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Altair is not the man he seems to be.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Fair.....

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: November 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an OK game. It's difficult sometimes, but I always try not to judge games based upon release hype. I have had a 360 for about a year and a half, and usually buy all the major releases, especially if they get positive reviews from users on sites like this (I don't put much stock in "professional" reviewers or game magazines, because they are usually beholden in some way to the publisher).

With all that said, this game is fair. The graphics are, indeed very good. The control scheme is very different, and takes some getting used to. Once you get it down, you can indeed scale big buildings jump across rooftoops and all that. But my two disappointments are:

1. Why is this rated "M"? There's hardly any blood.

2. I dislike any "Freeform" game that frowns on killing innocents. I don't bother them all the time; but I do like knowing I can, if I want to be "evil."

3. I make this complaint in most of my reviews, and I'm going to repeat it here (and in a couple of new reviews I'm planning to write)-with today's modern games, all that technology, advanced programming next gen blah blah yada yada yak yak WHY CANT THERE BE A QUICKSAVE?????? Why do we have to be subjected to "checkpoints" and "autosaves?" It is frustrating as HELL to get almost to the end of a level, get killed and have to start again from the "checkpoint" miles, or an hour back. STOP IT!

So, except for the facts that it's not freeform enough, not gory enough, and has no quicksave, Assasins Creed is fair. I didn't see any glitches, and don't mind the "Bruce Lee Movie" style attacks (e.g. twelve guys attack you, and each wait politely till you kill the guy you're fighting with before they attack), because I'm not so good at combat and would get killed more. I would not recommend buying without renting first.

Good... just.... good

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has many good features. The graphics are astounding. The fluidity and animations are cool. The size & details put into the environments... seems impossible. Those aspects are great.

Now for the not so hot aspects... This game is a button masher. I have been playing this game for about [edit] almost 2 weeks [/edit], and so far it has been a huge letdown. Like another critical reviewer said - I was hoping for freedom and the ability to be creative, much like Hitman: Blood Money... We were told by the hyped reviews that this was going to be a combination of Hitman, Oblivion, and Splinter Cell. Weird combo yes, but should have made for an awesome game. Instead its a button masher.

This game isn't terrible, but I'm questioning whether I should have bought it at its release price ($60 USD).

Big Hopes, No Delivery

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 21 / 38
Date: November 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Besides Halo 3, this was my most anticipated game for this year. I kept checking and checking websites wanting to know the release date for this game, because they kept pushing it back. Anyway, once I got my copy and immediately played it, I feel in love with the game. After about 3 hours of playing, I was ready for something new. This game had so much potential, with its breathtaking graphics and fighting elements! Why did they ruin it by making it so repetitive and mundane?! In order to assassinate someone, you must first "investigate" the surrounding area. The investigation is the same for EVERY assassination!!! Talk about lame! Why would I want to do the same 4 things every time: 1)pickpocket someone; 2)overhear a conversation; 3)interrogate someone (which is basically punching them until they talk your ear off); 4)kill some guards for an informant then he'll tell you what he knows (killing the guards was so simple that it was boring just to do it). Then, to top it off, the assassinations weren't that great. The trailers of the game make the assassination look beautiful, a thing of art. The assassination in the game turns into a slug-fest with about 20 guards and then you get to the main target and chop him a couple times.

I bought this game thinking I would have it forever, so I could play it whenever for instant gratification. After beating the game once, I'm headed over to EB Games to trade it in. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, IT IS A RENTAL!!!

Very Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 28 / 58
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I reserved this game about 3 or 4 months before it came out. All the previews and reviews made my anticipation grow. When I finally got it and played it, at first I was a little taken aback by the "twist". But I got over it, figuring the gameplay as Altair will be great. Not so much.

Graphics are extraordinary. Very fluid, easy to use controls...but thats where it ends. The game is extremely repetitive. I expected more in-depth swordplay control. Once you get the counter-attack move you are basically unstoppable. No need to run and hide. Just counter-attack your opponents and kill them with one move. The AI is no smarter than any other game out, in fact there are alot dumber than most next-gen games, like Call of Duty 4 for example. They rarely attack simultaneously. They wait for you to kill thier comrade then its their turn to be countered and killed in one move.
All in all Im very dissapointed. I think most of these reviewers were anticipating the game so much they have convinced themselves its a great game and dont want to belive how bad a game it really is. Or maybe the graphics are so good they dont notice how shallow the game is. If anybody wants a barely used Assasins Creed game check for mine on ebay. Im going back to Call of Duty 4 and Ill wait for GTA4. Assasins Creed sucks!

Solid Mixed Bag

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yes, commercials and "sneak peaks" are supposed to hype a game up to the point where we all turn into zombies and line up for hours in mindless anticipation for hours upon hours of entertainment.

Unfortunately, the buildup to this game, well, seemed to have left some details out.

The Good:
Nice control scheme and sandbox style play. It didn't take too much time to realize exactly what your character is capable of and start truly utilizing the environment to your advantage. As the beginning tutorial starts to play out, I started to wonder if I would be able to retain all of the controls they were throwing at me, but the controls are actually quite intuitive.
You can't button mash your way to victory, even if you blaze head-on into a fight. This forces you to stay on your toes, instead of just hitting 'X' and hoping for the best.
The main character is the only one sporting an American accent. Knowing there is some sort of explanation (see below,) makes it alright. The voice acting is good by video game standards. The camera is controlled with the right stick, but the more methodical gameplay makes it much more bearable than in, say, 'Stranglehold.'

The Bad:
I don't think this is a spoiler, since it's the first thing that happens in the game (if anything, it really should have been talked about more by the developers.) Anyway, the developers decided to use make the Crusades part of the game some sort of "genetic memory" thing that is being extracted by scientists in the modern day. This feels 100% forced and completely unneeded. The only explanation I can think of, is that one team had created this awesome digital effect for locking on, while another dev team had created this great story about assassins during The Crusades. The producer came along and said "great! Now make up some reason to get that effect into that game."

While the controls are extremely intuitive, there are still times where they do something which makes no sense. It's extremely frustrating to almost be free of pursuing soldiers just to have your character do a wall jump instead of climbing onto a ledge like you had planned. Also, armor clad soldiers with drawn swords outrunning a highly trained assassin? I don't think so.

All in all, I'm not upset I bought this game. I don't consider it a huge disappointment, but at the same time the problems the game has are large and glaring.

If you don't love it in an hour, you never will!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I could have done without the whole sci-fi, "get hooked up in a memory time machine" arc story, but I am absolutely blown away by the medivel sandbox-style gameplay and beautiful graphics. The levels are massive and provide almost complete freedom of choice for movement. You can take a direct route and charge through enemies on horseback swinging a sword OR you can sneak through the rooftops like some psychotic Batman wantabe ready to shove your blade right into your target's skull. I love it! There is a hugh learning curve AND your stuck with a sci-fi base story, but I love this game's style and concept!

Rent this, don't stick yourself with it forever

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 21
Date: November 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really suggest renting it for the experience, but don't buy it. After the first bit everything just starts repeating the earlier experience. A lot of the things said about the game are a load of crap. You don't need to plan your attack for example... Killing the guy, and running to hide in a hay stack for 20 seconds is all you need to do. I played it for at least 6 hours, and I am really bored.
Plot: This is alright, its not great but its okay. The "sci-fi" twist hyped is rather minuscule at this point... The plot pacing is terrible. Its hard to give details and not the twist, but there are much better games to play.
Characters: Lame... Every person you save has one of two reactions, this gets tiring after awhile. There are at least 25 civilians you can save within the first two assassinations. so that is 12 people per line... Most of the people also look the same after awhile. Guards will attack you for no reason some times. Then you either have to fight them, or go into one of two hiding spots: Hay or a GAZEBO.
Environments: Lame... They look impressive from a distance, but again they are all the same up close. The buildings you climb to get a birds-eye view fall into identical copies of each other again. There are maybe 5 of these though, if you're lucky. The thing that makes the game though is the genius use of environment. A wide array of things can be used to jump on and gain height. It's just too bad this isn't put to better use.
Game-play: Lame... Every fight is basically the same. Guards surround you, you fight them one by one. You don't have a lot of options here either. Swipe, block, and get knocked down. Side quests to help build your character, also lame. They fall into categories, and every mission in the category is the same as all the others. Save citizens are the most common, 12 an area, and there are two line choices every-time you save someone. I have them memorized as I am sure a lot of other people do.
Graphics are okay, just don't hope to easily read text on non-HD TV's, but that's okay because the game keeps repeating the same basic text forever, so you'll have time to piece them together...
I love ubisoft franchises: Splinter Cell, and Prince of Persia. However, I really feel let down by this game. They had some good ideas and should be commended for trying something new, knowing that this game is seemingly doing well, the next one is probably in the works. Let's hope its a lot better... I have come to expect more from a game for $[...].

Fun but a little Overhyped

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Good game, but way overhyped

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There seem to be two types of Assassin's Creed reviews, The "Couldn't hate it more if it bit my mother to death" and the "Greatest thing since the zipper" review. I probably fall somewhere in the middle for reasons I hope to elaborate on.

First off, I seem to be finding lately that if I hear about a game more than three months before a release date, it fails to live up to any hype. This happened with Fable and Bioshock for example. Both good games and worth the time and effort to play, but after all of the hype I almost expected them to cure cancer or something. Assassin's Creed is very much the same.

Pro's:

The game looks amazing. Given, it was made for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as well as for pc sometime next year, but even so the smooth endless landscape looks phenomenal. Every game released recently has blown my mind graphics wise, and this game does not disappoint in that regard.

Freedom is an interesting event for this game as well, causing me to give it both good and bad marks. As for the good side, it is cool to just climb nearly anything, jump anywhere and go practically anywhere. I found it to work very much like Prince of Persia with an expanded world. The first few times you climb to the top of a tower and swan dive off are very impressive.

The control for this game also worked well. This has been another mixed review for people. Some hate the one button combat system, but then again I couldn't stand the "Dance Dance Revolution" combo timing button mashfest of God of War (Don't you have enough to keep track of in a battle?). The combat of Assassin's Creed works more on timing strikes and counters and less on the pattern of buttons. Given, battles in this game become boring beyond all redemption throughout the game, but I hesitate to blame the controls for that one.
The "Free running" system works well too. Instead of having to deal with worrying about climbing surfaces and moving over objects, you hold a button and simply move where you want. This simplifies things immensely and immediately moves you away from the annoying wall running, jumping and timed daggerstabs of Prince of Persia.

Sadly, that was about it for the pro's on this game. Let's see how many con's I can jam in here.

First, lets talk about the gameplay itself. When I heard of this game, I really expected to play a game where you immerse yourself in a world of darkness, intrigue, and cold hearted death from the shadows. In reality, you have about a baker's dozen of prominent people to kill and a bunch of worthless stuff to do. I would say I actually spent less than 6% of my playtime killing people. Most of the time is spent putzing about stealing things, questioning people or sitting on a bench. Seriously, sitting on a bench. You even have to hold down a button to overhear a conversation while you are sitting there. As if I really believed that there was interactivity at this point.
Several times you are forced into what I like to call "interactive DVD" sequences. PS2 games were well known for this. Essentially, you start the game, grab the controller and watch a movie. After about an hour or so you ask whether you bought a game or the latest movie release out there. The storyline for this game is developed and revealed through conversation, not action. Before starting a mission, you sit through way too much conversation. After killing someone you sit through yet again way too much talking with no way to skip out of it (believe me I tried really hard to make them talk faster at least).

While helping out greatly in adding dimension to this game, the freedom of adventure is also a falling point. Yes, you have the ability to go nearly anywhere, climb anything and look all over the place, there is just very little need to. I referred to the Prince of Persia games earlier so forgive this next metaphor. If the PoP games were non-linear, would the game have changed? Answer, no. Since you would have to go down that hallway, hit that button and jump that pit it wouldn't matter how much freedom you have. In the end you are trapped in a linear game. This game is very much like that. You travel from town to town, performing ridiculous tasks to further the plot, and though you have the psuedo-freedom to do anything, there is no reason to.

While I felt the combat system worked for this game, I at times questioned the purpose. In many sequences of the game, it is nearly impossible to avoid fighting. I recall several of my key plot kills happening while I was surrounded by guards and thus accidentally landing a killing blow. Not all that assassinesh if you ask me. The last few sequences of the game actually give up on the pretense of assassination altogether and simply threw you into a huge melee of a few dozen guards. It almost seemed like the developers simply didn't want to finish making this game, and thus didn't want you to finish so they simply launched everything at you.

While Assassin's Creed suffers in terms of gameplay and the ability to hold my interest for more than a few hours at a time, it does succeed in being unique and amusing as far as gaming goes. While a decent game in it own right, it fails to live up to expectations and hype, thus causing a bit of a letdown. I would say it is worth a play, but not a full price.

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