Assassin's Creed turned out to be a very good game to play this holiday season despite a couple of shortcomings.
In gaming there are certain eras that are just overloaded with games (here's looking at you WWII) and others that are just aching for stories to tell. It seems the crusades started to be ripe for the picking recently with a brief incursion in Clive Barker's Jericho and the majority of Assassin's Creed taking place during this setting. This brand new setting was a main draw for me and the story just carries that interest throughout the game.
Now the whole game doesn't take place during the crusades, in fact the crusades portions are simply memories in a modern day man's brain. This little twist on story telling added extra intrigue that kept me glued to the game until the unfortunate cliffhanger ending that left far more questions unanswered. I don't think I'll ever get used to paying $60 for a game only to see a small part of the full story,
The controls and game play seem to be both a blessing and a curse upon Assassin's Creed. The controls are just so intuitive and tight that it often simplifies game play enough to make the game cross over into the too easy side. Being surrounded by a pack of guards that would love to make a pincushion out of you is no real threat because with a few correctly timed button presses, you stand alone on a street littered with bodies. Don't get me wrong, the controls don't make everything too simplistic, the building scaling, and acrobatics make the control scheme seem heaven sent. Simply put, it lets you do some actions effortlessly that would be too difficult in other games.
The graphics in Assassin's Creed are gorgeous. Sure all of the guards and majority of the citizens look the same but other than that, the graphics please in every other way possible. From the bustling market streets to the dusty country side and the beautiful vantage points, the game just has complete cohesiveness. The animations are also done exceptionally well, whether you're running from guards or sword fighting, every single movement is pretty realistic and fluid. While I didn't witness any slowdown or pop up that seems to infest a lot of games these days, there was some questionable collision detection when it came to the combat animations, but these really don't take away from the experience as a whole.
The modern dialogue is attributed to the translation by the Animus so the dialogue is current and easily understandable but that doesn't detract from the quality or the setting at all. The best parts are the conversations between Altair and his victims or the dialogue of Altair's descendant in the current timeframe. The other parts of the aural department keep with this quality, mainly music and sound effects. I really can't complain about a thing in this area.
Now to the negative aspects; I've already mentioned the ease of combat and the cliffhanger ending but the game is also short and repetitive. Clocking in at about 7 hours of game play, you will have experienced far more of Assassin's Creed than you may have wanted due to the same set up of the main assassinations being done over and over again. The only thing I can see to extend the life of the game beyond that is achievements or hunting down the numerous hidden items, but again, those are just for achievements.
You see to get the full story behind one of your targets, you have to eavesdrop, intimidate, pick pocket, climb towers and help citizens often a few times in any given city and repeat these steps each time for the bunch of people you're trying to assassinate. These things are kind of exciting the first five times I did them but after that I just thought they were boring things I had to do just to get to the exciting killing part.
Assassin's Creed turned out to be a very good game to play this holiday season despite a couple of shortcomings, I could see if someone was really hyped up for this game, they could be a bit more disappointed. The bottom line is that the setting and the story was a breath of fresh air and the game play, whether you take it of leave it, is pretty much one of a kind.