Too often these days we know everything about a game months before it’s on the shelves. It’s a shame the modern day and sci-fi elements of Assassin’s Creed weren’t kept a secret up until release. It wasn’t just a leak either; Ubisoft intentionally made it known in early trailers and interviews. If they had kept their mouths shut about it until it was in consumers’ hands, minds would have been blown, and it would have really gotten people talking about the game. Yes, the fact that you’re actually playing as someone in the near future, forcefully exploring his genetic memory, is revealed in the first couple minutes of the game, but I think that would have made the twist a little more impacting.
The main problem with Assassin’s Creed, though, is that once you’ve played the first hour of it, you’ve seen about all the game has to offer. The first assassination is basically the same as last, as it is with all in between. Go to a section of one of the three cities in the game, climb some towers to spot side missions, complete at least three of them, then go watch a cut scene and kill a dude. There’s only a few different types of side missions that you have to do over and over - beat up a guy with your bare hands, pickpocket someone, sit on a bench and eavesdrop on a conversation, and a couple others. It’s tedium at its worst. You do unlock new portions of the cities as you go along, but they all look and play identically.
The controls in Assassin’s Creed are, at the very least, interesting. Each of the face buttons correlate to a part of Altair’s body (bottom button is feet, top is head, and so on). It does become intuitive eventually, but it’s by no means better than traditional controls. Holding down the right trigger enters high profile’ (walking becomes running, a gentle shove becomes a push down, etc.) mode for all your controls, which does make sense for stealth games, but you end up holding it down more than you don’t. It could have been better used as the opposite: to make you hold it down for the stealthy mode.
The combat is practically broken. As soon as you start to encounter tougher enemies, you have access to so many different counter and dodge moves that it’s almost never a challenge, especially considering that neither require much timing. Later in the game you do start to face large groups of enemies, but they surround you and then attack one at a time. Don’t expect your skill to be tested.
Free running is fun, but all you need to do is hold down the high profile and feet buttons and use the analogue stick to move as if you were running on flat ground, and Altair does everything on his own. You hardly have to think about it. The climbing controls are also very simple - just point in the direction you want him to go (almost always up). It’s certainly unique, but it feels less responsive than tradition controls, and made me feel removed from the character. It is great watching Altair move about these environments, his animations are probably the best a video game has ever seen, but the problem is just that - it feels like you’re doing nothing but watching the game.
The stealth rules are hardly explained and are inconsistent, and the artificial intelligence doesn’t work. Sometimes they see you and instantly know you’re an assassin by your clothing and the knives covering your body and will chase after you, but if you press the ‘blend’ button to put you head down and hands together (pretending to be a monk), they can’t see you at all. It’s as if you were invisible. The crowds also are idiotic; you can assassinate someone in the middle of a busy intersection but if you blend immediately afterwards or run away you won’t get in trouble.
Also, Assassin’s Creed’s story takes itself way too seriously for the mediocre voice acting, conspiracy-theory-ish plot, and often cringe-worthy writing within. Altair’s character does develop, and there are twists outside of the genetic memory stuff, but it’s nothing you won’t be able to see a mile away. The ending is disappointing, but it could have been worse. Think more Half-Life 2 than Halo 2.
Not everyone will feel this way about the game - it’s certainly going to result in divided opinions - but it’s essentially a shell of a game. It’s a damn shame, because it’s full of so many good ideas, but Ubisoft Montreal failed on the execution. Maybe the sequel will be better.
