Jack of all trades, master of none.
Unique story
Amazing visuals
Excellent presentation
Lots of side missions and secrets
Sandbox world
THE BAD:
Bizarre AI
Awkward controls
Boring combat
Linear mission structure
Too easy
Future gameplay is a chore
Sandbox elements are shallow
Let's clear something up: Assassin's Creed is not about an assassin in the Third Crusade. It's really about an assassin in the future that is reliving the genetic memories of an ancestor in 1191 A.D. This is explained in the first two minutes of the game, so I'm not spoiling anything.
Although this pseudo-science fiction and historical combination is unique in the gaming world, it also means that you're splitting your time between playing in the future and the past. Both of which suffer because of this bi-polar gameplay.
Although the story is well told, this shifting of gameplay is constantly interrupting it. It's kind of like sitting down to eat at a restaurant, getting halfway through you're a tasty meal, only to have the waitress take your meal away and replace it with something completely different. Annoying is an understatement.
Also kind of odd is one of the first screens you see when you start the game. It says that this game is a work of fiction, and was created by a team of multi-cultural people with various religious beliefs. This just comes off as an odd disclaimer so that Christian and Muslim extremists don't get all pissy over being portrayed as the bloodthirsty, evil bastards they are.
When you're not playing as Desmond Miles, a kidnapped bartender in the future, you're playing as Altair, a Hashshashin that has been disgraced for not following the Assassin's Creed. To redeem yourself, you must kill 9 leaders on both sides of the Crusade. The story is unqiue, and well told despite being predictable. If you can't see the plot twist coming from a mile away, then you're probably wearing your pants on your head.
The biggest problem with Assassin's Creed is the two different styles of gameplay. The parts where you're playing as Altair are great, and mostly fun. But the Desmond parts are boring and unnecessary. These scenes could have easily been done with a cut scene that would have served the purpose better than having me walk around a small room with a super computer after every assassination.
The actual assassinations are a lot of fun, but getting to them will test your patience. Before you can assassinate your target, you must first travel from your base at Masyaf, down a mountain to the Kingdom over-world. From there you need to travel across several miles of landscape before getting to the target city. Then you need to infiltrate the city, talk to the assassin leader, gather information about the target, return to the assassin leader and get his permission before actually assassinating your target. Doing this nine times over will drive some gamers to drink.
Not only that, but the mission structure is very linear. The game was hyped as being open-ended, and having a sandbox environment. To its credit, Assassin's Creed does have these elements, but the bare minimum. You can't choose what order to do assassinations in, and the only "open-ended" gameplay comes from when you aren't stabbing people in the neck. You can basically run around anywhere you like.
This is where the "sandbox" element comes in. While running around you can take on typical "save the civilian from the evil guards" side missions. You can also randomly kill people and see how the crowd around you reacts, but that's about it. If you kill a guard in the middle of a market square, the crowd will scatter to the four corners of the earth. But unless another guard sees you do it, no one really gives a hoot.
Speaking of guards, when you're not stabbing people, they're way too eager to kill you. Despite Altair's best effort to blend in and not be seen as an assassin, his openly worn weapons are apparently a dead giveaway. Making his most useful weapon, the spring loaded hidden blade all the more ironic. Even when you ride a horse slowly past a guard they're on to you. Yet if you hold down the A button to "blend" you might as well be invisible.
When you are discovered, you are thrown into battle with all the grace of one-winged dove trying to fly. Instead of automatically drawing your weapon when the guards do, Altair will just stand there until you tell him to enter combat by pressing the LT button, or selecting a weapon. This inevitability leads to the guards getting the first hit in nearly every time.
When Altair was demoted, he also conveniently forgot his years of combat training. It wont be until a couple assassinations into the game that you get all your weapons and combat skills back. However, the one you'll be using the most is the counter kill. This is done by holding RT to block, and pressing the X button just as an enemy swings at you. BAM!! Instant kill. This reduces combat into nothing more than chore. You can easily kill wave upon wave of enemies by doing this. And in the unlikely event that you do take a hit, all you have to do is continue to hold block while your health regenerates. I wont even mention combat on horseback, as it's so clunky you're better off just dismounting to fight.
Since this is just a genetic view of things that have already happened, you never actually die. You just become "de-synched" at which point you revert back to your last auto save. And since auto saves are more common than hookers in the ghetto, this is rarely a set back.
The controls are awkward. By default, Altair moves around the world in "low profile" mode. That is to say he walks. Hold the RT button, and he runs in "high profile" mode. You can also climb buildings by holding the RT and A buttons while moving toward a wall from there you simply move the analog stick in the direction you want to climb, and Altair will do his best to make that happen. It's great to see him do this, and running along rooftops while the city guard is chasing after you can be a lot of fun.
The problem comes from jumping and hiding. If you run up to a ledge, Altair wont jump from it unless you press the A button. Instead he'll just drop off the edge. This is a strange change of pace from how intuitive the climbing is. This, combined with how easy it is to misjudge jumps and die from falling, makes a fun element of the game needlessly frustrating.
Also odd is how you evade enemies. If you're spotted and choose to run, you have several options. You can run for it on street level, or try to lose them on the rooftops. First you must break the line of sight, but that alone isn't enough. The guards will track you like bloodhounds, so you must hide by doing things like sittings on a bench, hiding in a covered merchant tent or hay cart. Although this makes sense, the relentless tracking can lead to some unusual moments.
For example, I was riding my horse in the over-world Kingdom, when some guards eyed me for a good killing. Having more important things to do, I just rode by them and went on my merry way. The guards lost sight of me, but that didn't stop them! I was several miles away from where they spotted me, yet somehow they caught up to me on foot and battle ensued.
As far as presentation goes, Assassin's Creed does a very nice job. The menu interface, like it or not, constantly reminds you that this is a simulation in the future with its hi-tech look. You'll also see various graphical effects to give the game a more digital look to it.
The graphics are top-notch, and some of the best on the 360. Characters and environments are both very detailed. But perhaps best of all is the character animations. Altair is very fluid, and I was especially impressed with how he moved in combat. It looked like a real sword fight. The counter kills are especially brutal. The guards are also well animated, but the civilians aren't quite as good. They tend to get stuck on objects, and when panicked will run back in forth in the same spot.
Sound-wise, you wont hear much in the way of music, but the ambient sound more than makes up for this. You'll hear the wind blowing, birds chirping, and other environmental sounds. Best of all, when you do things in the game world, NPC's will comment on it. I especially liked the comments from on-lookers as I climbed buildings to the roof.
The downside to the sound is the voice acting. It's not bad, but it just feels out of place. All of the actors speak with a modern American accent. The game tries to downplay this by explaining that the machine causing you to relive events of the past is translating the dialog into modern dialect. It's just a sad excuse for not being able to have more authentic voice acting for the period.
There isn't a lot of lasting value to Assassin's Creed. If you can get past the interrupted and repetitive gameplay, you'll find that Assassin's Creed has one of the best stories to tell in recent memory. But considering there are no black and white choices to make that affect the outcome, and that you can see and do everything in one play through, there's really no reason to play again.
On the achievements side, you'll also find that there's still little replay value. Nearly all of the achievements can be unlocked your first time through. The only exceptions are the "find all the flags, and kill all the Templar" achievements. But even then, if you have a map of their locations this too is easy to get the first time.
Overall, I'd recommend Assassin's Creed for most people. I personally don't think it's worth a purchase, but it's at least worth a rental. At least it's trying to do something different from all the other action/platforming games out there. It doesn't succeed at providing a fulfilling gameplay experience, but I feel that the story is worth it. My impression is that the developers tried to do too many different things with the game, and just made them all mediocre. The phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" would apply to Assassin's Creed. This is supposed to be the first game in a planned series, so lets hope that the developers can nail down what they want the game to be like before the next installment comes out.
STORY – 8.0
PRESENTATION – 9.0
GAMEPLAY – 6.5
GRAPHICS – 9.5
SOUND – 8.0
VALUE – 7.5
OVERALL – 7.5