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Not quite the next-gen title we hoped for...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 186 / 217
Date: November 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Ok I've been reading up on all the five star reviews on this game and I'm sorry, It's just not as innovative and mesmerizing as most people are saying and certainly not as good as us gamers had hoped for. (there's alot to cover so sorry for the length of the review)

Let me start out by saying this is a good game. When I started playing as Alteir the assasin, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever just because the scale of the amazingly designed cities and towns. Just walking around and looking at the scenery and people is fun but unfortunately, after eight hours of gameplay, (which is where I am at) it truly fails to stay fresh, you start noticing alot of the games problems and glitches and at this point, I'm almost forcing myself to continue on.

After the game starts, you see the scale and technological advances this game carries, you walk around and anxiously wait to run the streets freely and start killing people. When I first rode into Damascus on a white horse by means of a beautiful mountain pass that I had to go through, i thought this had to be the greatest game ever. It looks so great and going to locations such as Jerusalem and Damascus is just awesome.

But unfortunately, the scenery just isn't enough. To start, one thing that really makes this game get old fast is that everytime you go to a city, you do the same routine over and over and over again: You sneak into a city, you find some really high towers or "view points" which fill up your map and shows you the places to go. You go to the assasin's headquarters (there's one in every city) and they give you tedious little quests you must do before you can assasinate a target.

Your regular routine of tedious objectives consists of pitpocketing guys for information, interrogation, which consists of finding your target, following him until he reaches a secluded spot, then punching him until he gives you what you want. You can also meet informants who give you little chores (such as killing guys and doing the same crap you already have to do for the assasin's headquarters) and in exchange for your hard work, they give you information so as you can see, everything you do is for information on your next target. These little quests get EXTREMELY old after hours and hours of gameplay. They really arent challenging, they don't change or get harder and are only really fun the first five times you do them. You do the same crap over and over and over again in every city. (and not to knock on the the awesome looking cities or aything but truth is, apart from some bigger buildings and smaller buildings, the cities don't look THAT much different.)

When walking the cities and doing your quests, of course you are challeneged by the city guards who are constantly on the lookout for you. You have some pretty cool weapons to take care of them, such as thowing knives, a sword ( the swordfighting looks really cool), and a cool sharp spike which you can pull out or retract from just under Alteir's left hand. This weapon is used for stealth kills. Of course you also have moves and counterattacks you get as you progress.

In the upper left hand corner of the screen, you have your health bar and little meter that changes color depending on the guards: White for the guards are "unaware", Yellow for "Suspicious" and Red for "alerted".... The meter is almost always yellow which means you are supposed to hold the X button and walk EXTREMELY slow until the meeter changes to white. When you actually do that, (which takes forever) all it takes is ten seconds and the meter goes back to yellow... So naturally you're always on yellow but the enemy AI is not the best. You can silently kill a guy with your spike right in front of a guard and although it is a "silent kill", the guy will scream and fall to the ground and the guards will walk right past... but if you're just walking on the street, they might get alerted for no evident reason.

Another low point, which is kind of funny to watch is the guards amazing ability to keep up with you which is really ridiculous. To get away, you can climb up walls, get to the top of tall buildings and very unrealistically jump across rooftops... and the guards will keep up with you... You are a trained assasin but regular guys in heavy armor will climb up walls and pursue you across the largest of rooftop jumps... Just as ridiculous, you can run from one side of the city to the other, the meter will stay red and you can try to blend in but the guards on the other side of the city somehow just know you are the guy being chased 1-2miles away on the other side of the city and they will attack you... Did they have radios during the crusades so people on the other side of the city could warn others of you presence? As for hiding from the guards, this I felt was another low point. The cities are huge but you really have only three spots to hide: hay stacks, little square garden houses on rooftops and if you are being chased, you can just sit down on a bench and the guards will run right past you and you will be safe... There are trees everywhere but you cant climb or hide in them. There are barrels, crates, doors and shops you think you would be able to jump into but no... you have to sit on the bench... There are no disguises or such froms of deception that you can use. The idea of vast and creative options is just absent.

Now for the actual assasinations. (sorry. i know this review is long) The assasinations, while still fail to remain something mouth-dropping and new do have a bit of newness to them. You have to assasinate nine specific guys in the game and each pose a different challenge. Now don't misunderstand, you are still doing the same crap to kill the nine guys as you would be doing to kill anyone else but without spoiling anything, you will find each main assasination a bit different from the last, followed by a cinemeatic while the target dies. After each assasination, you return to the boss and he gives you the next target.

Believe it or not, although this is a very mission based game, (you just get one mission after the next) it does have a bit of story in the mix. The main character can think for himself (but unfortunately has some of the worst voice acting i have ever heard) and there are other characters but there aren't really any other "real" characters. Sure there are guys that you speak to for a mission but there aren't any real new characters that pop up and the game just doesn't really have alot of character such as a game like Metal Gear beacuse the game just remains the same. But, without spoiling anything, there is a major story twist... which you actually discover at the beginning of the game... which is kinda weird but you can determine for yourself whether it's a good twist or a bad twist.

Finally, i have to include some of the horrible glitches i have come across. Are these glitches a cause of the ps3 or the game? I can't really say for sure but I'm pretty sure its the game for my ps3 has worked great with every other game. Whenever you pass a crowd of people on the streets, every once in a while, if you turn the camera around quickly to look back, the people will have ALL dissapeared randomely, then if you look back again, they will be back in place... This has happened to me the other way around as well. Ontop of that, while i'm ruinning around, my character has just frozen in midair. Now the game itself didn't freeze, just my character. It looked like something in the matrix. My character was in midair while everything else was moving and i had to restart my ps3. Weird.

In conclusion (finally, i know this is a long one) Assasin's creed is a good game and I am still enjoying it but this was supposed to be one of the greatest games of this generation and it could have been but the only thing that really makes this a cool game now, i beleive will be a common thing in all next gen gaming titles and in a year, this game won't be remembered as anything. Now the question is: should i trade in Assasin's Creed for Uncharted which comes out next week??

Amazing Game-Amazing Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 41 / 52
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Great game...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have been waiting for this game for over a year now, and let me tell you it was well worth it. The gameplay is amazing, it is smooth, the actions are realistic, and the graphics are amazing. Not to mention the battles really become great once you up your level. There is just so much to do in this game and the fact that the developers did not skimp one bit one graphics, story, or depth, is great. The cities are huge and look accurate down to every last crack in the concrete. I could go on and on about how much I love this game, great original story and a must have for a true gamer.

OVERRATED! How did the makers get away with this ???

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: March 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is a very good example of what HYPE, word of mouth and "cool looks" can do. Everything you do in this game (and a lot of the things you see and interact with) is the SAME, over and over again. You start a chapter talking with your master, then you practice a new move (optional) , then you take a horse and ride to a city. In the cities you do 3 required task to be able to advance to your main assassination objetive, always 3 out of the following :

You may climb on top of a high tower/building which would reveal the tasks that can be done in the area around that high spot. It's optional, but it saves time, of course, and doesn't really hurt. Besides, after you climb all your way to the top, THERE IS ALWAYS a cart full of hay awaiting for you right down below so you can just DIVE from whatever height you are into it (of course the character takes damage and dies when he falls from like a 2-story building, but diving from over 300ft into hay, that's just fine, sure.)

1-Interrogate some dude. (ALWAYS preaching in public. You harass him even if guards are right there seeing you and they won't do anything unless you push the guy over them) He talks, you kill him (again, no response from guards)

2- Eavesdrop 2 dudes having a conversation. Always 2 dudes, you ALWAYS sit on a bench to listen, and can't do it any other way. You may even start a fight in the area and the dudes won't move and leave. I even started a fight against like 10 guards (who were ON THE BENCH and the game wouldn't let me start the mission, so I killed them) and after the fight was over people were still running in panic screaming, and I just sit right there on my bench and calmly listened to the 2 dudes still talking over there.

3- Help some guy with a task (Picking up flags or Silently killing some guards in the area. Both time limited) Self-explanatory. You talk to some guy who asks for your help. You do the task in a time limit (very easy, of course, even the killing ones thanks to the atrocious AI <--more on that later).

4- Pickpocket. There always two dudes talking about something related to the plot. One of the leave, then the other. You must get close to him from behind, push a button and voila! you just completed the task. The guy will ALWAYS react the same way after you successfuly pickpocket him, like he realized he was robbed, but will NEVER get suspicious of you even if you run away from him just after you rob him.

Besides the taks you can save some citizens being harassed by guards. There are always some of those spread around the city. You kill the guards and then you should hurry the hell out of there, but of course the ones you saved must thank you. They always say one of 3 dialogs and you can't leave the area after they finish saying their stupid thanks (you attack the guards even if you have no idea who's right or wrong. Hey, you're an assassin! what's more stealthy than killing some guards to help a stranger and draw some attention to yourself. Way to go!)

After you complete your 3 tasks (which always reveal something about boss of the city you must kill, his whereabouts and schedule) you ALWAYS return to the assassin's creed headquarters located in every city. These hideouts are always designed the SAME way, you access them from the roof, and they are exact copies of each other in every city. There's always some dude behind a counter talking crap (you can visit them anytime and they will give you hints on where to look for your tasks) and almost all these dudes talk down to you (something to do with the beginning of the story) but it gets old and annoying too soon (like everything in this game, duh). Well you tell guy what you learned from your tasks, and then procceed to the primary objective.

Primary objetive: They are always in a well-guarded place and with the exception of maybe the LAST one, they are in an area that can only be accessed by you getting mixed with a group of Scholars (4 dudes dressed in white always walking around in circles and praying <----this is the very same way you can only get inside every city in the game, ALWAYS)

After you get inside, there's always (can you count how many times I've written "always" and "same"?, trust me the game it's even more repetitive than that!) always a gathering of people, and the Boss talking to them or/and doing some public act. Then after a cutscene, it's your time to strike. How? does it really matter? there's really no way to kill the bastards without causing an uproar. You just start the riot, and break through the guards , push the Boss to the floor and stick him with your knife. Some of them run, but again, just a couple of them (remeber, they are 9) and it's very unlikely you'll lose them and be forced to restart the scene. Most of them take you on! They actually ask for it, and you simple fight admist the chaos and kill them on the floor. Before they die you are always taken to a screen kinda like inside an isolated memory, only the two of you talking. Oh, these guys are always very chatty before dying. How nice of them!

After they die. You run. It won't be long or difficult before you lose the guards and can't safely return to the Assassin's headquarters (you always do that of course). There you talk to your pal behind the counter, and later you return to your Master.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. 8 more times. There's your game.

Other embarrasing examples of mediocrity in this game:

-AI sucks. The guards are the most prehistorically intelligent things you've seen since Metal Gear 1 from NINTENDO (1988)
-When the alert mode turns yellow (meaning caution and you must hide to avoid further alarm) you can only hide inside Hay, sitting on a bench or inside a tent. There are plenty around.
-Combat is done with one button. It's just a matter of timing. You can just counter attack all your opponents and be done with it pretty easily. There are no real fights, you just get into sporadic trouble here and there, not a single fight except the one you kill the bosses have any meaning. Fighting is like performing a dance, it looks nice, and to some degree fun.
-The game is short. It only takes longer 'cause of the annoying endless repetition. Climbing the buildings, walking slowly to avoid detection (you can 'cause an alarm very easily by running a lot while being on "under watch mode" and faster than killing the guys you interrogate or killing a guard close to another on rooftops)
-The story sucks. I won't waste my time going into details. Let's just say even if you think it's decent at best, it won't make up for the rest of this garbage. Anyone can figure where the thing is going after a couple of missions.
-The game has no ending. "WTF" you say? You can look it up everywhere, the game has no real resolution and it just plain sucks. I had to tell you this even if it was sort of a spoiler, so you will stay away from this. It's not even worth finishing the game, 'cause there's no rewarding story or conclusion of it.
-The last boss sucks. It's even easier to beat this guy than any corner fight you run into the city.
-No character development. No drama. No exciting plot twists.
-No change of environment. All 3 cities look the same, you don't go underground, you NEVER GO INDOORS. You NEVER PLAY AT NIGHT (some assassin huh!) weather and time of day is the same always.

I could go on, and on. But I'm tired now. Can't you tell I hated this game?

Why did I play/finish it? My brother bought here on Amazon. I was suspicious of the game after reading some reviews. I had read it was repetitive, but no idea to what extent. After I had played for 3 or 4 hours it was cleared to me that I was playing garbage and decided to finish the game just to be rightfully able to criticize the game and advise others to stay away from it.

How did this game sell so much? Why are some many reknown videogame sites giving good scores to this gate (above 8 and even 10)? Where they paid off? It seems very likely. Maybe they are irresponsable and don't finish the games before scoring? Not even the latter is a good excuse, you will definitely see how bad this game is just by playing 2 or 3 of the missions.

This game deserves a 5 out of 10 at best. It feels like a BETA game, not fully developed, rushed to the stores before it was not even 70% complete. But in a 5 star system I wouldn't give 2.5 if I could. 2 stars is a "rent/borrow it" rating. It's all it deserves. They shouldn't have charged full price for this game, it's a total scam. I hope the team of developers behind it laugh at their success in sales, I enjoy it very much, beacuse I SERIOUSLY DOUBT they are regarded as talented people and good game designers among the videogame developer community. May this game stain their resumes forever! Shame on you! and shame on Ubisoft! or should I say "Copysoft" I'm sure they refered to this game with the codename "copy/paste" when it was on pre-production. It seems it never got that far from that stage.

STAY AWAY.

Quite less than sum of its parts

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Being the second most eagerly-anticipated game of the year for me (the first was 'Shivering Isles', the third was 'Uncharted: Drake's Fortune'), I assumed it was a sure-fire winner, and the game is clearly one in many areas.

This is such a beautiful game. Everything looks so detailed, life-like, and fluid. Motion-animation is so realistic and smooth. If you squint your eyes little bit, I swear it looks as if you can really touch it.

In terms of gameplay mechanism, this game sets out a new direction and opens up a lot of potentials and possibilities for the future of video game industry. Everything is simply yet quite complex in execution. Instead of having single button assigned for each task such as attack, run, and jump, single button is assigned to each hand and one for the legs. In different situation, the reaction will be different. In fact, all the game mechanics in this game are pretty much reaction-based. It takes a little adjustment period for we are so tuned with the traditional one-button-for-one-task method, but once you get the hang of it, it is very intuitive and exciting way to execute the gameplay.

So with innovative game mechanics and gorgeous graphics, this is a great game? Unfortunately, that is not the case here.

Huge gameworld where you can freely roam around anywhere anytime (although each area is divided by loading screen) and some interactivity with the environment might have you to believe this is open-ended game like 'Oblivion'. That couldn't be further from the truth. The game is very restrictive and linear in constrast of what you might have been led to believe. Non-linearity itself doesn't necessarily create the problem, but the scope of the stage the game is set truly is. The world is bustling with tons and tons of people. But they might as well be animals or objects in this hollow world. They are just there, period. Yes, they react when you push them. You can kill anyone. But that's it. No quest given by NPC as in 'Oblivion', no side quest to perform like 'GTA', no dialogue options like 'The Witcher' (you cannot talk to them, period), they are truly monotonous, and this makes the world so distant and hollow. And all of the assassination mission are exactly identical. I mean exactly the same. The only difference is the character you are to eliminate and the cutscene involving the mission. The only thing non-linear about this whole game is who you are going to kill first and which entry point you are going to take. That's all, folks!!! To make the matter worse, it just takes forever to get between one mission and the next without much activities. You have this huge world, and you have nothing better to do than to walk, run, ride horse, or engage with people in combat. There is no incentive to traverse and explore or to kill people. What little storyline and plot twist (if you can call it one) is all marred by this insanely boring and alienating tasks. There is no sense of urgency or danger. Especially if you die, the game automatically load fresh start from the automatically saved game. Sometimes linearity works a lot better and this game is one of them. It will bring out some sense of structure and intensity sorely missing in the game.

In a nutshell, you are a medieval Spidey jumping from rooftop to rooftop and kill baddies and rescue some helpless citizens from the same baddies.
For a game of this much production value, art direction, innovative game mechanics, and beeeaaaaauuuuutiful graphics, it is really a letdown to see the gameplay makes you really boring.

There are many elements people would love in this game, and the opinion is subjective. This is by no mean a bad game. Actually a quite well-made product. But in the end, what could have been a truly mind-bending, innovative game that combines the stealth action of 'Splinter Cell' and platform action of 'Prince of Persia' (both immensely popular games from 'Ubisoft'), 'Assassin's Creed' feels like a big tease of what is to come in the near future.

(((((PS3 OWNERS)))))

There is no issue with this version of the game. In fact, better framerate and better graphic overall than 360 except some constrast ratio.

Visually stunning

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This much anticipated game has fallen short. Whatever Next-Gen gaming is supposed to be, I don't think this is it.

Freezing and glitches make it a disappointment. I hope Ubisoft releases a patch for this. The game has similarities to Spiderman 3. Both have freezing and glitches. AC has Eagle Vision... similar to Spider Sense. Both games feature climbing buildings. In AC you collect flags, SM3 you collect coins. Both games have you save citizens on the street from being attacked. Both games are visually outstanding, but I find Assassin's Creed landscapes and setting more interesting. The cities (Jerusalem, Damascus, Acre, and Masyaf) look fantastic. The AI in Assassin's Creed reminds me of Far Cry (characters react to your movements). The map in Assassin's Creed is massive and very open. It is not linear as many games. You are free to roam, within reason. The rotating aerial shots when Altair acquires a viewpoint look great. The ending is anti-climatic.

I did log in to Ubisoft and complained about the Freezing / Hanging.

Update: Ubisoft has answered my complaint on their site:

"This issue is currently being worked on by the development team for Ubi.com.
Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA on when it will be resolved, but it should
not be long."

Amazing!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is amazing. the amount of detail that they added into everything is astounding. The plot is also very good and the total freedom really adds to the feel of the game. Too many games now are just copying what older games did and thats kind of getting old. This should definitely be a front runner for game of the year.

Repetition does not equal fun

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: December 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When you first start Assassin's Creed you will like what you see. It's a story in a story with great controls and some beautiful city landscapes.

That's the first hour of the game. After that, you realize what the game is really like - a blond bombshell that should never have been passed out of the fifth grade. There is no central game and it becomes empty very quickly.

Pros
1. Looks great
2. Controls are second nature, anyone can be a master swordsman and almost put spider man to shame when climbing buildings
3. Interesting layered storyline

Cons
1. No interaction. You can't enter a building and you sure won't remember the names of any of the characters after you finish a chapter.
2. Controls are too simple. Want to climb a building? Grab onto a ledge, and just hold up. That's all there is to it. You will almost NEVER fall from a building unless you hit the wrong button, how boring.
3. There is no real "assassin" play techniques. Need to kill a target? Simply walk up to them and use your hidden knife, no one will be the wiser as long as you don't stand at the murder scene.

Even better is once you master the counter technique for sword fighting, you can take on huge groups of guards with very little chance of death. Farther into the game you are required to dispatch entire groups of guards, once again dispersing the entire assassination theme. Also, don't even try to assassinate the main bosses, it's a waste of time since the game always forces these huge group battles.

The icing on the cake is the fact that the story does very little to wrap up at the end and leaves you wondering what in the world is going on.

The game looks and plays for everyone, but there is no real assassination themes, interactivity, or closure. It gets repetitive after a few play sessions and I'd be surprised if even 1/10th of the people who buy this game actually try to finish all of it.

Really Disappointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

There was alot of hype surrounding this game when it came out and I bought into it. I watched the trailer and read reviews and was just blown away because the graphics, the gameplay, and the whole concept just looked so awesome. People were saying this was going to be a freeform game like Grand Theft Auto, a "medieval Grand Theft Auto". Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Basically the game consists of going from town to town, finding the target you need to assassinate, killing him, and then repeat. Even though the towns appear to be bustling with life and activity, there is actually nothing to do in the towns, except side missions of finding flags and saving citizens from the guards. Yep, that's it. No money to collect, nothing to buy, no extra abilities to attain. You can "pickpocket" but you can only pickpocket certain guards and the only items you can steal are....throwing knives.

Watching the trailer I was under the impression there would be beautiful cutscene videos explaining the story. Well, there are none. The story is explained by the characters in ingame graphics talking through long, boring monologues. Also, you find out that you're not actually playing the assassin, but his modern day "ancestor" who is living his past memories. I'm still wondering why they did this, since it contributes nothing to the story or the game, and I found myself sighing in boredom every time they cut back to the assassin's modern counterpart since I knew I was in for another 5-10 minutes of talking that has nothing to do with the game.

I have to say that the graphics are amazing, but the "wow" factor wears off after about 10 minutes and all that's left is the gameplay, and I have to say that the gameplay sucks. You're supposed to sneak around and assassinate your target, but you find out that the easiest way to kill them is to just rush in and start hacking and slashing and then run away from the guards, and that's what you're going to be doing most of the time.

I just feel really disapointed after buying and playing this game because I feel like it has so much potential. If only there was more stuff to do in the game. Before I got this game I envisioned being able to steal horses in towns and run off with them, stealing money from people, buying new and different weapons in towns, having a bunch of side missions to do in every town. Well, within the first 10 minutes of playing I realized this wasn't going to be the case. I'm still scratching my head as to why this game got such good reviews.

TOP GAME OF 2007!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've had this game one night and here I am at work..counting the minutes until I can go home and play! This game is bloody well ace. SUPERB REALISTIC GRAPHICS! Fast action! Great gripping story line! Free roam like GTA! Ace kill and fighting moves. You lose focus of everything else and this game envelopes you!

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