Game Review - Assassins Creed : PS3 : Ubisoft Montreal

In anticipation of the 2nd Assassin's Creed to be released, and due to the favorable reviews the original title received. I decided to pick up Assassin's Creed and give it a run through.

Now this game, I must say, was quite interesting. It was not exactly as I expected it to be. First off, when the game started, I was confused by the "futuristic" feel of the title. I was pleasantly surprised by the premise of the story. I was not expecting the layout of the plot being in two different timelines.

Good: Plot was excellent, I enjoyed the commentary when talking with the heads of each guild in each city. The dialog was fresh and it really felt like I was part of some secret organization. The game play was enjoyable (at least at first, more on this in a minute). Climbing buildings felt really fluid for the most part and it was fun to run away from guys.

Combat was alright, it felt a little unresponsive at times but the counter system was implemented very effectively.

Graphically, the game is beautiful, the blooming effects were not over done as they are in some games (Oblivion for example). Character animations were executed flawlessly.

Bad: The game felt repetitive after the first major mission. Everything was given away as far as game play was concerned right from the get go. The remainder of the game was just slightly harder missions of the same type, and the additional weapons you get are not all that exciting. The only thing saving this game was that the mission types were actually enjoyable to do more than once, however it mostly killed my replay value of the game.

I did notice at some points a speed up of the animation and game engine, which could be disorienting at times. I also ran into a few instances when climbing large buildings for the lookout missions that I had a hard time moving my character onto the final platform sticking out from the side of the building.

Also, finding all those darn flags is impossible... impossible...

Reception: I am looking forward to the second game (Damn those cliff hanger endings). I am hoping that it is not going to be more of the same missions again, they will need variety if they want to capture this audience. Overall, I give the original an 82% <--- totally arbitrary rating :)