Assassin's Creed's potential appreciation is completely hindered by it's unbelievable amount of repetition.
The game Assassin's Creed bases itself on extremely conspicuously recurring but enjoying gameplay elements. The game is a sand-box action adventure experience where only a handful of actions can be committed. Basically as Altair the Assassin, your duty will be to follow the orders of Hassan-i Sabbah, over and over without lead. His orders are for the most part non-negotiable. After a major plot point in the beginning all of your weapons and abilities are taken away from you, as a temporary demotion. So by the end of the game, you will eventually have had already gained everything you lost in the start of the story.
As an Assassin you wield a one-handed sword, knives that can be thrown, a knife that can be distended from your special swiss-army knife like gauntlet, and your petty fists. So, in-between missions, ninety percent of the time, this is what you will be doing. There is a map that has various icons that indicate which missions are present. There are viewpoints scattered all across different districts of cities. The purpose of these randomly placed viewpoints is to allow you to climb them, and look upon the area or city around it. What this does is, it discovers new missions to complete. So ordinarily your map will be empty until you activate a viewpoint.
Each major story element is in a form of a DNA strand, as a presentation to correlate to the ancestral point of the game. They are separated as Memory Blocks in the Animus device. As a regular modern-day human, you will lye down upon it, and there is a visual hologram that contains several different Memory Blocks. Only so many missions are required to unlock the next Memory Block. Each mission is actually a single strand of the DNA resembling Memory Block, not all strands need to be filled, but that's up to the player and if he or she wishes to complete a Memory Block fully.
Masyaf is your home town, your kin is located there, and basically, no missions take place there. You can however, accept missions from your master, and practice in the tutorial lounge, to ostentatiously display your swordsmanship. Masyaf is the central portal to all other cities. Each city has a different district. They are separated by working class, Rich, Poor, and Middle district. You can ride horses easily as a form of transformation in-between different cities. Horses are not allowed inside cities, however.
There are two icons on maps that aren't missions. Scholars, whom of which are a four man group of scholars who slowly stride throughout town. The purpose of these guys is to help you get past guards. You can walk in-between them at their pace, and you can copy their mannerisms to blend in. The second are the Mercenaries. The Mercenaries are a form of citizens that help you escape or face guards. The more citizens you save from guards, the more Mercenary groups that will be around town to help you.
In each Memory Block the process is as follows. Visit the Assassin's Bureau, which is a small room, and there is only one located in each district of each city. In the Bureau, there will be a man to assist you in the mission at hand. Upon encounter, you will witness an in-game cutscene. After this cutscene, missions will be placed across the map. They include; "Save a Citizen", "Viewpoint", "Pickpocket", "Interrogate", "Information", and "Eavesdrop". I'll explain the missions that aren't self explanatory. The "Information" missions are those of which, are comprised of talking to some type of nomad, he will make you do a miscellaneous selfish mission to give you information regarding your task. The missions can range to collecting flags, and silent assassinations. After all of these minor missions are completed, your health capacity will sometimes increase an, your major Assassination mission will be available for you to complete.
All cities are structured the same. They all contain a seemingly infinite amount of guards. You being an Assassin, catches their attention easily. Your synchronization bar contains your health capacity, and your status with the law. A yellow eye indicates that the guards are watching you, a red eye indicates that you have done something wrong, and that the guards have suspected you. Once the guards unfortunately discover your misdemeanor, they chase you until you manage to escape successfully. There are safe hiding spots laid out around the map, and they can only be hid in, if your status indicates color yellow. You have the choice to fight them, which is less of a hassle once you gain the ability to counter attack.
Aside from the relentless always watching guards, the townsfolk are as fairly unlikable. When you climb buildings, which are readily easy, they often make scolding comments about it. Also, you'll be harassed and chased by needy townsfolk who need money. The climbing system is extraordinary. Nearly anything can be climbed and grasped. You can simply run towards a wall, and Altiar will run up and grasp whatever object is sticking out from the wall. He can scale walls, walk upon skinny foot boards, and can climb just about anything on a wall if it's sticking out in any form or fashion. The speed at which this is done is also realistically animated. He jumps automatically across gaps, and will only lose so much health if he misses a ledge or a platform.
While in the city, you have high and low profile. Low profile actions are "low profile", which are stealth-like and sly. High profile actions are obvious, abrasive, rude and gruesome. Holding the High profile button while running will make you run even faster. Apply this to everything else, weaponry, and personal gestures. Within crowds, you can hold a button to courteously move people aside without upbraiding them. More actions can be gained as the story progresses. The climbing system is generally the forgiving quality in the game for its exponential repetitive nature. If I said anymore I would be spoiling at this point.
- Repetitive Gameplay
This one is obvious. Throughout the entire game, the same missions are done.
- Saving the Citizen
There is a problem with this mission. Sometimes when trying to save the citizen, he or she runs away from the fight. After you are done killing off the bullying guards you find out that the citizen is nowhere to be found, and if you chase he or she down, you cannot talk to them. So, you'll sometimes end up having to leave the "Save the Citizen" target, and return shorty thereafter when the game decides to re-spawn the victim citizen and guards. Also, for some illogical reason you can even walk towards the guards that are picking on the victim, without targeting them or having your weapon unsheathed, and they will still automatically start fighting. I find it irrational that my synchronization bar tends to turn to a red color, when I'm not even the one that provoked combat.
Assassin's Creed's graphics are "good" for it's time of release. The soundtrack is groundbreaking, also along with the well created glitchy sequence sound effects. The voice acting is well done. Altiar has a surprisingly straightforward personality type, and this is even intensified by the cinema dramatic voice work. Here is yet another warning, the gameplay exuberantly repetitive beyond occasional belief, but the platforming, climbing, swordplay, and acrobatics is what balances that out for the better.