ezio storyline, and it cost them a little bit of a dip in quality as seen from Assassin’s Creed Revelations. AC3 looks poised to raise that bar back up to the high of Assassin’s Creed II with new settings and characters.

Assassin’s Creed III Liberation (Vita)

Tuesday October 30, 2012

Having Assassin’s Creed III in just about every household this coming Tuesday doesn’t seem enough for Ubisoft. They must have you outside as well.

Despite the three in the title, Assassin’s Creed III Liberation stars an entirely new character and a new setting. Set around the time of the American Revolution, the Spanish have started to take over New Orleans, and according to the trailer, they were taking the original residents as slaves. That didn’t sit well with New Orlean native, Aveline de Grandpré. She takes up the cause of the Assassin to free her city and, as it turns out, to wreck the plans of the Templars.

Despite the Vita’s lack of horsepower compared to that of a home console, Ubisoft promised us that Liberation would be very similar to AC3 in terms of animation, look, and just general feel since the two run on the same engine. That doesn’t mean Liberation will play exactly like AC3 though. Liberation sports the same Mark and Execute mechanic as the one found in Splinter Cell Conviction. A quick refresher, Mark and Execute lets you mark specific enemies so when you push the execute button your character will dispatch them in rapid succession. Thanks to the Vita’s touch screen though, you just have to tap on the enemies you want to mark. Convenient.

I don’t entirely care what the gender of my character is. I’m just glad they finally decided to make her wear a costume that doesn’t entirely stand out in a crowd by the very virtue of not having her wear that stupid hoodie costume that they got stuck with ever since AC1.