Comments

1. November 9, 2008 11:20 pm

   Prometheus

   I’ve come to the conclusion that a helpful review should not simply express whether the reviewer likes or dislikes a product. The problem with Amazon.com reviews is that the vast majority are written by people who have decided that a product is the best thing in the world or by other people who think it’s the worst. This results in tons of reviews with ratings at each extreme of the range, all of which are completely useless to the potential buyer because they don’t aspire to any level of impartiality or critical thought. So, since I usually search for 3-star reviews in order to get an impartial assessment, I concluded that the only way to give a truly serious and helpful review was to give the product an overall score of three stars and try to fit my review to that rating.

   Before I get to the review I should point out that I have finished the game, so this isn’t based on first impressions.

   Setting and Plot
   Assassin’s Creed is a stealth-based sandbox-style game along the lines of the Thief series of games. It is set in the Holy Land of the 12th Century - an inspired and original setting. In the vast majority of the game the player plays an assassin battling the forces of evil at a time when cities are ruled by corrupt governors due to the absence of popular leadership during the Third Crusade. There is another part of the game that I will let people find out for themselves, although I will say that the game’s hyped ’surprise’ wasn’t all that surprising, at least not to me. This was no big KotOR-type revelation - not even close. So those who like plot surprises, don’t get your hopes up - I think the game’s ‘mystery surprise’ issue was probably more a marketing ploy that an intended plot twist. The plot and the character arc are both fairly simple and pretty much ‘par for the course’ as far as video games go, although I felt the developers did a good job of making the ‘evil’ characters fairly believable and not stereotypical.

   In the game you’re free to do missions in any order you like on the way to completing an overall linear storyline. Not all the missions are stealth-based, but stealth plays a major role. In terms of skill I’m sort of an average player - not horrible but by no means a genius with the gamepad, so stealth games usually frustrate the heck out of me, but this game was very different - none of the usual frustrations reared their ugly heads, and even though the game has only one difficulty level the game was neither too hard or too simple. I had a few fights that I had to do over, but not so much that I felt like throwing my game disc in the trash, as happened with Rainbow Six Vegas, nor did I breeze through every level without difficulty, so I feel the developers did a fantastic job balancing the skill level of the game. But those who play 24/7 might find this game a little on the easy side.

   Gameplay
   The game is very long with between twenty and forty hours of play. Generally speaking, the game is split up into three levels. Each level of the game is completed by doing one assassination mission in each of the game’s three major cities. Each assassination mission requires a certain number of investigations to be completed before it can be attempted. The investigations can be eavesdropping missions or pickpocket (easy), missions where you have to rough up a NPC to get information from him (medium difficulty), or missions where you have to take over a lesser assassin’s kill mission and do it within a time limit (hard).

   The game has been criticised for being repetitive and it is, but not overbearingly so. There are a small number of ‘things to do’ in the game (assassinate, pickpocket, eavesdrop, beat-up, timed assassination, saving citizens from bullying NPCs) but I found that these activities take place in so many different areas and with so many different influences that I really didn’t notice the repetitiveness all that much.

   The game does require the player to use a bit of strategy before every major assassination. Before completing your assassination it’s always best to save citizens from bullying NPCs who have accused him or her of theft. When you do this not only do you get points towards gaining endurance in battle but you gain help in escaping too, in the form of scholars that help you hide or ruffians that delay your pursuers. Since the whole city is actively looking for you after an assassination you’re going to need all the help you can get. Similarly, it’s best to remove rooftop guards wherever you see them, so that they don’t become a problem during an escape.

   Graphics and Sound
   Visually the game is beautiful, with the Holy Land brought to life very well indeed. Sometimes it’s just fun to wander through the streets or over the rooftops just taking in the atmosphere. I really can’t criticise the game’s graphics too much. They remind me of the Call of Duty series with almost photo-realistic graphics in a perfectly realised environment. Having said that, when I was first playing there would sometimes be points where I would get low resolution walls appearing and NPCs would completely disappear. This bug happened to me two or three times within a few hours of first loading the game disc and it’s never happened since, so I don’t know what caused it. Each time it happened I would save and quit and restart and that fixed the issue.

   Sounds are equally excellent and the voice acting is generally good. Accents are patchy though - French and Middle-eastern accents sound good but almost all of the ‘English’ voices remind me of the pseudo-Cockney that can be heard in Hollywood films from the 1940s and ’50s. Similarly the German voices were a little too guttural for my liking - I speak German and I could hardly understand a word because the voice acting was so overdone. But the worst accent was that of the main character - apparently we are supposed to believe that a Middle-Eastern assassin from the 12th century would speak with an American accent. Maybe this was a developer decision - maybe they thought a realistic accent wouldn’t go over well in the post-9-11 world - but I would have appreciated a more realistic treatment. Maybe that’s being too nitpicky though, since hardly anyone in the 12th century would speak modern english anyway.

   Control System
   The control system is a little more complex than other games of this type and the player is often called upon to make simultaneous inputs, with a left stick input as well as a trigger and button input with the right hand. At first I found this a little difficult but I soon got used to it. Again, those skilled with the gamepad will find no problem here, but I found that after a few hours of constant play the fingers of my right hand were very stiff, though it’s nowhere near as bad as the thumb soreness I get with many sports games.

   The game has been accused of being a ‘button-mashing’ game. I didn’t find that to be the case. There are a few simple button combinations which are easy to learn and put into practice. I mainly relied on the simple attack, the counter-attack and the break-grip combos and I never once found myself mashing the buttons at random as I have in some other games.

   One annoying issue with the controls is the issue of using throwing knives. Often it’s very hard to hit your target in that it’s often difficult to tell if your target is selected or not (especially when you’re trying to get a number of shots off in quick succession): this can result in innocent people getting killed or in knives being thrown uselessly at walls or into the ground or sky. Also, it’s easy to accidentally target an innocent NPC that’s running past you, so not only is your knife wasted but your view starts to track him too, which pulls your attention from the bad guys. This issue becomes even worse if you’re throwing knives down from a rooftop because after every throw the camera moves up on its own away from the action. I think this is the worst criticism I can make of the game as it virtually makes knife-throwing from rooftops impossible.

   While we’re on the issue of weapons, changing from knives to the sword can be clumsy - if you’re using throwing knives and your enemies approach too close it’s best to change to your sword, but if you’re under attack it’s very hard to do this as the button doesn’t seem to work when you’re fending off blows.

   Another issue is that when you’re cornered in a street and you do a special kill move, the auto camera will go into a cinematic of the move and then it places your viewpoint right behind a wooden beam or a wall or canopy, virtually blinding you - this can be upsetting if you’re surrounded by enemies and close to death, especially if you’re pretty sure you would normally be able to take them.

   AI
   The AI in this game has been criticised for being somewhat stupid, but in my view it is very realistic. The AI portray the fear of being in a swordfight with a master swordsman (that’s your character) very well indeed. The AI often do not attack until they are goaded into it by their leader, and unless there are two leaders in the fight they will not attempt attacks in combination with another NPC. This is very realistic - in real life poorly-trained people will usually not attack when another person is doing so.

   All-in-all, on this issue I think many players have been led to expect AI to behave like elite soldiers, but I think that’s a false expectation. In this game you are the elite soldier and the AI soldiers are frightened conscripts who need to drum up courage in order to attack you. The voices and animations are very good indeed here, with soldiers cowering in fear after you kill someone and with the leader saying “Attack him you cowards!” or something similar in German or French. Anyway, the fact that the enemy attacks piecemeal one by one helps you out: if it was otherwise this game would be extremely frustrating - you basically wouldn’t stand a chance with more than two opponents.

   Another thing about the AI is that they respond in context - I just love the way they respond when you climb a building, saying a number of phrases like “Why is he doing that?” or “He must be crazy” or “If he gets hurt I won’t help him”. Some of the comments are quite funny and although there are only a few responses I never got the feeling that they were too repetitive.

   The Ending
   I should write a little bit about the ending. In this game it’s a little bit odd to find a game that’s so appealing with a somewhat disappointing ending. It’s hard to write too much about it without giving away ‘the secret’, but let’s just say that the game seems intent on leaving us hungry for a sequel. Personally I wish they would have wrapped it up nicely - heck I’d still be clamouring for a sequel but I wouldn’t feel as unfulfilled.

   Overall
   All-in-all this game was a great experience for me. With a setting that’s both original and interesting the game made me want to study the world of the Crusades more. I love the sandbox format and the graphics are second to none. Gameplay is interesting although a bit repetitive (but I don’t know if that’s a bad thing) and the bugs and gameplay issues are negligible. Also, I never experienced framerate issues that some reviewers report. With this game and Call of Duty 3 & 4 I think I’m all set for Xbox 360 games for a while. Assassin’s Creed doesn’t have multiplayer or co-op modes and there’s not too much scope for replay value, but it’s a heck of a good game so I think I’ll be playing it through a few times.

2. November 9, 2008 11:20 pm

   Karam Khan

   This was, without a doubt one of the few games I have ever looked forward to. I have been dissapointed before so I kept my expectations realistic. My best line to sum this review up is what another reviewer said “You want to love this game, but you can’t.”

   Really you do. The environment, immersion (when it doesn’t switch abruptly),the art direction,the duality, the mission(S) are all beautiful and some things are an experience to have (not to mention a very cool concept). What ultimately matters is gameplay, and beautiful it definitely isn’t. I wont go over the story elements as most have gone through them and , by now you would have read many in depth reviews. So I will speak specifically.

   The combat system, tricky as it may be is a bit clunky for a game that is repetitive. But it works and rewards you with cool animated kill moves. Let’s get one thing straight of the bat. A sandbox game a la GTA this isn’t. It badly wants to be one but Ubisoft made an okay game when they could have blown us away. Your missions and quests are very structured and you are free to roam and act like a monkey climbing all sorts of buildings, and there are side quests (also which happen again and again without great variation). No doubt, many would want to do this in an open format game. But it gets repetitive very fast. Not to mention, that if you wander aimlessly looking for something to do or how you want to do it, you will find yourself lost with nothing happening. For the first few hours, this game seems to be better then it is, and then reality sets in.

   You are given 9 assasinations, the first one you will be jumping with joy, the 2nd one you will feel you are really getting somewhere, the 3rd one you might feel boredom setting in, the 5th one you will a bit upset cos the game doesn’t change, the 6th one…you will begin to look at the clock and imagine the things you could have done with your time not playing video games. If you make it to the 7,8,9 you will wonder why you ever got this game in the first place and question it.

   The thing is: this game has zero replay value AND stops being fun a couple of hours in because EVERYTHING is so damn repetitive. BUT this is a game for patient people. If you are ADD, this game isn’t going to work for you.

   I got through the whole game and I hate saying it , but after a while, it seemed like a chore to finish it. I should have listened to my friend. “Rent first the games you want to buy”

   I blew a wad of cash just like that. Don’t make the mistake I did. Rent it, make up your mind then. This is basically a next gen platformer, nothing more.

3. November 9, 2008 11:21 pm

   A. C. Ege

   I was a little skeptical this game would live up to the hype. Then some diminished reviews came around and I was already feeling a let down. Where could they go wrong? Was my thoughts. Well that didn’t stop me from purchasing this game. After 30 minutes I was blown away. All skepticism was gone and I was in Gamer Heaven.

   Let me start off from the beginning. Yes there is a plot twist and it’s pretty bizarre. Just think that your watching a Michael Crichton movie and it will make sense. Playing in the Middle East several hundred years ago is a different idea. It’s hard to say what you could expect with this concept.

   So what makes this game amazing. Lets start off with the landscape. It’s brilliant and beautiful…Really majestic. You don’t understand the scope of this game until you start playing. The world is surrounded by several small villages and three large cities. The only way to travese this open terrain with a horse. Fortunately they are about as easy to find as a car in todays society.

   What also sets this game apart is the ability to do what you want when you want. There is no clock on you and your not stuck going into a mission. Everything is open based. The character is amazingly fun to control you can scale tall buildings and make amazing leaps of faith. Climbing up a building that is several stories and then leaping to certain doom is breathtaking excitement. This is what games should be about.

   Beyond that is a mission based game. Similiar to Grand Theft Auto in style. You can accept simple missions like pickpocketing and protecting citizens to the more main based assasin missions. You can battle soldiers if you want as you have many enemies but it’s not really advised. Following the assasin missions can be complex and involve several steps that make the story very intresting. Obviously a lot of time was put into making this top notch.

   For anyone who likes open based games with large environments then Assassins Creed is for you. From the majestic peaks to the clustered cities. This is trully a next gen experience. The storyline and incentive program will keep you playing for many hours. Definately a worthwhile gameplay experience. If you want something to keep you busy that doesn’t involve guns go out and get Assasins Creed.

4. November 9, 2008 11:22 pm

   Ward Mesick

   This game is gorgeous. When you climb up somewhere and sync…It’s just breath taking. The same goes when you come to a city for the first time. The world is truly immersive and huge with everyone reacting to you. And it is a lot of fun to wander around the city just climbing and jumping all you want. But after doing that for a bit, it gets rather boring.

   Once you learn the block/parry counter attack, the game is basically holding the right trigger and hitting the X button at the right time to dispatch pretty much all but 10% of your foes. Another 5% are dispatched with assassinations which look really cool. However, it’s kinda silly how oblivious people are in this game. I can kill a Templar from behind with guards three feet away and they won’t realize it for several seconds, by which time I have taken out at least one ore two more of them. And finally, there are about 5% more enemies that pose some sort of challenge.

   Speaking of enemies…I find it annoying that if you gallop your horse too quickly, guards will suddenly yell, “That’s him!” and try to kill you. The whole “socially acceptable” actions thing is a cool idea but it’s implemented poorly here. It needs a lot more work.

   This is the game in short:
   1) Go to part of a city by horse
   2) Defend a few people to get them on your side
   3) Climb buildings for good views
   4) Go to meet contact
   5) Pickpocket for info, harrass for info, eavesrop for info
   6) Kill target
   7) Repeat

   It’s a great idea for a game, and I see possible things that could be great. But frankly, this game gets to be almost more of a hassle than anything else pretty quickly as you’re stuck doing the same things over and over just in different places. It’s beautiful and the freerunning is fun. But beneath the pretty shell, it just feels empty.

5. November 9, 2008 11:22 pm

   Jeeplover15

   First of all let me say, Ubi has laid down the foundation for great things in the future. If this is the direction games are heading, they are going to be amazing in the near future.
   Having said that though, I must say that although this game is amazing for the first few hours of play, its repetative nature begins to wear on you after a little bit.
   The controls, gameplay and general feel of the game are very good. But completing basically the same missions over and over begins to tarnish this game. It’s the same folks that have to be rescued, the same style of fighting, and the same basic solutions to all the missions.
   I would recommend renting this game rather than buying, because once you finish the game, I can see where there is no value for playing it again.
   The graphics are some of the best I have seen to date, and there are some really neat features that could be used for later games.
   As I said before, Ubisoft has really started something wonderful with this game, I just hope they continue to build on this base and really open up the world of gaming. They just seemed to miss the curve, (slightly) with this release.

6. November 9, 2008 11:23 pm

   R. Liberal

   Echoing the sentiment of other reviewers, I was also concerned about the professional reviews concerning this game, having anticipated it for so long. My fears were eased, however, right after I popped the disk in.

   Pro’s:
   Again, as it’s been said here, I really enjoyed the flow of the character and the freedom this game gives you. It’s a perfect blend of an open world without leaving you lost to figuring out where to go next.
   The learning curve is high, but the game slowly introduces you to new moves within each mission, which are enough to complete them, but leaves room for improvement as you become more proficient.

   The story line is good and I didn’t mind so much the sci-fi twist about which most are complaining. It’s a good break from the intensity of the game and it adds a personal connection to the ancient character through his descendant in the present.

   The game saves are excellent. For the most part you won’t find yourself having to redo several missions in the event that you die. There are plenty of checkpoints throughout the game to keep the game flowing and non-repetitive.

   Lastly, the world Ubi has created in this game is simply phenomenal! Hats off to the design team. The amount of detail is just outstanding on each street, building, market, character, and everything else you’ll find in this game.

   Cons:
   The idea of accomplishing side missions add a greater dimension to the game, but, unfortunately, they get repetitive pretty quickly.
   Some of the things you can do are eavesdrop, pickpocket, or save a person from being harassed by the local guards (there are others), but once you get the hang of each one, they’re pretty much the same thereafter.

   The fight sequences are fun and can be tense enough, but similarly lack a bit of diversity. I hope they get a little more challenging and technical as I acquire new weapons and progress in the game.

   Now, to explain the title of my review (this is not a con, just an observation), I was a bit surprised with the main character Altair.
   I got a feel from the previews, for some reason, that I would be dealing with a cool and calculated assassin who kills to rid the world in which he lives of evil people (a little theatrical, I know). However, my first impression was of a reckless, spoiled, somewhat-messed-up-in-the-head newbie killer who let his skills go to his head and now is forced to redeem himself.

   Overall, I really enjoy playing this game and hope Ubi continues to produce other titles using this engine and creating such wonderful virtual worlds.

7. November 9, 2008 11:23 pm

   Philharmagic

   After reading the different reviews, I am submitting mine to give a perspective on the negative opinions. I have completed the game and enjoyed every second of it. My recommendation, buy it. It is a similar to the stealth games, Splinter Cell and Thief, which I enjoyed.

   If you play primarily FPS games and your tendency is to play fast and take the shortest path to the end, this game is probably not for you. This game is most enjoyable if it played the way the designer intended, slowly, by experiencing all the quests before the assassination. If fast is your style of gaming it will become repetitive because you are just checking off a mission to get the finish and not enjoying the scope of it all. It is only necessary to complete two investigations before permission is granted for the primary assassination.

   What I liked, everything. You can read other reviews about the good stuff so I won’t repeat them here. I thought BioShock was a wonder to behold, but this equals it on many levels. Some of my favorites:

   - Finishing moves with the assassin’s blade during fights.
   - Throwing guards off rooftops and listening to the commotion below.
   - Killing crusaders in low profile mode
   - Knife combos
   - Strolling the streets looking for trouble
   - A high profile kill in a crowded street

   What I disliked. I didn’t dislike anything, except for tedium of collecting flags, I just think some things could have executed better. Here they are:

   - The overall storyline and the unique story for each assassination are great, but there is little local story or background information for each city. This could have been an opportunity for a lot more depth.
   - The 2nd to last end boss(s) fight was a little cliché, but I still enjoyed it.
   - The ending could have been tidied up so I actually knew it was the end; so many comments are valid there.
   - I wish there were more to do down among the streets so to spend more time there.
   - There were some low res textures and character clipping, but I noticed it maybe 5-10 times throughout the whole game. That’s a non-issue for me. For every visual flaw there are plenty of visual examples of beauty.
   - The fighting was unique and I never got tired of it. There were good variety of moves and weapons. Try fighting with your assassin’s blade and watch your counters with that. I prefer the timing method because I’m tired of playing twitch-response games. The best parts were the counter and finishing moves. The camera would frame them as you finished for your viewing pleasure and, yes, sometimes the view would end up behind a post or foliage. This happens when the fight was in a tight space with walls and the camera got irritating at times.
   - Knife throwing was clunky. If you are not targeting perfectly the knife would hit something in the way. Targeting can switch to the wrong target when you are under duress and can frustrating.
   - The missions before the assassination were enjoyable. The eavesdropping and pickpocket missions are easy and draw you into the game. The intimidations became more difficult as the game went alone when ruffians would join the fray. The mini-assassinations were the best. You had to try different approaches to beat the time limit. The problem I had with all the missions were that they were plotted on your map after climbing a tower and syncing. If they gave you a count or a general area so you would have to go look for these missions and get more engaged in the streets. I thought they were too easy to find. Oblivion did it the best. You had to walk around and talk to people to discover information.
   - I wanted a save system. I wanted to try the 9 assassinations with different approaches and see how they worked out. I would actually die on purpose so I could try again.

   You have not played a game like this before, ever. This is a stunning game. I never got tired of looking out over the cities from all the different points or fighting. It was total immersion just walking the streets. It felt like a living city with all the people walking around and the sounds that go with it. The smooth physical movements of Altair makes this game better than all others. What I liked best is that I could enjoy watching him in action without concentrating on landing or grabbing perfectly like other games. I would wander around just to create an opportunity to experience them.

   The review scores swing wild because this game crosses boundaries in play style. Different players had different expectations and reacted accordingly. I highly recommend the game. I could easily suspend my disbelief and engage in the story and not be disconnected during the game because of any poor design. If you spend time looking for inconsistencies you will find them. If you compare against perfection you are going to find flaws. I forgave them all and played a great game.

8. November 9, 2008 11:24 pm

   Mkapa

   Assassin’s Creed is a pretty good game with minor flaws. Of course im not saying that this is a bad game, it’s just that i expected more from this game

   First of all, the game has a really deep story. At first i thought the entire game was going to take place in Crusader Jerusalem. Instead, the game has sort of a Matrix like story in which you switch between Desmond in the modern world, and Assassin Altair in 12th century Jerusalem (Desmond’s ancestor). The entire plot of the game revolves around these two people. A team Scientist who kidnapped Desmond are trying to find something about Altair’s past. So they invited this machine that allows them to look into his ancestor’s memories. You really can’t do much while playing Desmond, almost all of the games action takes place with Altair and Desmond is just for story purposes.

   The graphics are a huge selling point for this game. The detail of each city is great..as they all seem to have a separate personality and architecture. Climbing a tower for the first time gives you the impression of just how small you are in this massive world. The dream like feeling and glitches of the adamus machine also add to the games depth

   Music and sound are also great. I love the prayers in the background. As well as the gasp of passersby as you push a dead body off of a roof. Just about every citizen you pass will react to you in some way. Some will beg for coins while others will threaten you.

   Gameplay is what ended up hurting this game. Fighting in this game is basically just button mashing. The AI will block just about every one of your blows, and only die after repeated button mashing. You later learn the ability to do counter attacks. These attacks allow for one hit kills. Although cool looking, it makes for an easy fight. Fighting large groups of enemies is somewhat frustrated, as each time Altair gets hit, he stumbles around like a drunk. It’s probably better to run and hide then fight enemies in later stages. This can be accomplish by hiding in a hey stack (which for some reason seems to be conveniently stacked everywhere!) or by dodging into ally ways. Speaking of running, Altair never gets tired of running. You can spirit 100% of the time and except for tripping every once awhile never have to worry about guards catching up to you. It’s extremely unbalanced in terms of AI vs player. You won’t die much in early stages of the game.

   The missions themselves are also somewhat of a disappointment. Besides your standard assassin missions, their are side quest you can do to help win the support of local citizens. What i hate about this, is the fact that in every city it’s the same quest with the same rewards. Every city has a viewpoint quest (in which you climb to towers and look around), and save citizen quest. Saving citizens will award you a group of scholars you can hide in or a group of vigilantes that will help distract guards who are chasing you. In every city this will be the same award, and in every city the only side quest will be “Save Citizens” or “Climbing Towers”. Climbing towers is fun for the first 10 minutes then it gets really stale..same goes for saving citizens

   In order to assassinate your target you got to dig up info on him. So you basically have to do repetitive missions to dig up enough info on your target. This includes interrogation, or informer, or pickpocketing, or eavesdropping. It will always be one of these four and never anything different. Given that every side quest and every assassin mission is somewhat the same. The game has no replay value whatsoever

   So whether your doing side missions or your assassin mission. You’re going to be doing something repetitive.

   Other then that a pretty good game. I like the bold new step and risk that Ubisoft took, as i know that anything that isn’t a FPS is hard to sell now and days. Though im not 100% impressed cause we already of stealth games out there, so it’s not first of it’s kind.

9. November 9, 2008 11:25 pm

   W. Donald

   I’ve played through the first 2 sections (got the first 2 achievements) and I really love this game so far. I love the fluid motions of Altair and have not really noticed the glitchy, frame rate issues that I’ve read about on the IGN review. The controls are very responsive and after the tutorial at the beginning I feel I have a pretty good grasp of them. I love running and jumping off building to scare the people below. The voice acting is also excellent. I can’t say enough good things about it

10. November 9, 2008 11:25 pm

    Daniel Lucas

    I bought this game because a friend of mine told me it was a really good game. After purchasing it I was anticipating playing it when I got home because of the positive talk I had heard about it.

    Game-play Pros:
    The game-play is great in the sense that it gives you free-roam abilities and lets you choose what you want to do in which order besides the assassin missions. I jumped into the game enthusiastically looking for the different flags, pickpocketing, fighting soldiers, eaves-dropping, filling out missions for lesser assassins, running across rooftops killing sentries that were standing watch. I enjoyed hunting for the flags. It took me awhile to find all the Masyaf flags in the Masyaf Kingdom but wasn’t too excited when I only got an achievement of collecting all the 20 flags. I liked the cinematography when you counter-attack a soldier and stick him with your sword or slice into his neck with your sword. It was very good for being a rated M game. I had fun sneaking up on soldiers and just assassinating them wherever I felt like it and then sit down on a bench right next to it while the soldiers came by and wondered what happened was pretty funny. I was excited when I got the throwing knives because I run across rooftops and kill every soldier i got in sight and if he fell down hear the people gasp in horror.

    Assassins Creed has an amazing number of people in the cities just mulling around, walking here and there. It is pretty lifelike to look anywhere and see people living as if they were real.

    Game-play: Cons
    I didn’t necessarily like that you had to ride a horse everywhere although very realistic. The missions are quite repetitive and I got bored with just a number of things such as pick-pocketing, saving citizens, eaves dropping, and even stealth assassination. For example, when you eaves drop and follow the guy to steal a map or something, and once you’ve got it you can be standing right next to him and he won’t know you took it. The victim also does the same action-motion every single time whoever it might be. It got so easy to pickpocket thugs and you could hold B to pickpocket them but if they weren’t walking you would just go in circles around the thug. I got so annoyed at the woman who would beg you for money I would just assassinate them. They would get in the way constantly when I was trying to follow a suspect and that is (although a real aspect of that time) a very annoying part of the cities. After completing 3 of the assassination missions I got back to the Castle and only got 8 throwing knives while expecting a new weapon like a crossbow or something better.

    Graphics:
    I have to give an A+++ for the graphics seeing that I am a Professional Graphic Designer myself. When I first started playing the game I was blown away by the views, and the realistic structure of the world I was playing in. I especially liked the cities. They were very spectacular from the viewpoints. Altair is very expertly conveyed. The character Altair must have been a lot of work to produce and they must have put a huge amount of time into making him look real.

    All in all I have to give this a three star rating because it bored me after awhile of playing it. Everything seemed to become redundant and repetitive. For awhile it kept my interest but since I am more into FPS games such as halo 2 and halo 3 I suppose that I will stick with that for now. So to all you role playing lovers I would suggest this game. Enjoy.

11. November 9, 2008 11:26 pm

    G. Tipton

    Assissins Creed is an interesting game, it starts out fresh and unique, graphics are good, voice work is good, the story seemed some what interesting. Then BAMN! 4 hours into it, you fall into the “broken recored syndrome”. Everything begins repeating itself and the games’ flaws start to surface.

    The Good

    -Graphics, no pop in what so ever and a very loooooooooong drawl distance, impressive. Small particals float in the air in dusty rooms.

    -Climbing buildings seems oddly natural, and ofcourse, the time period and setting are very nicely done.

    -Voice work is well done. Dark and foreboding.

    -Actually got horse riding in a game where it’s fun and looks natural.

    The Bad

    -Character movements are a mixed bag. Climbing and jumping looks good, but fighting and dialogue scenes seem choppy and look very unnatural.

    -Why must i climb all the freakin look outs to continue with missions? Climbing aspect of the game is fun when you don’t have to do it, but sucks when you constantly do.

    -Characters movements almost seem to slow. There were countless times when i was running from the enemy trying to escape to the rooftops when my character seemed to slow going up the side of a house, or got stuck at an awkward place, giving the enemy time to shoot arrows or throw rocks to knock me down. Kind of annoying.

    The Ugly

    -Why at the beginning of every mission do i have to run through an entire level to get to a horse?

    -Lack of variety

    -There is a certain surprise in the game that you find out shortly after playing, this actually took away from the experience i thought. Why couldn’t the game just be what the trailers made it out to be???

    If this was out of ten i would give assissins creed a 7 out of 10. By no means is this game crap, you can tell many talented people spent long hours on this, so many things are done right it’s a shame that crucial areas were over looked, like keeping the gamer interested, switching up the missions, throwing in a boss fight or two to give you a sense of progress. This game had so much potential. I wouldn’t buy this game, it’s a good rental though.

12. November 9, 2008 11:27 pm

    Chip L

    Assassins Creed (AC) is an over-the-shoulder 3rd person free-roaming game - think GTA only in the middle east around 1191 A.D. The objective is to assasinate targets in various cities.

    The story - spoilers ahead - is divided into two parts. The A story follows the middle ages assassin who’s killing folks around the time of the crusades. The B story follows a futuristic character who’s being forced to relieve his ancestor’s past to discover clues to a treasure. Although this explains some of the gameplay mechanics (like why parts of the city are off limits early in the game), it ultimately mucks up the story too much and comes across much more hokey than the A story - which is good, albeit a bit convoluted.

    The gameplay is fun at first, but it gets repetitive quickly. When you enter a city to assassinate a target, you must gather intel. You can max out your intel and complete all the side missions, or you can complete the bare minimum (although this will make killing your target somewhat harder). There are 6 basic things to do in every city - climb a high tower to “synchronize” (read unlock objectives) on your map; save citizens - which means fighting a bunch of people at the same time; pick pocket; rough up an witness; protect an informer; and a final type which essentially is a race.

    The open fighting is nothing new, but it hangs together pretty well and it doesn’t feel like you’re mindlessly mashing buttons. For an assassin game, it’s really the quiet assassin kills that are the most fun. It’s simple enough, but if you’re spotted, you’ll be attacked by guards.

    I think the game developers intended you to run at that point. Running from roof top to roof top and through crowded streets is fun - at first. Like all the other gameplay aspects, it gets frustrating at a point. When you have to run for five minutes to get away from the guards and then truck it all the way back to your objective - it gets a little tedious. By the end, I would simple fight any guards who messed with me, because it was quicker than running away.

    The graphics are pretty good. Some of the cities look a little washed out on blue or red. This creates a good atmosphere, but takes a little away from the realism. The background citizens look really good - they move very realisticly in the crowded streets. They react pretty much like you would expect in any given situation. The climbing animation is great too. You can climb pretty much anything that looks like it can be climbed and every step you take was painstakingly animated.

    The main problem with this game (outside of repetition ) is that once you beat it - there’s little incentive to go back and play it again. (There are “flags” to collect in the various levels, but this makes playing the game feel like work; and as far as I can tell it doesn’t add to the story). This is a great game to rent over a long weekend and take back to the store on Monday.