A solid game that seems to be missing the "subtlety" of historical assassinations.
In Assassin's Creed you assume the role of Desmond Miles and his Muslim assassin ancestor, Altair through a machine that allows a person to relive passed down genetic memories. The storyline is pretty far fetched despite its claims of being based on historical events (it is, but loosely), but fairly enjoyable if you accept it for what it is.
In Assassin's Creed you essentially travel from city to city trying to avoid Crusaders and other folks who don't like you or your order very much. You then meet up with that city's head assassin, and he sends you off to perform one to three completely random and often seemingly irrelevant missions strewn about the city. These missions go from simple eavesdropping to racing across rooftops while on the clock (what the heck?). This aspect of the gameplay seems enjoyable at first, but after the fifteenth pickpocket mission it starts to get tiresome. After you finally get all of the information you need through these missions, you get to "plan out" the assassination you are to perform with your superior. There's no real strategy to it even though Altair spends the time coming up with a plan. Usually assassinating a target consists of running up to them and knifing them and then running from their comrades and the city guard.
The lack of variety in missions isn't what bothered me most in AC, though. Did anyone else start killing the beggars and wandering idiots who push you around after their stupidity caused you to become "detected"? That's the only part of the game that was even remotely challenging, and that's not exactly a positive contribution to game challenge. The loss of a few "health points" is a small price to pay for killing an annoying beggar who keeps running in front of you even when you're clearly not interested.
My biggest gripe with Assassin's Creed is how it pretends to have stealth and subtlety, while realistically none of the "stealth" tactics used in the game would work. In order to get into cities you have to hide among scholars dressed in white. Okay, you're dressed in white, but you also have a few dozen weapons strapped to you and a suspicious looking hood. You mean to tell me that this wouldn't raise any eyebrows? Then of course there's guard pursuits; as long as you're able to hide guards won't recognize you or seem to notice all of your armaments when you emerge a minute later. My personal favorite is the market stall destroying mission where you just run up to citizens and chuck them into market stands. Blowing your cover before you even start the assassination assignment itself, that's a great strategy.
Visually AC is pretty good. It contains all of the effects you'd expect from a modern game complete with eye burning bloom and HDR. I don't have any real complaints in this regard. Audio wise the game features okay voice acting, I don't get why Altair has an American accent but whatever. The music is fairly forgettable, though I did like the assassination music as it really seemed to fit the inevitable guard chase that happened after the kill.
Assassin's Creed, yeah it's alright. It's hardly deserving of all of the hype it has received in my opinion; it's a tedious, repetitive assassination game where twitch action is more important than stealth. This doesn't really make any sense, but thankfully I wasn't expecting another Thief: The Dark Project. In fact, you know what would be the ideal assassin game? Thief, where your goal is to kill rather than steal. Oh well, at least I only spent twenty dollars on this title.
+ The storyline is alright.
+ Leaping from rooftop to rooftop is entertaining for a while.
+ Good visuals and audio.
- Repetitive gameplay.
- An ASSASSIN game that lacks any form of believable STEALTH or SUBTLETY. What were you thinking, UbiSoft?
- Beggars and wandering lunatics are the bane of my existence.
- Guards either have ADHD, or are mentally deficient.