While a perfectly enjoyable game there are some control issues which can make the final 3 battles infuriating.
Still, the story is actually quite interesting and illuminates the troubles we all have with perspective as 4 factions clash each trying to make the world a better place but heartily disagree with how the other goes about it's plans. The Templar's arguments, for instance, are fairly persuasive.
There is a lot to like in Assassin's creed, but it comes with a lot of give and take.
- Helping citizens is an interesting diversion: vigilantes are more or less critical in memory block 6, and saving scholars helps you get past many guards that would otherwise be a bit of an annoyance. However every rescue is followed by a 5 second cut scene that, while helpful in the first 2 memory blocks, is a frustrating suspension of control when guard patrols are high later on (since they will find you) and since there are only 4 cut scene options saving citizens can get quite tedious. For this reason I suggest you follow the Creed "Discretion" and only rescue scholars and perhaps 2 normal citizens near the castle and a high ladder in memory block 6.
-Lack of discretion: Altaïr is a curious cat and it gets him in a lot of trouble. While listening to your target's speech is a great way to handle exposition, it's not a terribly effective way to assassinate someone. Why not throw a dagger in his neck from the crowd while he talks and then slip away, instead of breaking into his heavily armed fortress or fighting past waves of guards? Also, don't these guys sleep? Altaïr has a lot to learn from Garrett about his own creeds.
-Roof tops & climbing: Now a staple in free-play games, there is no doubt this is where it all came from. Generally well implemented and awesome. So awesome that the 5-10 times I got hung up because I was not in exactly the right place were rather frustrating. And I have another niggle in being near a ledge: forward and back stop being "forward" and "back" until you rotate around to Altaïr's back once more.
-Sizable open land: Doing a bit of exploring in the kingdom is quite interesting, and thankfully not required for every journey. Ridding into every city is necessary, but I fail to see what is gained by running out of the only friendly city in the game every time you acquire a new mission.
-The differences in the cities is quite awesome, and they are huge.
-Generally good to great voice acting, except Altaïr whose performance is (perhaps intentionally) lifeless.
-Combat is generally exciting and good, but the camera constantly switches to odd angles for special moves obscuring combat, breaking up continuity, and leaving you open. Throwing daggers are too easily accidentally thrown, a real problem since they don't auto-aim. And after it's been well established that there's a guy in a scholar's outfit running around killing people the rooftop archers give you far too many warnings. In fact my cue to run at them and do a high profile hidden blade attack was: "You there, you're not supposed to be up here!"
-Town criers get annoying, their dialog is on a loop and it seems to only have one option: " . . . giving our lives for what we believe in! There is no greater glory than that!" It would've been nice to have 10 or more variations, since they always seem to be near the view points which means they're in earshot for quite a while.
Other tips:
-If you're going to do a pick pocket mission, subdue the mongrels at the first sign they might be a problem (and possibly kill all the guards). Let the mission reset and it suddenly got a lot easier.
-Running into the beggar women (R1) is as effective as violently pushing them away, but won't cause them to raise an alert. In fact beating them into submission is more effective then violently pushing them away since the guards care more about he screaming about being beaten then her unconscious body.
-When facing 4 or fewer guards the long sword is more effective than the short blade since you can finish downed opponents faster, and it does significantly more damage when you're hacking away. Unless you love switching to the hidden blade after each knock down and only use counter attacks (a viable option), then the short blade is clearly the better choice.
While I initially picked up Assassin's Creed to set myself up for Assassin's Creed 2, I find I now need a break from the franchise if only because they've broke my cardinal rule of gaming: Your bosses and end levels should not be made explicitly harder by your exploitation of the imprecise controls you gave us.