Assassin’s Creed: Amazingly Different or Amazingly Boring?
December 10, 2007 12:17 pm PS3, Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed. Now here’s a game that many, many people were looking forward to getting. Now that it has arrived, many people, including the gaming media, seem to love it. You know what? I’m not gonna disagree with those people who love this game, it’s a fantastic little game.
For the first three hours.
After that, well, let’s just say the variety leaves a little something to be desired. Let’s get the praise out of the way first.
Assassin’s Creed’s Story
Yes, the game is certainly unique. It’s cool, it’s fun and it even exposes us to a period in history that developers haven’t explored too often. While taking us to the Crusades, Ubisoft Montreal also made this game relevant in today’s political climate. Westerners invading the Middle East in order to shape events to fit what they want to see? People thinking that they can kill their way to a better world?
Yup, this game certainly has the story telling part down.
The story is engaging, both when you’re Altair and when you’re Desmond. In fact, it’s the story that pushes you on past the three-hour mark, once the came has grown monotonous.
Free-Roaming Controls for Assassin’s Creed
Another stride in the right direction is Assassin’s Creed’s controls. You can usually effortlessly climb from building to building and jump on most anything you can see. However, there are moments of rage-inducing stress when doing some climbing and jumping.
You’ll be cruising along, climbing to your heart’s content and then get stuck. Without fail, you’ll see the ledge Altair should grab — you scream at him to grab it to no avail. Regardless of how psychotically you push the controller towards the ledge, Altair won’t budge. Then, you decide to jump for it, miss it, land on the ground and have to start from the beginning. Fantastic.
Even the fighting is pretty fun and, after a little toying around with, intuitive enough. Though, the one-button combos are a little simplistic and make the game much more fun to watch than to play. “Wow, that was freakin’ awesome,” a friend of mine said while I was playing. “Yeah, I hit A…twice.”
Assassin’s Creed’s Graphics
A place where I’ve always struggled to heap praise upon games is their graphics. This is probably due to my old school gaming ways, where a game was supposed to be fun. If it’s fun enough to keep you coming back for more, it doesn’t matter how it looks. It’s the inside of the book, not the cover, ya know? On the plus side, the graphics are darn good. Dare I say the best that the 360 currently has? Sure, what the heck, this is a sexy game.
Assassin’s Creed’s Downfall
Now, after all this praise, how could I say the game isn’t that fun? It’s rather simple really: the goals for each level are the same.
Go to the city, do some research, kill the main person you need to kill…ad nauseam.
I know, I’ll be vilified for calling a game repetitive, they’re all repetitive, right? Sure, they all are. However, in their repetition of “kill, search, kill” they present it in different ways. You’re not just going to hunt down people to kill, but they’ll change the story. They’ll make you really want to invest your time and effort into what’s happening.
However, this one misses the mark. Everyone who owns a 360 should certainly play Assassin’s Creed. Buying it, however, is definitely a decision that people should make after they rent it.
Recommendation: Give Assassin’s Creed a test drive via a rental first. If you really like bladin’ people real quiet like, then purchase it and support Ubisoft. Rumor has it this is going to be a trilogy, let’s just hope they work out the dull kinks in the repetitive nature of the next one.