Join America’s revolution

By Tom Standage

A GAME Assassin's Creed III

Never mind the convoluted frame, a centuries-long secret war between Templars and Assassins. What makes this series so much fun is the chance to charge around in meticulously accurate renditions of old cities. "Assassin’s Creed III" is in fact part five in the series, and as usual you play an athletic hitman with a handy foreknowledge of the modern urban sport of free-running. A gloriously fluid control system makes the world your playground as you run, jump and climb to outwit your pursuers and move from one mission to the next. After 12th-century Jerusalem and Damascus and Renaissance Florence, Venice, Rome and Istanbul, this instalment lets you loose in colonial-era Boston and New York. You are Connor Kenway, half British and half Native American, who is drawn into the conflict between Assassins and Templars as the American revolution unfolds. Even if you can’t keep up with the labyrinthine plot, "Assassin’s Creed" is worth playing just for its dazzlingly detailed settings—and this is the best-looking yet. It confirms that the greatest games, like the best books, let you escape into another world.