User blog comment:Stormbeast/GameInformer, November 2012/@comment-4011342-20121010144507

NAVAL TRADE

In the story of Liberation, heroine Aveline is the daughter of a rich Frenchman who made his career in shipping. As Aveline develops her abilities as a member of the Assassin order, she simultaneously uses her family business to expand her influence, specifically through a dedicated system of naval trading. From an old warehouse that has been converted into a swanky headquarters, players can pull up a map of shipping opportunities along outheastern North America. In the beginning, you have a single ship to export purchased goods. Products like sugar, cotton, and molasses each have a designated price per unit at each port, and you want to send your ship to ports where your products can be sold at a profit. The path between each port is marked on the map with a percentage chance of storms, hurricanes, and pirates. Players have to weigh the threat of a dangerous route against the benefit of a high purchase price at the end of the line. As your trading company grows, you can purchase new ships with their own speed, cargo space, and hit points, leading to a diverting money-making minigame between more standard missions.

COMBAT

Liberation adds a unique cinematic style of assassination into the repertoire. Build up your meter by performing assassinations, and you can trigger a chain kill to take out up to four enemies. To do so, you begin the chain kill by freezing time, and tap each individual you want to target on the Vita’s touchscreen. When you’re done, Aveline erupts into a flurry of motion to take out each enemy in turn. My time with the game also revealed an exciting array of new weapons that feel different from previous Assassin’s Creed games. Whether a silent kill with a blowgun, a brutal machete kill, or Aveline’s medium-range whip, there are a lot of new options to explore.