The first couple of hours the game is fun. Yet the longer you play the more repetitive the game gets.
Story:
The story in short is you play as Desmond a bartender in the future who is captured by a corporation. They claim his DNA will show his ancestors past with the help of a animus. The animus is a device that sends the user into a virtual time period and lets them control the memories of their ancestors. You then assume the control of the assassin Altair one of the best assassins. It is the year 1191 AD in the "Holy land" and the third crusade is in progress. Altair is part of a group of assassins with 3 rules. He then breaks all 3 rules and shamed his "brothers" and is stripped of his title. He then has to assassinate certain people to get his gear, title, and honor back. You control mostly Altair in the game but at times you will have to control Desmond to further the reason why he is abducted.
Gameplay:
The gameplay in short is both awesome and horrible. The game is in a sandbox world run by both the templars and arab armies. You have to sneak, kill, and run away from both to achieve your goals. The controls for the game are both confusing and easy. When you first play you will ultimately be confused. the a,b,x,y buttons have 2 functions. You can just hit them once or pull on the right trigger button and then the button again. I will explain the "A" button is the blend button. It makes Altair pray (I kid you not) you hit the right trigger and "A" it will make him jump.
Now the game gives you a target to assassinate. This is where the game fails and makes it boring. You must do a series of side missions to get info on how to take the target down. You mostly have to pickpocket, listen to conversations, interrogate certain people, gather "x" amount of flags, or assassinate guards looking for a certain informant in "x" amount of time and silently. The main problem is you will be doing these missions for the rest of the game. You will always pickpocket or listen in to conversations. You will ultimately get bored since all you seem to do is side missions and when you finally assassinate someone all that info you have isn't that useful.
Another thing is the combat. The more you play and assassinate you get more moves and weapons. But this is all you need to know. Take a sword hold right trigger when a enemy hits your sword hit "x" rinse and repeat. The combat is very boring all you need to do is block and counter. The enemies will constantly respawn and you can fight them all with ease with the counter move. Usually when you are surrounded in a game you go "oh no!! this is awesome how will I escape this?". In this game you go "sighh how much longer will this last?"
Another thing the game does wrong is the guards ohh the guards. It doesn't matter who you are fighting (templars, Arabs)since they all have the same A.I. function. They are either too quick to attack Altair or just too stupid to notice anything. I will explain there is 3-4 cities to explore. To get to these cities you need a horse. The problem is there are guards all over the country side. If you gallop fast they will chase you..no I am not joking. The guards will try to swarm you and your horse if you so much as gallop. You actually have to travel very very very slowly to get to the cities to the point you rather walk it will be quicker. It just takes too long to actually get to cities.
Yet all these complaints there is one thing I like about it. You have the ability to climb whatever. You can climb virtually any building the roofs are your friends. You can avoid guard patrols or sneak into guarded areas.
Graphics:
The graphics really stood the test of time. They are a sight to behold. It does make you feel like you are in the "Holy land". The sights are very nice especially when you climb a ridiculously tall tower and just look around. They put a ton of effort into the graphics engine.
Audio:
The audio is ehh. The guards just say dumb things and Altair's voice is okay but he doesn't speak much. It is honestly average at best.
Pro's
The story is interesting, the first couple of hours is fun, Altair looks cool, decent arsenal against enemies, his wrist blade is awesome, the sneaking mechanics is ok, the graphics are amazing, only 20 bucks, jumping from roof to roof or climbing is fun to do.
Con's
After the first few hours incredibly boring, the controls at first just suck, Altair isn't a very personable character, I can't stress this enough that the game gets very boring very quickly with the same side missions over and over again, the actual assassinations are ehh because no matter how stealthy you are they always know you are there and run away and you are forced to chase after them, the combat is bland and easy, honestly you will hate the sidemissions.
Overall:
Overall the game is hyped to be something its not. Sure the graphics are amazing but the gameplay just isn't there. I would have found the game to be more fun if I didn't pick pocket or interrogated someone for the 100000 time.