Read the review, don't turn around, and don't scream, or this knife goes through your kidney.
You mostly play as an Assassin, named Altair, during the time of the crusades. You were once a top dog Assassin but got a bit too cocky and was stripped of your rank and advanced weapons. Fortunately, you can earn all this back by completing several tasks assigned to you by The Master. As luck may have it however, the further you progress, more of a complex conspiracy is unraveled and it makes for a good franchise - key word, franchise, which Assassin's Creed is shaping up to be.
The story is Assassin's Creed is decent, and obviously will be taken even further with number two, but this first can't quite grasp a full story without being plagued by cliffhangers, unanswered questions, and dumb twists. This would have been far worse had it not been for the world Assassin's Creed occupied, which treads new ground for gaming. Indeed, the crusades certainly enhance the quality of the story. The story is told often through chats with other people, like targets you assassinate in some weird reality after they've been killed, and a couple of professors (play the game!). What it really is is just some Assassin lore and points that make you question your position with the Assassins, but it grows stale after a bit. Truth be told, a little more variety and less vague mystery would have lent the game's meh story a hand. To be optimistic, the characters all have some depth to them and are above average compared to a lot of others in the action genre.
As said before, you assassinate people in Assassin's Creed, and to be honest, geting there is a novelty at first, but grows into a mononotnous chore. You have to discover the whereabouts of the target and clues on how to take him or her out. This is done through a few minigames. They are intruiging, but are left untouched and un-spiced up at the very end of your journey; these minigames are: pickpocketing, eavesdropping, and interrogating. Once you've done one of the minigames or any of them three times you can proceed to the target. This is easily the peak of Assassin's Creed. The game's sandbox world allows for you to kill the target anyway you wish. You can scale a high wall from above and jump down with blade extruding, silently stab them in the back, or whip out your sword for some bore-a-thon combat! Yes, the combat is very boring. Don't let the hordes of enemies surrounding you bother you in the slightest; just use a counter attack! Thats all the combat is in Creed; counters. Hold down the L-trigger, press X during an enemies lunge at your head, and instant kill. Regular attacks are useless, as the enemy will end up just grappling you and throwing you to the side. Worse, the AI is incredibly dumb. You could walk right past a city guard wearing a hoodie, with a huge assortment of weapons on your back, wearing the trademark Assassin outfit in Templar (your enemey) territory, but you are totally fine. But if you run, God forbid! Kill him now! You may be thinking this is enought to merit the game a five. I mean, look at all that tediousness. But you would be wrong! Assassin's Creed does one thing very well, and its platforming. Climbing and jumping from roof to foof, while performing insane parkour moves is made possible through the fitting "puppet" control system.
Thankfully, the presentation in Assassin's Creed is amazing. The lighting, character models, and everything else perfectly capture the feel of the time period Assassin's Creed resides in. Simply stunning. The voice acting is also decent, but nothing to write home about. The only weird thing is that all three major cities of the time are five minutes apart from each other on horseback.
Don't be dreadfully turned off by Assassin's Creed from this review; its really quite the novelty, and the best rental game I could reccomend. But its few cool ideas and setting weren't enough to get past all the repetition and become and amazing new IP.
6/10