Ubisoft strikes again with another highly anticipated, mediocre title.
The main storyline seems to be based in a modern, maybe near-future world, with the "main" character being Desmond Miles, who has been kidnapped for a project in a science lab. He is stuck into a machine that allows him to travel back to his ancestor's memories and find out what they know. Desmond travels back to his assassin ancestor Altair, who is working for an assassin organization in the Middle East during the Crusades. Altair's storyline starts out interesting, with a battle in the assassin's city, but quickly becomes stale as Altair must simply perform investigations and assassinate targets. Some targets are evil, some not so much, but Altair must kill them anyway, giving the game a "finish the job no matter the price" feeling. However, with practically no character development and boring narrative, the storyline pales out compared to many in the genre. The ending is also weird and confusing, leaving much to be desired in AC2.
AC's world is huge and beautiful, though many parts are cut off to the player until much later in the game, cutting out much of the free-roaming aspect wanted in an adventure title. While the lands are beautiful, there is little to do besides finding flags and high-points. The world is also very narrow, giving you very little truly free movement while horse-riding. The cities look outstanding, other than some infrequent graphical glitches. Water, lighting, and shading effects are top-notch, giving the Middle East a majestic, realistic look. The character models are also good, though sometimes a little blurred out, but on par with most top-end titles. Character animations are great, as people will react to you if you push them, rear your horse, or go running out of a building. The cities are fairly realistically crowded, with dozens of people on-screen at one time, and the battles can get fairly large, sometimes with ten-twenty soldiers taking you on at one time with no noticeable framerate issues. The only issue being people taking exception to your actions too quickly, AC is graphically sound in all areas.
After a fast-paced, awesome battle in the first city, AC's gameplay seemed like it would deliver on its promise. As you learn more counters and moves, the fluidity of battles with guards becomes better, and the fighting feels more natural. However, with a bad system of guards discovering you too quickly, the battles become much too frequent. As you unrealistically escape by praying with scholars (how don't they notice your throwing knives?), jumping into a garden roof, and sitting on a bench, you'll notice that you're hampered by sometimes-off controls and will miss you hiding spot, forcing you into more battles. After a few of these, along with the three boring investigations that must be performed dozens of times, the gameplay quickly becomes repetitive and boring. The two other major gameplay missions include more fighting to save citizens under duress from soldiers, and climbing to high points to scout out the city. Again, after completing those "missions" a few times, they also get terribly mind-numbing. The actual assassinations are probably the only bright spot, but only a few are actually thrilling. Others involve sitting still until you can plant your dagger into your target's back and then running like hell all the way back to your safe house. An underwhelming, fairly unchallenging, and lackluster final boss ends Altair's story. Reptitive gameplay and a lack of epic moments makes AC feel more like a hack-and-slash instead of a true adventure title at times.
Despite some gorgeous visuals and a huge world, lackluster gameplay, an underwhelming story, a lack of challenge, and a lack of memorable battles ruins what was potentially a great game. In a generation with few solid action-adventure titles, AC doesn't hit home as one of the first. It has its moments, but Assassin's Creed is a boring, repetitive action game deserving of no more than a rental.