I never imagined being an assassin could be so boring...
Don't even pretend you think otherwise. If you know anything about history, my dear anonymous reader, you probably know that the assassins are more of a myth then a fully recognised historical organization. That's because they are surrounded by a veil of secrecy, and even today we know very little about them. But they DID allegedly exist, in the most awesome way we can imagine. The assassins were (again, allegedly) a top secret organization of trained killers, carrying out, ummm... well, assassinations. If you knew the right people, and had a handsome amount of gold at your disposal, you could hire one of those deadly hitmen to take out your enemies, without anyone ever suspecting anything. The assassins were obviously so good that nobody knew anything about them, but not even kings and emperors were safe from their deadly grasp.
For the sake of an argument, let us assume all of it is true, and not just an urban legend or a historian's wet dream. That would mean a video game where the main character is one of those deadly night stalkers would be pretty sweet. Hell, just by reading the game's title I could already imagine myself stalking an unsuspecting bad guy in the dark streets of medieval city, in the middle of the night, with a hidden blade up my sleeve, ready to spill his blood. Avoiding the city guards and patrols, hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike, then disappearing into the night... I'd wear a black cloak that covers my devilishly handsome face, and have a sexy scar over my left eye which would make me look like a grizzled badass. I'd get involved in some conspiracy, maybe got betrayed by my breathern, but ultimately my superb assassin skills would help me stealth my way through every mission (and maybe some side missions) to kill the main villain and rescue a distressed Venetian damsel in distressful distress. Yep, my life as an assassin would be pretty sweet...
So you can imagine how excited I was when I heard about Assassin's Creed for the first time. People who got a look of it told me stories about living, breathing world where you could pull off all kinds of stunts in order to accomplish your missions. Superb A.I. made sure all the inhabitants of the city acted like real humans would. You could push somebody and start a riot, or a fight. Or simply make your way through crowd smoothly. All in all, a revolutionary game which offers not only cool assassinations, but an incredible amount of freedom as well. A dream come true.
Well, they didn't lie... technically. You CAN do some of those stuff mentioned above. Some of them, yes. It's just that none of it is executed very well. Controls are OK, but the game is pretty shallow, repetitive and after a while... simply boring.
But let's start from the beginning...
You start your game in modern day America, as a bartender who got captured by some mysterious group of scientists and hooked up on a weird machine that reads your genetic code. Memories of your ancestor (who was an assassin) are written in your genes, and they want you to relive those memories in order to locate some sort of treasure or something. Anyway, the story might seem OK, but very soon you'll stop paying attention to it, simply because of the long, boring and often pointlessly drawn out conversations it is presented through. As the game progresses you shift from an assassin killing dudes during the Crusades, to a bartender locked away in a fancy apartment. First and foremost, I see no reason for that. Seriously. None at all. Sequences where you play as the bartender are really pointless, and could've been executed by simple in-game cutsceenes where the stereotypical scientist and the hot chick conveniently explain the plot to you. There was no reason to turn them into an actual aspect of gameplay. That was the first big flop of the game.
As a story-driven game, you'd expect Assassin's Creed to have a decent voice acting cast, and a well-written scenario and conversations that deliver the plot to you in a tasteful and subtle way. You'd expect even more from a blockbuster title such as this one. Well, as it becomes painfully obvious very soon, this game has none of it. The story is written with all the skill and subtlety of "Revenge Of The Sith" ("Anakin! You're breaking my heart!"), with a few cheesy twists. After a while, you won't even hear the characters talking anymore. You'll just hear "bla bla bla..." and scream "GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!!!!!" in your head over and over again. I was surprised about how long it actually takes for your targets to die. I had the feeling they were dying for an hour after being struck by your blade. And they were talking THE WHOLE DAMN TIME. Yeah, I bet we all would have the patience to explain your not-always-evil scheme to an assassin that just stuck a blade into your guts. Assassin that seems to be dumb and clueless about it, even tough he should've figured out something was wrong a long time ago. If he wasn't functionally retarded. While your bodyguards patiently wait for you to drop dead and finish the conversation, before attacking the guy that just ripped your guts out. Yep, that sounds about right...
Some voice actors are decent, but the characters are crude two-dimensional stereotypes. Bleak and uninteresting. Just look at them! Old scientist. Hot chick. Wise old sage that never reveals anything. Clueless main hero. Badass villain. Characters that you saw millions of times before in millions of other video games. Take the scientist, for example. He is every lame stereotype about scientists that video games have served us for years. He has white beard. He is unethical. He is arrogant. He cares only about his precious scientific work. He is annoying. And you wish you could beat him to death with his own periodic table.
Kind of like watching a bad B-movie. Only it's a video game.
Your character isn't much better, you know... He is sadly stripped of any personality or background at all. What could've been a cool video game icon with a bit more effort put into making him believeable, is no more then a mere mannequinn. It doesn't make you like him, or care about him. So, flop number two for this game...
Well, time to say something about the gameplay. It is painfully obvious that Assassin's Creed tries to be a sandbox game. Giving you the liberty to explore the locations at will, performing missions in any order you choose... Which would work well, if you could really do anything you want in the game. You see, even tough you can travel freely anywhere you please, you can do very little if the game doesn't actually want you to do it. It pretends to let you run free, but it really holds your hand the whole time. Forcing you to do what it wants you to do at a certain point of the mission. And never lets you do, well... ANYTHING. Except run around and climb onto rooftops. Say you want to pickpocket someone... well, you're outta luck. Game lets you pickpocket only on certain "pickpocket missions". Or you see two guys talking and want to eavesdrop. Same thing. Assassinate someone? Sorry, if there are no assassination side missions, you're out in the dry. It's fair to mention the traveling sequences where you ride a horse from one city to the next. Again, completely pointless, boring and unnecesarry. One more thing they could've taken care of by showing you the short cutsceene of your character arriving at the city gates on his trusted steed.
It wouldn't be so bad if there were more different missions available. But every map comes down to 1 or 2 of these mandatory and side missions (which are always the same 4-5 types of missions, mind you...), one assassination target and a s**tload of citizens to rescue from city guards that bully them for some reason. And that's it. That's all you're allowed to do in the entire "living and breathing" city. Combat is extremely easy, and every character in the game is practically retarded, so I won't even waste words on it. Or those very few (retarded) ways you can blend in with the environment so the guards wouldn't start chasing you for no particular reason. Look, guys, we're talking about Crusades-era Levant here. I'm pretty sure a lone dude wearing white robes and carrying a sword wasn't an unusual sight. On the other hand, why the hell do they ignore you while you walk among 4 or 5 monks, despite all the shiny weapons you're not even trying to hide. We're talking about a "highly skilled" assassin here, mind you... I'm fairly certain there are better ways to blend in with the crowd, besides carrying a fancy armor and tons of weapons in broad daylight.
Truth be told, not everything is bad. Controls are fairly good, with a few glitches. I sure as hell won't buy a gamepad for this, so keyboard-and-mouse setup will have to do. Your character is superbly animated, and combat is cool to watch once you learn how to perform counter strikes. That makes it kind of fun for a while. Sadly, exploration is completely unrewarding, since the only way to gain more weapons and skills is by assassinating an important target. No money, no shops where you could spend it, no extra items scattered around... The only thing you can collect are some stupid flags which give you... well, nothing! Wait, what the hell is this, Super Mario?! OK, maybe they give you something, but I didn't stick around long enough to see what. I was too bored to care.
Architecture, as well as graphics, are one of the few bright spots. Environments are really impressive, and the beginning of the game gives away the impression of a decent story to hear and exciting adventures to have. Unfortunately, due to lack of imagination, it becomes repetitive and boring after you deal with your first target in Damascus. There is no stealth, no subtlety, and beating a mission requires exactly zero thinking, planning or careful executions. You act more like a warrior then assassin, and instead of killing your target quietly while harming as few innocents as possible along the way, you turn out to be one-man wrecking machine. Hell, even combat is way too easy and gets boring after a while. This game is shallow, unchallenging, unrewarding, and way, waaaay to repetitive. The story varies from "OK, this might get interesting..." to "Who gives a damn?!".
All in all, this game not only failed to capture the essence of being an assassin, it failed at being even remotely fun as well. Sure, you might enjoy the first few hours of it, like I have, but after that, you'll probably look for an uninstall icon. And never waste your valueable time on it again.