Assassin's Creed

(untitled review)

Assassin's Creed was a great idea. Be an assassin during the legendary Crusades. What more do you want? Well....A lot really.

A new element to this assassin game was the whole investigation process. Unlike "Hitman" where your investigation goes as far as stalking a red mark on your radar, Assassin's Creed makes you track people, pick pocket and interrogate. You only need to do a certain amount of these repetitive tasks before you can initiate the hit. Only problem is that it gets very dull, very fast. It feels as though they were just placed there to give you something to do, not really a necessity. However it does add something new to the genre and at least makes you feel like you're finding information rather than just kill the target because that's the only way to progress. Plus doing these missions will increase your health stats in the long run.

One thing that will stay with you long after paying AC will be the free running mechanic where you jump around and climb buildings like an ancestor to Sam Fisher. Only Altair is much more flexible. It's quite a feeling to alert the guards and run away, climb buildings and then jump into a very convenient haystack. It's a fact that every building you could see could be climbed and finding the right "view points" unlocked special bonus like missions such as fighting off guards harassing a woman. After saving her she might just ask her friends to provide some "help" if you ever find yourself being pursued.

The story of Altair is that he was once a great assassin who screwed up one mission by trying to take things into his own hands. His master "killed" him. Or so Altair thought. It was just a warning to him. Now you are faced with killing nine men in exchange for your former rank.

In the present day you are Mr. Miles, trapped in a very bleak room with an Animus for company. This Animus retrieves memories from your ancestors and theres one very grumpy doctor who believes you know something he wants to know through one of your late relatives. Altair.

I won't say anymore as I don't want to ruin the entire story.

The graphics are amazing, it's times like this when you can feel proud of owning a next gen console. Sadly the AI isn't up to much but Ubi do seem to be lacking in that department. Even the toughest of guards can be dispatched with a dagger counter-attack. When confronted by several men you still only seem to fight one to one at anytime. Three on very rare occasions.

Overall this is only worth one play through unless you want to find all the useless flags around the cities and Kingdom. Very much like the hidden package system in GTA. There aren't any "creative" ways to eliminate targets like "Hitman" so replaying missions will be slightly pointless.

With all that said this is still a worthwhile game. You may want to wait for the price to drop but the story is worth playing through and I'm sure the next instalment will improve the experience.