When it comes to letting players explore obscure and relatively unpopular time periods the team behind the “Assassins Creed” series takes the cake.

They made the risky choice of setting their first game during the violent crusades. Their next games were set during the Renaissance in various Italian cities in “Assassins Creed II”, Rome in “Assassins Creed: Brotherhood” and most recently Constantinople in “Assassins Creed: Revelation.”

Those periods were all excellent choices because of their obscurity and the player’s relative lack of knowledge about the periods and places.

This lack of knowledge allowed them to weave the narrative into a historically accurate environment that felt fresh.

The challenge with “Assassin’s Creed III” is that the game is set before, during and after the American Revolution, which is a time period that most Americans think they know about.

The game continues to follow Desmond Miles, a reluctant hero forced to relive the memories of his ancestors in order to discover clues to save the world from a massive solar flare set to scorch the planet on 12/21/12, just as the Mayan’s predicted.

While Desmond is in the Animus (a device that uses DNA to recreate the memories of the user’s ancestors) he controls half-Mohawk half-English assassin, Ratonhnhaké:ton, who mercifully goes by “Connor” for a majority of the game.

Connor attempts to aid the colonists in declaring and defending their independence from the British but the American Revolution is just another backdrop for the much larger story of the eternal power struggle between the Assassins and the Templars.

The game allows the player freedom to explore Colonial Boston, New York, Charlseton, Lexington, Concord and the Frontier between all of them. The landscapes are all different, vast, and very fun to traverse.

The highlight of the game is of course the combat, which has never felt more fluid and fun. The British soldiers have different tactics than the soldiers in previous games; soldiers will often form firing lines, British Dragoons often ride down their enemies and are faster than regular soldiers and finally Hessian mercenaries represent a special challenge because their size and brute strength makes them tougher to fight than the standard Redcoats.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the game at least for me, a history fanatic, is how historically accurate every little detail of the game is. Boston, for example, is filled with landmarks and buildings straight out of your history textbook. Most impressively, the principal cast is comprised of real historical figures such as George Washington, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Israel Putnam, John Hancock, Charles Lee, and, most amusingly, Benjamin Franklin who is accurately portrayed as a womanizer.

Throughout the course of the game the player will take part in events such as the Boston Tea Party, The Battle of Lexington-Concord, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Additionally, all of the high profile targets you are tasked with assassinating are actually British military figures such as John Pitcairn.

Shockingly, the game is less “go America!” as you would expect from a game about the American Revolution and it paints both the British and Colonists as sympathetic characters.

The team behind the game has taken great steps to keep the multiplayer fresh and unique and they mostly succeed. The game modes are enjoyable and different but the entire multiplayer interface is counterintuitive.

Overall, the game is a masterpiece of style, storytelling, history and wickedly fun combat.

The few issues the game has in terms of technical glitches could easily be fixed by a future patch.