Assassin's Creed

[MTK]

The graphics sure look great, we're finally seeing true next gen games pretty consistently now.

[EternalEnigma21]

im probably picking it up tonight... i'll try to get on around 11...

[DynamiteRave]

Someone let me know how it is.

I put money down on it and I think I might go pick it up tomorrow.

[mredskins]

Read this earlier in the day:
From the minute this game had a trailer shown at E3, people have been waiting for this one. Even as previews started to wind down to this game's release, people have been eagerly waiting for this game to come out. Everything about this game looked so dang cool that no one would be the wiser as to how this game would really turn out. All this game does is show off some pretty graphics and show some gameplay elements that need some serious fleshing out.

GRAPHICS: 10/10
The graphics in this game are beautiful. Probably the best I've ever seen in a 360 game, and that's saying something. The three cities you explore in this game are full, lavish, and extremely detailed. The makers of this game found tons of references as to what these ancient cities looked back then. And this game makes me believe that that's what ancient Jerusalem looked like. Not only are the locales great, the characters look great. All of them have this look to them that they are incredibly realistic. Also, the animations of these characters are incredibly lifelike. The citizens move as though they were in a "real" city. They react to your presence and move accordingly. It's great. Not only are the regular walking animations of citizens great, but the fighting animations of Altair, the main character, and the guards are also incredibly lifelike. It's like watching the Icecapades with swords. Yes, I just made my first Icecapades reference. Go me. Anywho, this game has the best graphics, hands down, of any 360 game I've ever played.

STORY: 6/10
Ya know, this is a somewhat interesting story. You play as Altair, one of the Hashrashhanahanahablahblahdeblahs (that's not the real name, duh, but something long and confusing like that), which is a group of assassins. Obviously, they plan on killing high profile villains, like city officials, politicians, and even evil priests! Not only do they stick with this, but they do in-depth research and find people who actually died or went missing about this time and using them as actual "victims". Now, the real bad part about this story is that the big twist (M. Night Shymalan style) is given to you in the first 10 minutes! NO! YOU DON'T DO THAT! That'd be like giving the ending to a movie like Signs away in the first act. If it weren't for that fact, this story would be great. But unfortunately, that really ruins it.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
I'll give these guys credit for thinking up new ideas. The way the controls are set, each one of the main 4 buttons (X, Y, A, B) corresponds to a part of the body (head, legs, right arm, left arm). You obviously use the head button to look for things, or people. You'd use one of your arms to attack people, and the other to do other actions, like grabbing or pickpocketing. This is a pretty cool system. It makes you legitimately think about how to do what you're doing. Speaking of what you're doing, the name of the game is the assassinations. And pulling them off is great. You have about 10 or so assassinations in the game, and every one of them is fun. You can go about it two ways: flashy or stealthy. There are drawbacks to both obviously. It's tough to plan out the stealth, but it's harder to pull off the flashy. It's pretty cool to try doing new things with assassinations. Also, the alerts and trying to shake off guards is pretty cool after you do the assassinations. You can fight your way through, which was fun, or you can take to the roofs, which is also fun.

Now for all the things wrong with this. The missions in-between assassinations are incredibly tedious and boring. These are usually pickpocketing and eavesdropping, which is done by sitting on a bench and listening to a conversation. That's not what video games are for. Also, the AI is dumb. And we're talking British comedy dumb. When you try to take to the streets, it's really easy to just fight the guards. Speaking of fighting, the fighting system is frustrating at times. You can't mash, you have to time your button presses rhythmically. That's hard to figure out at first, and then it's easy to just do second hand nature. Now, when you take to the roofs, it's INCREDIBLY easy to shake the guys. Just hang off of a ledge, and when they're turned around, knife 'em. That's it. Also, the load times between cities are incredibly long. I mean, time to take a bathroom break long. About 5 MINUTES! That's way too long. Also, after you perform an assassination, you have to sit through a tedious cinematic saying the same story twist they reveal in the first 5 minutes. It gets really repetitive.

OVERALL:
The presentation is excellent. The gameplay can be revolutionary. But, they leave way too many things to be desired here. Although, if they make a sequel, they have plenty of areas to make a truly excellent one.

FINAL SCORE: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/07

[EARTHQUAKE2689]

but call of duty 4 is so good that I want to throw up all over myself on how good it is.

[mredskins]

Yeah I am thinking COD 4 is my next game.

[EternalEnigma21]

well i beat cod4 in a matter of 2 days... im getting more and more disappointed with the singleplayer campaigns in games these days...

not big on online fps's, myself...

[EternalEnigma21]

by the way... i decided to try to rent asassins creed before i bought it, but blockbuster won't release it until friday.

[EARTHQUAKE2689]

thats weird my bro bought it from blockbuster today

[BleedBurgundy]

I bought it and played about 3 hours last night. Wow. What a game. I've only done one assassination so far but it is a hell of a lot of fun. The thing about this game is that you have complete freedom to do it the way you want. If you're concerened with just burning through it, you can, but you'll miss 90% of what makes it unique. The combat system is actually pretty intuitive and it truly is rhythm based. If you're not stealthy enough and find yourself encircled by 3 or 4 guards it's actually really cool to fight them off all at the same time. That part kind of reminded me of one of those old swashbuckling movies from way back when.

Running from rooftop to rooftop and climbing buildings is also really intuitive. You truly can go anywhere in the game. That comes into play after an assassination when you have the whole city on your ass and you're trying to get away from hordes of guards. Duck into an alley, hide in a giant pile of straw, even conceal yourself among a group of monks. It is pretty awesome when you're running for your life, turn a corner and see a doorway on a side street and know you can actually duck in and hide, unlike most games.

The other thing that I am enjoying is the recon aspect of the game. It only requires two pieces of intel but if you want you can gather I think up to 8 pieces of information by eavesdropping, pick pocketing, interrogation, and performing good deeds. I think taking the considerable time to gather all of the intel makes the payoff a lot more satisfying when you pull off the assassination. Kind of like Hannibal from the A Team. "I love it when a plan comes together..."

Anyway, as cool as it is, I'd say that if you're the kind of player that likes nonstop action or just doesn't have patience, you may want to save the 60 bucks and rent it. But if you play it like you would if you were actually in that situation, i.e. trying to learn as much as you can so that the kills go smoothly and investigating your environment, then I'd say pick it up as it will have alot of replay value.

Overall, definitely the best game I've played on the 360, bar none.

[BleedBurgundy]

Originally Posted by canthetuna

by the way... i decided to try to rent asassins creed before i bought it, but blockbuster won't release it until friday.

I wonder if they have some kind of agreement with the distributor that they won't rent it until a few days after launch. That would cause people to have to buy it to play it in the first few days it's out. Kinda shady but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by BleedBurgundy

I bought it and played about 3 hours last night. Wow. What a game. I've only done one assassination so far but it is a hell of a lot of fun. The thing about this game is that you have complete freedom to do it the way you want. If you're concerened with just burning through it, you can, but you'll miss 90% of what makes it unique. The combat system is actually pretty intuitive and it truly is rhythm based. If you're not stealthy enough and find yourself encircled by 3 or 4 guards it's actually really cool to fight them off all at the same time. That part kind of reminded me of one of those old swashbuckling movies from way back when.

Running from rooftop to rooftop and climbing buildings is also really intuitive. You truly can go anywhere in the game. That comes into play after an assassination when you have the whole city on your ass and you're trying to get away from hordes of guards. Duck into an alley, hide in a giant pile of straw, even conceal yourself among a group of monks. It is pretty awesome when you're running for your life, turn a corner and see a doorway on a side street and know you can actually duck in and hide, unlike most games.

The other thing that I am enjoying is the recon aspect of the game. It only requires two pieces of intel but if you want you can gather I think up to 8 pieces of information by eavesdropping, pick pocketing, interrogation, and performing good deeds. I think taking the considerable time to gather all of the intel makes the payoff a lot more satisfying when you pull off the assassination. Kind of like Hannibal from the A Team. "I love it when a plan comes together..."

Anyway, as cool as it is, I'd say that if you're the kind of player that likes nonstop action or just doesn't have patience, you may want to save the 60 bucks and rent it. But if you play it like you would if you were actually in that situation, i.e. trying to learn as much as you can so that the kills go smoothly and investigating your environment, then I'd say pick it up as it will have alot of replay value.

Overall, definitely the best game I've played on the 360, bar none.

Damn, add another must have game to my list. I just read the gamespot review too and it sounds pretty tight.

[BleedBurgundy]

This is definitely a must have. The story is sick. I know all of the reviews say that they give away the plot twist too early, but i think the game wouldn't make as much sense if they didn't get that out of the way at the beginning. The combat is awesome in this game. It kind of reminds me a little bit of God Of War as far as the fighting is concerned. Some of the combos are insane. On one, you break a guy down gradually and then overhand chop down with your sword, embedding it in his skull, which makes you really jerk on the sword to get it out of the bone.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by BleedBurgundy

This is definitely a must have. The story is sick. I know all of the reviews say that they give away the plot twist too early, but i think the game wouldn't make as much sense if they didn't get that out of the way at the beginning. The combat is awesome in this game. It kind of reminds me a little bit of God Of War as far as the fighting is concerned. Some of the combos are insane. On one, you break a guy down gradually and then overhand chop down with your sword, embedding it in his skull, which makes you really jerk on the sword to get it out of the bone.

LOL that sounds pretty gnarly.

I really have to pick up that game.