Assassin's Creed

THE BAD:
- Cliffhanger ending
- A bit glitchy
- Controls aren't perfect
- Gets repetitive
- Beggars and Mentally challenged people get in the way (Explanation follows)
- Load times before you play
- Camera (At times)
- Not so much replay value
- Altair can't swim!

SUMMARY:
Assassins Creed is a (Almost historically accurate) game that was designed to put you in the place of a medieval assassin, but beneath that lies a second story, that of Desmond Miles in the year 2012. The plot can get very confusing at times, but here's a brief summary of how this all fits in.

A company called Abstergo has discovered that humans have all their ancestor's memories stored in their DNA. The thing the game uses to explain this is how birds all know exactly where to go during winter, and how fish always go to the breeding ground their mothers went to. Basically, they created a machine called the Animus to read people's genetic memories. Abstergo kidnapped Desmond Miles (The game doesn't mention how) but his ancestor was named Altair (You play as Altair in the medieval portion of the game) and they're reading Desmond's genetic memory to reveal Altair's memory. I'm not gonna elaborate more because it would involve huge spoilers.

The way you control Desmond is very simple. You don't play too much as him (Half an hour at the most throughout the game). It basically consists of using the left analog stick to move, and pressing any other button to interact when prompted to. You can also use the right analog stick to move the camera around.

Controlling Altair gets a bit more tricky. The left analog stick is used to move while the right one controls the camera. The D-pad is used to select your weapon.
UP selects the hidden blade
DOWN selects standard hand to hand combat
LEFT selects short blades (As well as throwing knives)
RIGHT selects your main weapon, the Assassin's sword

L2 is used for the chase camera (Useless when you aren't being chased)
L1 locks onto people
R2 doesn't do anything that I recall
R1 is held down to switch to high profile mode

This game features a low profile mode and a high profile mode. The low profile mode is more for sneaking around, while high profile is for running, sprinting, jumping, and fighting.

Low profile controls:
X - Blend (Altair blends in)
O - Gentle push (Slowly pushes people in a crowd out of the way)
Triangle - Eagle vision (Identifies friends, enemies, etc)
Square - Attack

High profile controls:
X - Sprint, tap to jump
O - Tackle/Grab (Depends if you're running or not)
Square - Attack or assasinate (If your hidden blade is out)

Holding down R1 activates high profile mode, releasing it deactivates it. While holding down R1, Altair will run instead of walking. The controls aren't so simple, but they're easy to get used to, and make more sense when you're actually playing the game.

The controls lead to one of the game's issues. If you accidentally run into a guard or templar, they will automatically assume you want to fight them! Fun fun! As soon as you start fighting them, other guards join in. These fights can easily last up to 5 minutes just because more guards keep stumbling upon the fight. The fighting system in this game started to bore me pretty quickly. There really aren't any special things to the fighting system. Holding down R1 when your weapon is out let Altair guard (But he can still get hit from a side he isn't guarding).

There aren't many special moves. Every once in a while, Altair will do a cool looking kill (Example: He knocks someone to the ground and swings downwards with his sword, shearing straight down through his shoulder into his heart, then ripping his now-bloody sword out while the guard is falling). Unfortunately, this sometimes brings up a camera issue. This game's camera can get VERY stupid at times. There are times when the camera will randomly move right behind a bush and not move until after you kill someone.

The animations in this game are very refined though. When climbing, Altair will always grab actual bricks, not midair like characters in games used to do. On ladders, Altair always grabs a rung on the ladder. It's a minor thing, but very impressive. It's even more impressive considering there are almost zero framerate issues in this game.

The game is also free roam, and there's quite a bit to do. To access new parts to a city, you simply scale a view point (Usually a very tall guard tower, church steeple, etc) and press the triangle button when up top. This leads to an impressive view of the entire city. You can do what the game calls a "Leap of Faith" when you're up top. You simply get onto what is basically a plank of wood that's on top of every one of the view points, and press jump. Altair jumps hundreds of feet into a wagon full of hay.

Speaking of wagons, when guards are chasing you, if you can break their sight of you, you can simply jump into one of these wagons and they'll completely lose you. You can also sit on a bench to blend in. It's a pretty cool system.

It's annoying how easy it is to get in trouble by the guards though. If you simply run into them, you get in trouble. As I said in the "Bad" section, Beggars and mentally challenged folks get in the way. Beggars stand directly in front of you so you can't move them out of the way unless you run straight through them. Mentally challenged people are even worse though. If you get near them, they run up to you and SHOVE you, usually knocking you down. If they just so happen to knock you into a guard, guess who gets in trouble?! YOU DO! >_> Whoever had the bright idea of putting them in should be smacked.

Another qualm I have with the game is that Altair, master assassin, CANT FRIGGIN SWIM! WHAT THE HELL?! If you accidentally fall into water, you die. This gets particularly annoying during one of the main assassinations you have to perform on someone that's on board a ship.

Though this game got repetitive (due to almost no diversity in the battle system), I would still definitely recommend it. There's almost no replay value (There's no reward at ALL for 100% completion) but it's still an overall great game and shouldn't be missed out on.

THE BAD:
Huge cliff-hanger ending. Can grow repetitive.

SUMMARY:
Assassin's Creed delivers an experience that leaves the bar high for others in the series. While on the surface it seems straight forward their are many intracitys that demand time and concentration to perfect. It requires you to think outside the box to reach and neutralize you targets. While the game-play can be a little repetitive, the story sweeps you up as you unravel the mystery of the Templars, both in ancient times and in ours.

The game is based around a stealth concept. Slip past enemies, blend with the crowd, and if you must kill someone, do it quietly and effectively. If your more of the sword swinging fighting against all odds person, don't worry, Ubisoft's got you covered. An excellent sword fighting system consisting of counters and combos is in place with amazing kill graphics. But instead of just mashing the X button, you must learn to time your counters and strikes perfectly to successfully defeat your opponents. And don't forget that you can use your environment to fight and escape, such as throwing soldiers off roofs and into scaffolding.

And speaking of soldiers, the ones in this games are actually rather realistic. While in previous stealth games, if you were seen you either lost or had to neutralize the threat, Assassin's Creed has you practically rubbing shoulders with them, relying on the crowd to hide you. If you prefer a more dramatic form of movement, give the roofs a try. As an assassin you are able to leap from rooftop to rooftop with relative ease, avoiding the bulk of the guards and people. Of course the occasional archer does pose a threat. What better time to experiment with your various means of bringing death than when nobody else can see it.

The missions are pretty straightforward. Gather info on your target by eavesdropping, picking pockets, interrogating, and helping fellow assassins who will then lend you some of their knowledge. The eavesdropping is the easiest but also consists of less useful information. Your assassin contacts generally provide the hardest challenges and most useful information. Pick pockets and interrogations are in the middle. The letters and maps you steal show useful paths and story twists, but interrogating the despots gives you better info on how and when to strike. Afterwards you go to the bureau where Altair will give a general overview of your plan and then you will be off to bring the victim to his date with death. Don't expect the mission to go smoothly though. Your target may become aware of you and run or attack. Tread carefully for you may even be expected.

After finishing the game, the enjoyment can die down for some. But by setting goals for yourself, such as killing a target before they know you are there, you can stretch your assassin skills and ingenuity to the limits. Their are also several bonus assassinations you can unlock by gathering up groups of flags strewn throughout the cities and kingdom. This is by far the most strenuous part, for each major city contains 100 flags and gathering them all can be a long frustrating process.

The world is also vast and detailed with High Def graphics and an enormous amount of citizens walking the streets, that will either be an asset or a liability. But don't think you can just kill every citizen that gets in your way. You must live by the Creed. And anyway, you definitely don't want to alert the guards to your presence. All in all, this is a very worthy game, especially the first time through, and if you know how to challenge yourself, will provide entertainment for months and years to come.

Game-play : 89/100
Graphics : 96/100
Replay : 85/100
Story : 92/100
Difficulty: 96/100

THE BAD:
Repetitive methods and missions, repetitive minor-character speech, irritating minor-character behavior.

SUMMARY:
Assassin's Creed is an engaging, though somewhat short-lived story once you get the hang of how things work.

The battle system is quite fun, ranging from the stealth tactics (both low-profile and high-profile) that the majority of gameplay is based around, long-range attacks (which truthfully aren't very effective apart from the final boss fight), and all-out one-on-one (or more often than not, one-on-multiple) sword combat with a variety of counter-maneuvers and attacks.

And when your character isn't offing somebody, there's all sorts of amusing Prince-of-Persiaesque monkey business to be had; rebounding off of walls, climbing to ridiculous heights to find map-illuminating viewpoints, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, and taking "leaps of faith" off previously mentioned insane heights into carts of hay, all without the hassle of those pesky broken bones.

The character motion is extremely realistic, and they even got the horses down really well.

Though there are a decent number of mission types, such as rescuing citizens, obtaining information via eavesdropping or pummeling, collecting flags, and of course, assassinating targets, it does tend to get a tad on the repetitive side when you start getting into the sixth or seventh time of doing these same missions in three somewhat similar cities.

Then there's the beggar women, who tend to impede your progress when you're trying to pickpocket or assassinate someone, but they're not nearly as rage-inducing as the drunks and the crazies, who lunge at you and push you into the wall whenever you get near them.
Though like other citizens, you can't kill them without penalty, there is a bright side!
You can slaughter them to your heart's content after you've finished the game, HUZZAH!

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, the story is very interesting (and educational to boot if you don't happen to know much about the Templar Knights and whatnot), but was rather sporadically delivered during the modern sections, and leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions.
Of course, if they plan on making a sequel, then that's completely understandable why they would leave a lot of things open.

All in all, this is a pretty good game, with good replay value if you're into blowing time killing whoever sparks your fancy.

THE BAD:
Battles
Missions
Repeatedness

SUMMARY:
Assassin's Creed was already being talked about long before its release. A game by Ubisoft, what is that blade from his hand all about? The screen shots and trailers look beyond amazing. He looks like Prince of Persia, could this be the follow-up to the series?

Well no. He isn't POP, he is Altair - an assassin, actually more of an awesome assassin.

The first thing that will catch a player's eye while playing this game is the immense detail put in the game's gorgeous graphics. Within this game one can find the true power of the Playstation3. You would expect Altair to jog and run like any other open-world game. But not here, you can go from Blending into the crowd by praying to headbutting people whilst running from hordes of guards.
One thing that I truly loved about this game was executing assassinations, you will find yourself continuously crawling up behind unaware guards and doing a stealth assassination with the Hidden Blade which is an awesome thing to watch.
Another thing I am sure many people loved was non-stop wall-climbing and running from rooftop to rooftop and the all-time favourite: Leap of Faith, where the player gets to cast Altair from the top most minarets to piles of hay below.

It can be comparable to the GTA series where you get immense open-world game play. Yet Assassin's Creed gives a whole new twist to this factor, set back in 1171 AD where there are no cars or guns, these are substituted for horses, swords and projectile weapons. Also, killing innocent people which is a great favourite of GTA is breaking one of the three laws of being an assassin. However, it is possible to kill pedestrians, it results in loss of Synchronization.

However, amazing as this game is there are many flaws.
The first thing is that this game repeats over and over again. There are three cities: Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem where missions take place. Each mission consists of several investigations and when completed, the player can assassinate the prime target. The investigations are extremely repetitive, they consist of eavesdropping, pickpocket, interrogation, informer assassination among few others. Also to discover these investigations its necessary to climb View Points.
Once these missions are done, the only thing left to do is to assassinate the final target which takes hardly any time.
This whole process keeps coming back everytime and this makes game play quite boring after a while.

The limited amount of fighting in this game was also a big downside. Fighting is limited to melee fist-fighting, sword fighting, throwing knives/short knife and the Hidden Blade. There are no combos in this game, there is only one button - Square - to fight or assassinate etc. Although there are things such as Counter Attacks which have amazing outcomes the usual Square, Circle, Triangle = heavy attacks etc. are not at all in the game which is strange since Altair is supposed to be a master assassin.

All in all this game gets a 3/5 in my opinion. Great graphics, love the open-world. Battles - pathetic, much too repetitive.

THE BAD:
Running in atomic world for the loading times suck!
Maps are too small and hard to navigate sometimes though.
More assassin abilities like hiding bodies and changing clothes are omitted.
Story-telling is not as strong as Metal Gear or Tenchu Series.
Does not include CG like Metal Gear Series while characters are interacting in the game.

SUMMARY:
This game should appeal to all types of gamers because of its fantastic in-game graphics and interesting game plays. However, the game plays are a little bit repetitive and can be easily frustrated at some points. The game play consists of Nine Missions which include almost same tasks.

As you progress through the game, your abilities will increase and you can learn some cool sword fightings and hand-to-hand fightings. But your weapons are limited and this game does not emphasise too much on weapons. But you will mainly use Sword and Short-blade for your duties. Moreover, pick-pocketing is fun and you can act like real thief. Other game play includes such as hores-ridings that astonishe me by its incredible handlings of horse and realism of speed and sound. The characters in the game are totally interactive and they will act like a real living environment and sometimes those citizens of ancient cities can annoy you by asking money and bashings without warnings!!

The downsides are that,more CG and story-tellings are needed to compete with the other action-adventure games like Uncharted, Drake's Fortune. For example, in-game interactions between main character and other people are sometimes a bit obscure particularly in the conversation time. My personal dislike is that you can't hide the dead bodies like other assassin games. You can't also disguise except pretending like scholars. A bit more of disguise with clothings and other forms are omitted. As a result, you are confined to the manipulation of environments and situations of crowd. But you will get used to the nature of fighting,hiding, running and climbing easily and they are awesome experiences. Sometimes, when you climb, you will feel like 'Cliff Hanger'. Believe me!!

What is more, if you are a fan of 'Hitman' and 'Tenchu', you will definitely like this game anyhow. But I warn you that a little bit of patience are really needed to accomplish the game.

Overall, its enjoyable gameplay and incredible graphcis are hard to complain. Must have for all action fans. Just go and buy it now and I am pretty sure you won't be disappointed with this game.

THE BAD:
If there is any, the camera can be a little bothersome at times, but it's not a big problem or anything.

SUMMARY:
Basically, I've been looking forward to this game for quite some time now. Having finally played it, I had the hardest time putting the controller down for anything. I thoroughly enjoy climbing and exploring with no set path. The freedom just impresses me to no end. The story has intriguing twists and turns, which I enjoyed experiencing. To say that the detail in the game is good, is a gross understatement. The design team did a wonderful job recreating the different cities. Overall, Assassin's Creed is a must have for all Action/RPG players, and I highly recommend it to all.

Let me go through each aspect that comes to mind:

Storyline: 5/5
Attention-keeping plot line that makes the player wonder...

Controls: 4.5/5
For the most part, the controls were well designed. The only reason I took .5 off was due to the camera, which while it is not terrible, can be a little bit of a nuisance from time to time. However, I loved the choice s between low and high profile maneuvers and loved pulling off a stealthy assassination.

Graphics: 5/5
This game on the PS3 goes up to 1080i HD quality, which is pretty damn awesome. The design of the cities were amazing and could easily be described as eye-candy. The cinematic cutscenes were good, and being able to change camera position, or even move around a bit in some of the lesser scenes was a first for me.

Assassinations:
The main idea of the game, is of course the assassinations. I loved every minute of acquiring information about my target, and choosing to be stealthy or high profile about my killings. I thought it was funny when a knight would try to yell out "THE ASSASSIN!" but would be dramatically cut-off as my hidden blade went through him, all the while my other hand covered his mouth. It was a great feeling... sneaking up on an enemy and then... WHAM! Dead.

Freedom: 5/5
The ability to explore is astounding and invigorating. I took pleasure in finding a high point and then performing a "Leap of Faith" to escape guards. Being able to run around on the rooftops or climb most any walls, was probably one of the most innovative aspects of the game. This game keeps the player coming back for more.

Overall Score: 5/5
Great game, worth the money, and I would recommend it to anyone looking to spending some time delved into a world of mysteries and secrets...