A game you'd want to show to none gamers.
Assassins creed is quite old now so my review probably won't be viewed by many people (if at all) but I am simply doing this for the sake of practice and enjoyment.
Firstly in Assassins Creed you play as Altaïr a master assassin during the third crusade in 1191 AD. Well actually it's set in the near future and the sections of the game set in the crusades are just a simulation that your near future character is playing through using a machine called the Animus. The only reason I can think of for Ubisoft to tack on this idiotic sci-fi sub plot is to get some of the sillier nerds all riled up. Apart from that very minor spoiler I will leave you to find out the rest of story by playing the game (or just read it off Wikipedia, but who am I to tell you what to do I'm not god).
The presentation of Assassins creed is by far its best point, the game looks wonderful. When you climb to the view points and pan your camera around the city it is actually quite mesmerizing. The lighting effects are also extremely good, and the strange blue tint everything has in acre practically had me foaming at the mouth with artistic wonderment. There is no denying that Assassins Creed is probably the best looking game I've played so far on the xbox 360. The animations in the game are also extremely good, but that goes without saying since this game is made by some of the people who worked on Prince of Persia. The sound is top-notch especially the crunching noise it makes when your fist comes into contact with an annoying beggar woman's face, and trust me when you have played the game you will feel like doing this quite often.
The game-play itself is very impressive, you can swing on flag poles, shimmy along edges and most impressive of all you can climb on anything that looks climbable from window ledges to decorative masonry around mosques. The 3 massive cities in the game (Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus) are all completely explorable. They are full of guards, beggars, lepers and thugs who all behave uniquely. Not to mention they have thousands of citizens - rich and poor - who wander around going about their day to day business. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop and racing across scaffold away from a small army of city guard after completing a successful assassination never seems to get old. But it takes the thrill away when you realise that once the guards catch you, you can easily dispatch large groups of them without even breaking a sweat. And the combat itself is essentially just button mashing and it feels very underwhelming in a game where everything else (namely the jumping and climbing) is of such a high caliber. And considering the last sections of the game consist mainly of combat this is quite an anti-climax. Ubisoft seem to be attempting to make a new genre or game with assassins creed which they refer to as "Social stealth" in which you hide from gaurds in groups of scholars and slowly and inconspicuously make your way to the rooftop above your target so you can jump down and give him a nice sharp surprise with your blade. And after you've done this pretty much the entire city is on alert. But once again you are encouraged to use the environment to your advantage by useing large crowds of panicked citizens as a means to block pursuing guards. Although one thing that did annoy me was that the lepers would use all of their strength to knock you off your feet when you got close, but if a city guard walked past he wouldn't even blink.
Assassins creed is around 10 hours long if you just progress through the missions required to finish the game but if you want to get 100% completion it might take around 30hours. Despite being around 20hours long for the average gamer who'll do a fair bit of faffing around in the big open cities about 80% of the main story line is spent gathering intelligence before the assassinations by pick-pocketing and eaves dropping on various people around the city. And believe me when I say that this section of the game is completely boring after the first few tries and it just feels like it was inserted just to make the game last a bit longer. However the actual assassinations which these intelligence gathering sections build up to are very very well done and genuinely fun.
So overall Assassins Creed is worth a look, it's bogged down by unnecessary intelligence gathering missions that are very repetitive. But apart from that the game is a very good and memorable romp but don't expect much re-playability. 7.5 out of 10
