Assassin's Creed

Ubisoft is known for its quality games, and Assassin's Creed doesn't let them down. Well, mostly.

The good of this game makes up for a few slight issues I have with it, so I'll start with them. Altair, the protagonist of the game, is pretty cool. He's not a good man, technically, but his ideals are surprisingly noble- killing those who are responsible for greater evils is justifiable, if not required, in order to maintain a peaceful society. By joining this guild of assassins he's trying to protect the nation (what will become Israel) at the expense of his life of freedom, because the guild really ends up being militaristic and almost prison-like in order. So, the story's pretty good and the majority of the characters are figures from this age in history...very neat.

Free running and parkour are the core mechanics of the game, allowing for a fluidity of movement previously unseen in a large-name game. This allows for rapid movement with the simple and effective controls they give you: large effort/attention moves are done by holding the right trigger, whereas the more relaxed and inconspicuous moves are done without it; I have yet to find a game with a better setup, honestly. It takes a minute to get used to them, but in five to ten minutes you'll be leaping from rooftop to rooftop, eluding guards with ease, because you will probably be spending most of your time trying to escape the scene of a crime.

Combat is incredibly easy to handle. You attack with the X button, guard with the right trigger, and if you tap X while guarding when an enemy nearly hits you, you'll counter. The counters are flashy and usually involve instantly killing the enemy. Altair moves deliberately, wasting no time or energy with a dramatic flourish; instead he strikes ruthlessly, though the moves are sometimes serpentine and always morbidly fascinating. As you finish lesser missions such as helping out a citizen being pushed around by guards, you'll complete requirements to unlock the assassination missions, and if you do more than required you get health upgrades.

Now we get to the big problem with the game...as nice as the controls and over-all visual appeal are, the game is repetitive. There are four types of lesser missions: save the citizen, eavesdrop, quell propaganda, and help out a fellow assassin. You have to do more than a hundred by the end of the game, since there are three massive cities that you jump between as the story progresses. In order for it to remain fun, you've really got to make things insanely tough for yourself before even beginning the event. For instance I stepped in to help out an old woman from being hassled by four guards, threw a knife and killed one, ran around the corner to pick up a super guard (a Templar - crusader dudes), then spent minutes dodging their attacks and picking off one or two so that more arrived. By the time I decided to wrap things up I had to take out about 15 guards and the Templar, using -by choice- the little short sword/knife. That kind of mission can be made fun, but collecting enemy flags for a fellow assassin is ridiculous and impossible to spruce up.

That's it, though, the rest is great! This game is not worth buying new, but if you see it at a local used game store, such as Gamestop or whatever, for less than thirty dollars, grab it. You can always sell it back if it ends up becoming boring after completion.