User Reviews (161 - 171 of 191)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Assassin's Creed is Impossible to Forget

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Assassin's Creed is a game about heart pounding speed, swords, and survival that is impossible to forget. Through advanced technology the player revisits experiences of their ancestors, trapped memories waiting to be discovered in our DNA. In this case, we uncover memories of Altair, a highly skilled assassin in the thick of the crusades in 1191 Israel. Unravel history by fulfilling your place in it and see to the removal of high ranking misguided leaders. Gather field intelligence, stake out your mark, and develop a plan, knowing that stealth is required to do what must be done. Once the hit is made though, your speed and your sword are the only true allies you have.
Altair finds himself constantly struggling with the reality of his task and it's lethal end, finding no solace in the confessions of his targets. He rides horseback through Israel to expansive and detailed cities like Damascus and Jerusalem, stopping to lend his sword to save a helpless citizen, or rescue a clergyman being mugged. Then it's up, time to explore and take in the massive cityscapes, smoothly leaping from roof to roof, and gracefully climbing every surface around.
The remarkable town structures look authentic with an added abundance of handholds and footholds on a massive scope. Altair will grab and climb everything, scaling the peak of a watchtower and the steeple of a towering church. The serene view is balanced by the deadly chaotic chase the will eventually come. With nerves rattling, the intense chase scenes are a thrilling mix of speed and swordplay. Being circled by eight guys with swords requires a quick hand and timed defense, making the blade to blade combat a perfect example of sword fighting finally done right. Stopping to fight pursuers can lead to an exciting realization though, that you are outnumbered twenty to one with more guys coming from the ally. Fight or flight, and now it's time to go, but one misstep can be your last, because a dead end while on the run is exactly that.
When gathering Intel on your target, sometimes the knowledge is not as helpful as it could be. For example, in Crackdown, paying attention to the info gets you to your target due to the knowledge of the most unguarded way, but I found Altair would have to do whatever the game intended, regardless of the preparation before the strike. Also I enjoy any opportunity to travel horseback, but the fighting is so well choreographed, that when on my trusty steed, I lack the efficiency with my blade that I came to expect.
The way Assassin's Creed keeps me thinking about it is a true indicator of it's memorable quality, and of it's need for a sequel. The cliffhanger ending opens potential doors and leaves an anticipation that no hype can equal. The aspect of running for your life at full tilt and climbing anything you see is like playing Tombraider with out ever stopping once to look around, sometimes leaping on faith. Going after your high ranking target is like Crackdown, but with swords set in deadly hands. Swords that do so many things, that you find impossible to forget.

Assassin's Creed for Xbox 360

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is truly a marvel of a game. I read a lot of mixed reviews about it, but finally decided to decide for myself. I was very glad I did! Yes, there are tasks you perform more than once, but not getting caught up in that will let you enjoy the historical and engrossing story. It is also a visual masterpiece, and you get very attached to your character. I can hardly wait for the next story in the series.

Innovative gameplay bogged down by horrendous story and AI

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The Good first:

Graphically, the game is amazing, and what really makes the game stand out is the immense amount of environmental interaction there is. You can casually push people aside who get in your way, or you can roughly shove them. You can attack random people, which will cause a panic, and people react to what you do, such as remarking about you if you go dashing by, or calling you insane for bumping into walls or trying to climb up things or jump on top of random objects. Bump into an armed guard and they WILL chase you. Not only chase you, but chase you RELENTLESSLY! It's rather difficult to get them to stop, as you have to get out of their sight AND hide for a short time. Your character is agile enough to jump from rooftops with ease, hang on to edges, scramble up walls like a cat, and dive into stacks of hay to get out of sight.

The many options for combat and running around are impressive, as is the combat system when fighting people. It has some button mashing involved, but it's not mindless mashing. Your sword can even get red from blood, and horse riding is very realistic as well.

The Bad:

Oh wow... first, gameplay-wise, the AI is simply retarded. About the only time the guards are competent is when they're chasing you for causing havoc in the city. Once they surround you, or you're engaged in combat with them, they only bother to attack you one at a time. So far in my gaming, when engaging in fighting, I've never fought or killed men who didn't surround me like a pack of gangbangers coming at me one at a time. Even if I had no weapon but my fists, they wouldn't bother, and even if I were slaughtering them. It would seem the explanation being they're too cocky to attack you all at once when you're helpless, and they're too scared to attack you all at once when you're dominating. No middle ground.

Historically accurate it may claim to be, it fails massively in even the most menial, and yet telling of aspects: The main character, in a 12th Century Arab country, has an AMERICAN accent. You could nitpick with the whole "well they didn't speak english in Arab countries in the 12th Century" and it wouldn't matter a damn, because English DID exist at the time, but AMERICA did NOT. Not only is the American accent an annoying anachronism (which is inexcusable, because despite popular belief, Americans CAN accept protagonists with non-American accents) but has the stereotypical arrogant American swagger so hated by people of other countries, that not only makes him an unlikeable character, but gets him in trouble in the game, as within the first fifteen minutes of the game, he already breaks all three rules of the Assassin's Creed. Because he's "badass".

Of course, if you didn't know from the other reviews, this is all just the "memory" being replayed via some scientifically fragile theory of "genetic memory" in which a person's life experiences are recorded in their DNA, and passed on through generations. The main character is yet another American stereotype of the typical badass loner assassin who just wants to turn his life around by being a bartender. Not only is his dialogue so dull and listless as to make you not give a damn about him, but he is also very plain and ugly. Not really a valid complaint, but it's a physical manifestation of the person's mental state.

So awful was this game's story that I did not want to go on playing it after the first few missions. I simply could not tolerate it. I had to force myself into living the horrid story and AI.

One of the best games I've ever played.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I love this game. It has become one of my all-time favorite games. The graphics are insane, the gameplay and completely interactive AI and Holy Land World makes this game extremely interesting. The story-line is one of the most intricate and intense of these next-gen games. Some people say that the gameplay gets boringly repetetive, but I beg to differ. Yea, in each area u go into for an assasination attempt you are performing the same tasks (rescuing citizens, pickpocketing, eavesdropping, collecting flags, assasinating for informers, or beating up despots) but HOW these tasks are actually accomplished is always different. You have completely free roam to approach any situation any way you want. This game is extremely addicting and fun to play. I've beaten it and play it over and over or go back into my beaten game to explore the entire span of areas for flags and templars to kill!!
MY ONLY BEEF WITH THIS GAME: If you step or even trip and fall into water you die. Now I understand if you fall from extremely high up, but even that doesnt make sense as Altair is able to survive death-defying leaps of faith from extremely high look-out points only falling into a tiny thing of hay. You're the sickest, most skilled assasin who scales walls leaps over roofs kills rediculous amounts of guards...but you dont know how to swim?!?! I hope they clear this dumb little annoyance up in the sequel like they did with GTA.

Frusterating at times, but Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Plenty of people have already given an in-depth review of the game, so I'll stick with some quick summaries:

Pros:
*very large, beautiful, and realized environments
*realistic, fluid, and precise character movements
*great story

The graphics are really top-notch. The biggest thrill of the game comes from leaping across rooftops and climbing to the highest view points. When Altair runs and climbs, his movements are extremely fluid and precise, not to mention realistic. Truly a marvel in character animation and design.

Also, the game has a great (if a little predictable) story and kept me interested throughout. The assassinations are fun, although more times than not, you end up slashing you way in instead of using stealth, which is fine.

Cons:
*sometimes-overly-sensitive guard alerts (I doubt that knocking a pot off someones head would've really caused a guard to point at you and scream "Assassin!")
*combat engine not quite developed enough for how much you need to use it
*can get repetitive

A lot of the reivews chide the game for being too repetitive, and it definitely is repetitive to a degree. At the start of the game, I was completing every single investigation but by the last 2 assassinations, I was pretty much doing just the bare minimum to advance the story. Also, the combat engine could use a little tweaking. It is not precise enough for how much it is used. Also, the guard alerts get extremely sensitive and frusterating by the end. Sometimes just running past a guard was enough. After a while I stopped trying to run and just backed into a corner and killed them all when they were alerted.

All and all, it's a fun game but it definitely has it's frusterating moments.

Very fun game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a very fun game over all the combat begins to get repetitive but all in all its a solid game.
pros+
-good story
-good graphics
-fun fighting system
-innovative
cons-
-gets repetetive
-needs another 5-10 hours of story
-a little to simple

final score 9.0

A New Highpoint for Graphics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Written by my son, James Shea

A stealth game set in the time of the Crusades, Assassin's Creed takes the basic concepts of "stealth games" and adds many more realistic and dynamic features to it. The mainly-urban setting of the game forces the player to consider many more variables than in previous stealth-style games.

The player takes the role of Desmond Miles, who himself is taking the role of his ancestor, Altair, an ancient assassin. Reliving the life of his ancestor through the use of a genetic memory machine called the Animus, Desmond's story intertwines with the events that his ancestor lived through. The mysterious group forcing Desmond to use the Animus, as well as details about the characters Desmond and Altair interact with, are fleshed out as the game continues.

Almost the entire game - except for short sessions between Animus uses - is spent as Altair, and thus he is the focal character in the game. Altair is tasked to kill 9 key figures in the Templar and Crusader hierarchy, each in a different part of one of the game's three cities (not including the assassin's stronghold). To achieve this, Altair must gather intelligence by eavesdropping, pickpocketing valuable documents, and getting information from informants. Furthermore, Altair must prepare for the assassination itself; mapping out the city from high points and helping the local populace, who will then return the favor if Altair is being pursued by guards. The cities are vibrant and dynamic, and interaction with its people is a key trait. Activities that will not arouse suspicion, for example, tend to be low-key things like gently moving through a crowd (pushing people softly aside), walking at a normal pace, and using ladders. In contrast, running or sprinting through a crowded marketplace (knocking people and objects aside) and climbing up the sides of buildings using windows and handholds are things that will draw the attention of the guards.

The gameplay handles excellently. Swordfighting is graceful and fluid, and tends to be "realistic" more than "stylized" despite the inclusion of several "finishing move"-type attacks. Altair's weapons include a hidden blade (useful for quiet, non-suspicious attacks), a sword (more damaging, but heavier), a long dagger (quicker and better for counter-attacking), and throwing knives. Altair is graceful and athletic, and can climb almost any building in the game by moving from various handholds. He can also jump from roof to roof and from various other points; the feeling of speed is emphasized especially when Altair stumbles after hitting someone going full speed, or hits the ground and rolls after a jump. Traveling between cities (in the unsettled middle area known as the Kingdom) requires a horse, and horse handling is also done very well.

The graphics are absolutely beautiful. The environments, the characters, the effects, and even the heads up display are all both stylized and realistic. Characters animate and move very naturally, and the cities are expansive and don't seem like the same 10 buildings over and over. The heads up display, especially, is seamlessly integrated into the story; it represents the Animus, which is noted in the manual to be designed to work like a game to better acclimate subjects to it. The game is a cinematic experience most of the way through, and its visuals are of the highest quality.

The sound is not particularly notable, and is possibly the weakest part of the game. Music is rare, only illuminating fight scenes, and is mostly forgettable. Voices tend to be well-done, in terms of accents and voicing, but are repetitive. Mostly, the sound is a side-part of the game, and not as notable as the other parts.

As a whole, this game is fantastic. It's fun, it looks great, and it's got an interesting urban and medieval twist on the usual sneaking missions. It's definitely recommended to most game fans.

Rating: 9/10

Note: We enjoyed this game so thoroughly that one of us went through the entire game to write a full walkthrough, and the other went all the way through to validate it. The graphics are just amazingly realistic in terms of movement and fighting style.

Its addictive.... for a while.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game is very good. I would recommend this game to anyone that is into action and Role-playing games. The graphics are very realistic, and the voice-overs/sounds are very well done.

This game becomes addictive when you first start playing it. It is very exciting, and does have a learning curve. More into the game you do travel to different cities, and complete goals and objectives. After the third or fourth city you start to feel like you keep on repeating yourself, and its not as fun to play since it does get repetitive. Beyond the repetitive factor, this game is very well put together and if you can get past the repetitive nature of it, then it will be a great game for you to own.

For parents: There is alot of violence in this game so I would not recommend getting this for someone under the age of 15.

--Odessa

An interesting game that some people don't give enough credit

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

As I have said before in all my other reviews, I am Susan Gill's son using her account.

Let me get one thing straight: I have been waiting for Assassin's Creed for a LONG time. More than a year to be exact. So when the time came that I got to rent it I was estatic. I'd already been looking up tons of video's for it (which really spoiled the Assassination's for me =[ ) And frankly I got really bored watching someone else play it. And let me tell you when I started playing the game, it was like everything I'd been waiting for.

Pros

I guess I'll start with the story. The story in this game is a mix of weird, interesting plot twists that kept me guessing the entire game. When it came to the final boss I had as much fun ( and a little frustration) as I could possibly have. The game really had great voice acting that made the story a lot more believable.

The graphics in this game are good. Real good. The environment is amazing to look at. The view points that you climb in the game look totally natural, like every structure that Altair climbs looks as if it were supposed to be there in the first place. So you litterally can climb anything that sticks out more than 2 inches in the game. The swords actually look real and the setting for cities like Acre look absolutely fantastic. And the roofs

The sound in this game is so spot on that it couldn't get any better. Although there were a few parts when certain things messed up, The overall sound in the game is dead on. The sound of the swords clanging and the rooftop jumping really make you get into the game.

The gameplay you ask? EXTREMELY entertaining. I can't get enough of running up walls and jumping off of walls and beams. One of my favorite parts of the gameplay is the chase element. You sometimes feel like you're running for your life because of how many guards can chase you ( like 12 to 15 <33 ). It's really satisfieing when you blend with a group of monks or do a leap of faith to escape and they're like "Crap where'd he go??" . lol. Speaking of Leaps of Faith, those are one of the most exciting parts of the game. The first time I performed one, I was thinking, " Why can't I do that!??".

The Assassinations are definitely The coolest part of gameplay. The feeling of being able to leap onto your target with your hidden blade out in the midst of a crowd is a feeling I'll never forget. Another good thing about the Assassinations is the fact that there are at least three or so ways to get to your target. You could try to go along the roofs of the buildings, getting rid of any archers that are posting the rooftops (which is also a useful way to make an escape route). Another way to get in is to try and Kill a citizen or a guard nearby, so that you create a distraction then just use the blend button to walk inside ( although I don't recomend this way because you're more likely to get caught). The third is just totally rushing in with full force and fighting everyone off until your target loses all his health in the fight. All are fun, but the stealth ways are the most fun and satisfying.

Well time for the bad.

Cons

This games story is one that is kinda love/hate with me. I'm a Christian so as most of you know from this statement already, some of the claims that are made in the game are really out there. Fortunately they mention before the game begins that it's a work of fiction that was designed from people of different religious faiths( although the Christians might not have been that strong in faith). Also, I actually liked to make arguments with the game on the claims they made and it actually strenghtened my faith. So that's not really a problem with me.

Another thing that really bothered me was the content in the game. The blood in the game is really unrealistic. It's almost like some kind of anime blood that spills like its being shot out of a cannon. Also although It's rated for Strong language ( this is more of a good thing than a complaint I just don't feel like writing it up there^^ ) The only time the swearing was ever overbearing was when the characters get angry, and honestly you can practically see it coming (sometimes). The language reminded me of the Bourne Identity movie, how it was kinda bad in the begining but then got really bad at that part at the end. The thing that's good about it though is that all the real language is when you're playing as Desmond It's really rare when they swear when you're playing as Altair. And when they do swear they NEVER say anything over the top. An you're also playing as Altair about 90 to 95 percent of the game so swearing is the least of your conerns.

The violence is definitely where the game get's it's M rating. Its the most realistic violence I've ever seen in a video game. But, just like the language, there's a way to avoid it completely. When you've reached your target in the game there's a little cinematic that takes place. There were only 3 men that had REALLY bad violence. And I've found that you can avoid it by simply using the people in front of the cinematic to avoid watching the real horrible parts. It's that simple. The reason for this is that You're still in control of Altair the entire time. The only other thing really violent is when you're using the knife on Altair's back. After you press the counter attack button, I've seen him stab a mans foot and head and cut someone's throat. Not exactly a pretty picture ( although it helps when you turn off the blood however unrealistic it is.) Also I've found that you can choose which counter attack you want to use by moving the left stick in any given direction. So if you want to avoid that gruesome stuff just use the sword the entire time. It's moves aren't near as bad. In fact they are practically the same as the moves you'd see in the movies.

So all in all, if you're a mature gamer that's not really bothered by this kind of stuff, I'd say give it a try. After you beat the game you can go back and choose another assassination, and if you messed up like 7 of the nine like I did then you could go back and try to do it right that time, or you could go and get all the view points, flags, and try to find and assassinate all 60 Templars (which is what I'm doing now). In other words, rent because this game will seem repetitive to others, while some people (like myself) don't mind it because each one is different in it's own way. So definitely RENT FIRST!!

This is pretty good.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 15, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The story line in this game is what makes the entire game worth playing. The jumping challenges are tons of fun and amazing to watch. However, the fight simulator is just tragic. It is difficult to turn, counter blows, and changing weapons mid-fight is nearly impossible to do. It is a fun game (don't get me wrong). I just wish the play lived up to the hype.

Review Page: Previous 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next 

Actions