Flaws in exectution...
No pun intended, but in Ubisoft's new game Assassin's Creed, that execution is somewhat disappointing. In a lot of ways, Assassin's Creed is a whole lot of fun if you can take it for what it is, but exactly what this game IS can be somewhat hard to define.
Story-wise, Assassin's Creed is a relatively strong game. You'll play as Desmond Miles, a former assassin in the modern day who has since gone legit., becoming a bartender and leaving behind his past. That is, until he's abducted by a pair of scientists whose work is concerned SOLELY in the past. They toy with the idea that animals, as well as humans have something called genetic memory, which allows them to understand things that their predecessors did without any first-hand experience. They place Desmond in a machine called an Animas that lets him relive the past memories of his ancestors, and as such, have him reliving the life of his ancestor Altair, an assassin during the Crusades tasked with killing 9 important leaders to "bring about peace" to the Holy Land. How these two realities relate to one another reveals itself throughout the game, and overall, the story is one of the stronger parts of the game.
Then we get into the actual game. Watching Assassin's Creed, one will notice it's a very good looking game. The settings look very authentic, Altair moves with a certain grace and style that is actually very fun to watch. The rest of the citizens of the cities don't necessarily share his good-looks, but considering how many of them that there are, it's not really a flaw, so to speak. The lighting is actually one of the best in any game engine, and hopefully in the future, Ubisoft will use it in future games.
Gameplay, which should be the high point of the game, is actually when the game starts to come unglued. There are some really cool things to do in Assassin's Creed. Altair can pretty much climb on any surface that sticks out far enough for him to get a handhold on, and you can move along the rooftops, rafters, dive off towers and become lost in the crowd to camoflauge from guards and to get close to your assassination targets. When it does come to fighting, you're gonna have some options whether you want to try and take enemies out stealthily with your hidden blade, from a distance with throwing knives, or use one of Altair's swords to fight enemies head on. During these fights, you can slash at enemies normally, but your most efficient fighting skill's gonna be Altair's counter kill. It's a neat little trick that lets you counter a move and follow up with a sweet looking attack of your own. It's definitely fun to watch, but then it turns into every battle being the same, since this technique is just so darn effective. Put your guard up, watch for somebody to attack, counter kill, repeat. It gets repetitive.
And that's Assassin's Creed's biggest problem. You'll be doing the same thing... a lot... over and over and over again. You need to do investigations to get to assassinations, which involves only about 4 different kinds of missions, and you'll be doing these before EVERY... SINGLE... ONE of the games 9 assassinations. You'll need to find viewpoints to find these investigations, and you'll be climbing similar looking towers before EVERY... SINGLE... ONE of those investigations. But hey, that'd be fine if there were some variety in side missions. Sadly... there aren't. It just feels like Ubisoft created this world, but forgot to give you something to do. Assassinations are good fun, and there is a lot that you can do to make your own fun (ie climbing, killing random people) but since you're doing these things enough just playing the game, this too gets old after a while.
The sound in Assassin's Creed is a mixed bag. The soundtrack and crowd noise sets a really nice atmosphere for Assassin's Creed, and there's a lot for your ears to get into here. The voice actors all do a decent job, save the actor who plays Altair himself. Where all the other guys sound realistically from the town period, Altair sticks out like a sore, Hayden Christiansan-esque, thumb. Other than that, the rest of the respective sound effects sound up to par, and the game overall sounds good.
It's not that Assassin's Creed is a bad game, it just seems like for a game that made so many promises during development, it doesn't really shine through as anything really new, breakthrough, or particularly creative. Not that a game must break the mold to be good, but this game made claims that it just doesn't uphold, and is overall just not that much fun to play for that long. It's repetitive, but does have some life in it. By no means is it not worth a play, just be sure you realize what you're getting into when you fire up that disc.
