An amazing experience for gamers of any kind.
Assassin's Creed takes place in 1191, during the Fourth Crusade. The Holy Land is being torn apart by King Richard and Saladin in a vicious war that has brought death to the land. During this chaos and turmoil, various warlords and corrupt politicians that have been left in charge of the area have begun to exploit the cities for their own selfish greed. As Altair, a just-disgraced assassin, part of a group of assassins, must locate and terminate 9 men who bring terror to the Holy Land.
However, before all of this, you actually play as Desmond Miles, a bartender who was recently kidnapped by a bunch of creepy people in white lab coats who are determined to make you play as your ancestor, Altair in an attempt to find some hidden information. Yeah, I know, "WTF!?" Luckily, the gameplay is good that you can just gloss over this.
So, as Altair, your mission is to go to three different cities, perform missions to gain information on your target, and then finally assassinate your target, and escape safely from the authorities. There are a variety of ways to find information, including eavesdropping, pickpocketing information, interrogation, and performing (sometimes menial) tasks for your fellow Assassin's, who for some unknown reason, despite being your brothers in arms, still refuse to help you out unless you go kill a few guys are collect some stupid flags because they couldn't be half-assed to do it themselves.
Despite that, the gameplay is still very fun, and the concept of "Urban Stealth" plays a huge part in this game. If you want to stay hidden, you could simply slide through the croud, quietly and slowly. However, if you're a little more impatient, you could simply run through the crowd, wildly knocking down innocent civilians, possibly alerting the guards. And if you're even more ambitious, you could simply pull a Spiderman and jump across the rooftops of the buildings, killing the occasional rooftop guard on your way. In general, Assassin's Creed is a pretty open-ended game when it comes to how you want to get things done. Even assassinations, while more convenient to simply get stabby on them and run, you could possibly just start killing people to get their attention and then kill them in a sword fight.
This leads to the fighting mechanics. When you fight, you can do a variety of things with your different weapons, including throwing your opponent to the ground (however, stronger enemies like Templars may simply kick you in the crotch for attempting to do so), break their guard, dodge, and counter. Counters are extremely satisfying to pull off and the fighting rarely gets old due to the intuitive 4-button controls.
Another great thing about Assassin's Creed are the environments. From smokey allies of the poor district of Damascus to the sprawling Catherdrals of Acre, you will see a lot of things, and it is unlikely that you will get bored of the environments Assassin's Creed has to offer. Put it simply, the game is extremely immersive and it's so easy to simply get into the gameplay.
Now, in case you're the rabid Microsoft/Sony fanboy who demands why I have deemed your amazing game, only an 8.5 score, allow me to explain. First of all, the game is reptetive. Yeah, I know, "open-ended" gameplay, but when it comes down to it, the game goes like this. Get a mission, go to city, climb a tower, jump down a tower, save an old woman from getting harrassed by soldiers, beat someone up for interrogation, pickpocket someone, climb up another tower, save another citizen, climb another tower, return to the citie's Assassin's branch, watch a cutscene, find target, kill target, run away. Rinse and repeat. This long list may sound interesting, but believe me, you do it 9 times in a row, and it will start to wear on you. Not to say that the game gets boring though, it's just that this game had so much more potential. I mean, look at the variety of missions in games like GTA. I usually eschew games like it, but if there's anything it does right, it's bring a lot of variety to the table, and I sort of wished Assassin's Creed had more. Imagine what kind of missions could be carried out in a game like this, you could hunt down rogue assassin's, perform reconaissance on the enemy, do something other than clmib a tower. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that despite Assassin's Creed having a lot to offer, it still lacks in variety.
My other complaint would be the AI. Seriously, a battle-hardened and well trained Templar shouldn't have trouble finding me in a crowd simply because I hid behind a bunch of scholars with white hoods. Or how come when guards fight, they always do the exact same thing every time? And how come I'm automatically accused of murder just because I'm not praying? There are so many issues with the AI in this game, it kind of interrupts the immersive experience.
And one last thing, the story, well...to say it lacked concrete meanings would be an understatement. Unless you have magical insight or work for Ubisoft, you will be going, "WTF?" many many times. Dialogue is confusing and I won't say much, but the ending is ALMOST (not quite) as bad as Halo 2's. And you totally know there's going to be an Assassin's Creed 2.
However, despite these complains, Assassin's Creed is still an amazing game. With its beautiful environments, epic battles (30 Templar fight FTW), and a great control scheme coupled with a lot of features makes it still a game definitely worth playing for anyone with a 360 or PS3.