Review: Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360)
Who among us hasn't wanted to slip silently across the rooftops over the heads of patrolling guards, slipping a dagger between the ribs of an unsuspecting stranger before disappearing into the crowd. Reasonable, well-adjusted people probably. But since none of them read this website, they won't be a problem. For the rest of us, Assassin's Creed is a game that fulfills all our childhood fantasies of anonymous surreptitious murder.
Lots of talking and not nearly enough stabbing after the jump.
Okay since mentioning a very minor spoiler about this game on the podcast got someone very upset at Chris I'm going to preface this review by saying that there will be non-spoiler spoilers. Beware!
Assassin's Creed places you in the role of... well actually who you are is a bit complicated. For the majority of the game you're Altair, a white robed member of the Assassin's Guild who must kill his targets to appease his masters while the crusades ravage the holy land. But simultaneously you're also Desmond Miles, a descendant of Altair strapped into a device called the Animus, being forced to relive Altair's escapades. This may sound like a huge spoiler if you haven't actually played the game, but any information you can get from the instruction manual can't really qualify as a spoiler.
The game is broken up in to several "memory blocks" (assassination missions) which are interspersed with time spent as Desmond Miles in the future/present-ish. The missions themselves are broken down into several investigation missions, of which there are only a few types. Because the mission types repeat so often, you'll find yourself doing the same sort of thing over and over again. These missions vary in difficulty from the incredibly ridiculously easy (sitting on a bench and watching people talk to each other) to the irritatingly difficult (assassinating 6 targets without being discovered in 3 minutes). Along the way you're given the option to do side missions. There are only two types of these and of them, only one of them remains interesting after the first assassination. If you've noticed a bit of repetition to this review it's only because the game is, aside from a few diversions, very linear for a sandbox style game. While it does provide you with a wide open city, aside from completing both story and side missions there is very little to do.
The story unfolds slowly, with most of the information coming across in in-game cut scenes. Unfortunately the game's camera system isn't really up to the task of providing an interesting camera angle and for the most part you'll spend these dialog scenes looking down on the action as though Altair has frequent out of body experiences. I guess you could argue that this is a stylistic choice given the context of the game, but in practice it's annoying. Occasionally you'll be able to press a button during a scene and get a close up view of the action. It's an interesting idea, but the story would probably have been better serviced by disposing with the player controlled camera.
If it sounds like I'm nit-picking a lot I guess I am and even though I thought I'd go in to this review gushing about all the cool things that I did I've ended up crapping all over it. I guess the nicest thing I can say about Assassin's Creed is that it's more fun to play than I am making it sound. Scrambling up buildings and getting the drop on a target is incredibly satisfying and the digital cities are breathtakingly realized.
Score: 3.5/5 Save your holiday money for another release and pick this one up for rental, maybe at a Hollywood Video*.
*This non-paid endorsement is in recognition of the guy stuck working at the Hollywood Video on Thanksgiving who fixed my Rock Band disc after my 360 tipped over in full spin. Thanks, guy whose name I didn't get!
