Don't Listen To The Haters: Assassin's Creed: Altair's Choice Review
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Ah, the new Assassin's Creed game. Many have been bashing this game so hard I was reluctant to buy it. But, Altair's Choice isn't as bad as most give it credit for. I'll go over the four main points of modern gaming.
The graphics are okay. A little better than the DS version of Madden '08. The backgrounds are fully rendered, but in game player faces are dark and scratchy. The cinematics are the same thing. No different from what you see in game; kinda disappointing.
The sound is also a little disappointing. The music is nothing more than for the background as you play. When you're seen killing/stealing/whatever, the same music plays every time; no individual says anything more than "HEY!", "OH!", "OWWWW!", or "AHHHHH!".
The game play is so good, however, that it makes up for the graphics and sound 10-fold. Think Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but more classy. You jump, spin, run, climb, tight-rope walk, and narrowly escape traps the whole game; it never slows down. Sword fighting can be solidly fun or pointless and simple, depending on how you fight. You can take advantage of the system and button mash, which always works. Or you can slow down and block, counter, and string combos. Some battles are genuinely hard but most are very easy.
Assassinating people is fun, but you only really get to commonly use it in the first 2/3 of the game. You get other weapons, such as bombs, throwing knives, and a grappling hook (used both in battle and in plat forming.).
The mini games are quite fun, but underused and underexposed. You only really pick someone's pocket twice, and the pressure point game comes up only three or four times.
To wrap it up, the story is bleak, but enough to keep you interested. There are many events here and there that catch and hold your attention, but they don't make up for the almost plain blandness of the remainder of the adventure. At many points in the story, you are "tested" with the task of assassinating random strangers for little or absolutly no reason. Also, for most of the game you are chasing people around from city to city (there are 6 or 7 cities, and you arn't able to travel freely between them).
I was a little disappointed to discover there are no side quests, and you arn't really given very much information on any particular person, place, or thing.
Also, I've noticed quite a bit of comparison between Altair's Choice and the console verison. I'd like to point out that this game was made to be radically different, and is not fit for comparison to a X360 game. There is no free roam or loose assassination guidlines because it is a plat former, not a standard adventure game.
In conclusion, even though the game is short, it is very, very sweet.
In further conclusion, the gameplay alone racks up a good '8 of 10', but the grafixs, sound, and story incentives, both good and bad, bring it down to a respectable '7 of 10'.