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Assassin's Creed - a critical review

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 304 / 340
Date: November 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

After reviewing items for a few years on Amazon.com 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 KotOR "Oh my God, I'm Darth Revan!" 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.

What an Experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 72 / 87
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.

Amazing Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 35 / 47
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

I'm trying to be honest here..

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: November 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

A huge huge disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 17 / 22
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Wow, was I ever excited about Assassins Creed. Looks amazing, huge worlds to explore, and best of all, you get to kill people. It was going to be like the perfect cross between Oblivion and Splinter Cell. What could possibly go wrong?

Well apparently, a lot. Don't get me wrong. Assassins Creed does look great. The cities are a ton of fun to explore, I love the control system and the combat system. The game just has so much potential, Ive never seen a game so enriched in detail before. They realy did recreate the time period and the cities down to a T. Exploring the world is just a ton of fun. As is running around buildings, jumping, fighting guards, etc.

But Assassins Creed has one HUGE HUGE fault, that totally ruins the game from the very beggining. Before your Assassination you have to do some "research", and find out as much about your target as you can. Great, except this requires NO work at all whatsoever. Random makers will pop up on your map telling you to evesdrop on this person, pickpocket this person, or beat up this person. No ryme or reason as to why. Why am I pickpocketing this random person? Why am I listening in on these people's conversations? How do I know I have to beat this person up? No reasearch involved. No skill involved. No answers. Just random markers. You walk over to them, and hit ONE button. No hiding. No stealth. No skill involved. Think Splinter Cell for Pre-Schoolers.

Its actually laughable sometimes how bad the game is. Evesdropping for example requires you to sit on a bench next to two people and click on them. That's it. One button. Its as simple as goddamn super mario brothers. YOU PUSH ONE BUTTON to pickpocket, eavesdrop, and beat people up FOR HOURS AND HOURS ON END. And its the SAME for ALL 9 Assassinations.

And keep in mind, the research end of this is 75% of the game. And its honestly so simple, so stupid, and so repetitive, it feels like your playing an RPG on Super Nintendo again.

The only possible explanation I can think of is that the development team but a ton of time into creating these cities, and a huge, beautiful world for you to interact with, and were going to get to the actually gameplay last, when Ubisoft forced them to put the game out early for the holiday season. This game HAS to embarass the people that, I'm sure, worked so hard on it.

Its like spending a million dollars on building a beautiful, upscale, elegant restaurant, with every detail being perfect down to the T, then serving burgers and french fries on the menu. It just doesn't make any sense.

Its worth a rent to spend some time just exploring the fantastic world they've created, but it will get old soon, as the game itself is a joke. Its just too bad.

This is no Hitman

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 31 / 54
Date: November 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I got this game yesterday hoping that it would be along the lines of Hitman, very open ended, different weapons, and requiring stealth. After a few hours of playing I am quite disappointed. First, this is amazingly linear, yes you can wander around the cities or countryside, but the completion of your mission is usually pretty straight forward after you find where you have to go. Second, the comabat is repeptitive, just keep mashing the X and RT button. Third, stealth is not valued at all in this game. You can slaughter an entire square full of people, walk away, and no one knows you are a killer. Fourth, the AI, which is supposed to be awesome, is no different from any other game the people are just cattle. Last, the missions are long and take forever to just get to your objective, which you usually finish pretty quickly once you get there. And I do not find the little side challenges of collecting flags and banners interesting. If I wanted to do that I would play Tony Hawk.

All the negatives aside, the acting in it is some of the best I have seen in a video game, the graphics and sound are very well done......As an older 360 owner I guess I expected something that required more thought than this, it is just a lot of button mashing for me. I am bummed since the premise had a lot of potential. I am taking this back and trading it in for something else.

A total blast

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 20
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

After almost 2 years of waiting, Assassins Creed finally came out. I had read some very mixed reviews over the last few days, and it left me quite worried. But now that I have it, and I've played in over an hour, I must say Im very impressed. The controls do take some getting used to, as they are a bit different than regular stealth or action games, but once you figure it out, Altair, the main charecter moves quite smoothly. The graphics are amazing. My only complaint is the slightly repeatative combat, so if you can get past that, I think most people will really enjoy this game.

one of the best this year

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 20
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Assassins creed deffinitely lives up to the hype. a great story (technically two), great voice acting, great gameplay and completely amazing environments come together to make one of the best achievements in videogames yet.

the person you actually play as is a descendent of Altair's some time in the distant future. your being held prisoner and forced to undergo a matrix like experiment to try and uncover information concerning your anscestor. the main gameplay takes place in Altair's world of course.

you play as a head assassin struck down from your position because of a certain mistake. now you've got to work your way back up through the ranks and earn back your reputation. theres a lot of political/religious tie-ins. obviously, that was tyhe cause of nearly all the violence in those (and these) times. the christians, muslims, and jews all having little squabbles throughout the land.

the platforming aspect of the gameplay couldnt have been handled better. you'll be fluintly dodging and leaping from rooftop to rooftop. the climbing is perfect. any little ledge or crack can be grabbed and used to your advantage in the ascent.

combat plays out in the same puppet like fashion all the other controls do one face button to control his head, two control his arms and the botton one controls leg actions, you can switch between different weapons stances and unarmed from the directional buttons. the right face button controls armed hand attacks and the left cant be used to grab and throw enemies (great on rooftops).

the crowd AI/interaction isn't bad, but a little questionable at times. your current persona and all your actions affect the state of your surroundings. stand on a roof in clear view and people are bound to stop and look. randomly throw someone into a wall, the people close by are probably gonna run away. if you pull out your sword and randomly start killing your bound to have what looks like a small riot on your hands. although ive found you can casually walk up to people and kill them with your hidden blade without notice if your slick about it.

the graphics are completely insane. to achieve this level of detail on a world so huge and teaming with life creates something that you have to see to believe. it would take hours upon hours to completely search this world and find all there is to find. this game could easily consume as much time as any good RPG. with so many games comming out that i can run through in a day, this is a major breath of fresh air. realistic recreations of anchient cities like Jerusalem and Damascus are your typical place of business. you can also explore the fields and deserts between the cities in this breathtaking world.

great gameplay with a great story and an amazing gameworld come together in a gem that shouldnt be overlooked by anyone with any interest in video games. 10/10

Something to work with for the future!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Beautiful But Repetitive

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: December 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

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