Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed is a revolution in the way players interact with their environment. Complete with
easy-to-figure-out controls and great graphics, this game is worth buying. You play as Altair- no, wait, Desmond Miles- no, Altair- Desmond- Altai- Well, you play as someone. Altair is an assassin (hence the title), Desmond is a direct descendant of Altair. Anyway... you play mainly as Altair; an assassin (Is this getting redundant?) who has been stripped of his rank for not following the rules. Yes, apparently assassins have rules. The leader of the assassins, Al Mualim, decides to give Altair another chance if he can prove himself by assassinating 7 specific targets (there are more in the PC version, supposedly). Yeah, so now you know the basic story.


The simple gameplay provides nearly unbelievable freedom. You only need to push a single button to run, jump, climb, etc... Altair does the rest. You can do almost anything you wish, aside from killing innocents (as that is against the creed). Although I am still trying to figure out if there is, in fact a way to fly; no luck so far.


The artificial intelligence is among the greatest I have experienced. You can jump off a building, and Altair will aim for a conveniently placed bale of hay, guards will watch you, and attack you when they realize "Hey, wait a minute; that guy is dressed like one of those assassins! And he done killed everybody!" When being pursued by your mentally deficient enemies, you have two options: 1. Fight. 2. Jump into a conveniently placed hay bale (as we discussed earlier) or a garden on the roof (Did these really exist?). Anyway, the guards are so dimwitted, they won't think to look in the obvious hiding spots; which also includes sitting between two people on a bench. (WTF?). I've just described that and I'm supposed to be praising the AI. Altair = smart; guards = stupid. I nearly forgot to mention how well the crowd reacts to your actions: They react very well.


Assassin's Creed provides a greatly *can't think of an appropriate adjective* soundtrack. But I assure you, the adjective is positive. I really enjoyed the music in this game, which accompany the dazzling visuals. The only annoyance I found in the game is the partially interactive cinematics really drag on; and the missions are slightly repetitive.


All in all, Ubisoft has impressed me -as they often do- with Assassin's Creed.