Ubisoft's best title yet. This is an adventure you cannot afford to miss.
You play as a modern day assassin who is doing experiments for a research facility. Altair is your ancestor, and you are uncovering the story of his quest to end the Crusades. Altair is a reckless, but skilled assassin. The game starts where you overlook a situation and try to assassinate a Templar, when you fail and are thrown to be almost killed by rubble, leaving behind the other two assassin's that were with him. You return to Masyaf, the assassin's keep, to report to Al Mualim, the assassin's leader, of your failure. You have broken the creed in this job, which is a code that the assassin's live by. You are punished for this and most of your equipment and skills are taken away. You must redeem yourself by hunting down 9 men to hope to try to stop the Crusades. The story really sucks you in with twists and turns, and a surprise ending, but I will let you experience all of these for yourself.
Controls:
The controls are really unlike any ordinary action adventure have. There are many different walking speeds. Holding A makes you walk very slowly, and blend in with society. Use this to not arouse suspicion. Holding nothing walks at a regular pace, holding RT jogs, and RT and A sprints. B will gently push anyone in your way, Y will give you a supervision and lets you easily determine who is a guard, citizen, information, or target. Holding RT and pressing B will throw, and you can change the direction with the left stick. Now, controls vary whether you are in a sword fight or not. In a sword fight, A is to step, B is to grab, and X is to attack with a selected weapon which you can change with the control pad. RT outs you into a block position and while you are holding that, the controls will change. Remember, keep holding RT to perform these moves. A will dodge, allowing you to get a quick strike afterwards, B is to perform a Grab break, which is used when an enemy tries to grab you (basically a counter attack), and X performs a Counter Kill, or attack(sometimes it won't kill them). There is also at the top right of your screen a symbol that represents the enemies line of sight. If it is clear, that means everything is normal. Yellow means people are watching you, Blinking Yellow means guards are chasing you but don't see where you are, Red means guards are very suspicious, and Blinking red means they are chasing you and they see you, or that you're in a sword fight. Whe you are being chased by guards you can hide in piles of hay, a rooftop garden, a bench, or a group of scholars, as long as they don't see you do this. It will blink Blue if they are still looking for you and green if it is safe to come out. LT Will engage you in a battle or lock on to a target. While you are locked on you can use various controls: B to pickpocket, and Y to eavesdrop, if you're sitting on a bench.
Graphics:
Wow...This whole living breathing world of assassin's creed is incredibly organic. Every shadow is the perfect height and width. You really do feel like you could reach into the screen and feel all the textures. The animations are superb as well. Altair performs a number of various stunts, vividly and fluently and without any frame rate issues whatsoever. Citizens have somewhat jerky movements, but everything else is so beautiful that you'll easily forget about it. I've heard about the glitches, but have only seen one. I walked right through a stair way, but I could just go back and climb the stair, so it isn'treally an issue.
Sound:
Everything you hear in Assassin's creed is just as amazing as what you see. At the pinnacle of a tall tower, you'll hear the rush of wind, eagles screeching, the little twitter of birds, and it is part of the whole game that brings it to life. On the streets you'll hear cries for help from citizens being harassed by guards, Pleas for money(even though you can't give them any), Store merchants rambling on about bargains, speeches about the crusades, and even people humming. The voice acting is very believable and every voice ties into the game. The voice acting for Altair however, is good, but it doesn't really seem to fit in with all the other great voices in the game. He almost sounds...American......Anyway, the developers did an awesome job with the music in Assassin's creed. All the most exciting points in Assassin's Creed comes along with great music when it's from observing from a tall tower, from escaping after an assassination.
Value:
If you complete the bare bones of the game, without doing any optional tasks this game should at least last you 10 hours. But if you are like me, you'll explore every detail of the cities and this game will last you much longer. After the story(which ends with a notorious cliff hangar), you are free to use the animus to go back to certain points in your journey. If you like exploring, or if you just want to get the achievements, you'll want to go back and get every flag and kill every Templar
Replay Value: High
Overall: The best action adventure of the year, and maybe ever, and like in the title, it is one adventure you cannot afford to miss.