Graphically Assassin’s Creed is a wonder to look at. The screenshots we have seen up until today do not do justice to how beautiful the game looks. More than once I found myself stopping to take in the massive environments and check out all the detail placed throughout the world. The designers did a great job at making the game look it’s time period, everything from the buildings to the character’s outfits represent the time of the crusades. Altair himself, as well as most of the main characters, looks great and has more animations than I have previously seen in a game. Because the environment is so huge the real beauty of Assassin’s Creed comes in when you are perched atop a building overlooking the entire city. I wish there was a bit more variety in the crowd characters and buildings though as much of the game’s look gets repetitive after a little time. Even though it is not the best looking 360 game out there it does a good job and the graphics really helped pull me into the storyline. The audio is nothing special and does the job just fine. A nice soundtrack helps pull gamers into the time-period but the futuristic twist causes confusion more than once.
I really wanted to love this game, I have been looking forward to it for well over a year and loved the idea, especially once I found out the little story twist. After the first level I thought I had a winner on my hands for sure but as I played more I got more bored and the game became more repetitive. Even though it takes a lot of chances with innovative features and an entirely new fighting system it does not follow through where it matters. The control scheme is cool but there should be a more subtle option for gamers that cannot get a grip on the individual body parts thing. The storyline is one of the best in recent times and I cannot wait to see what happens in the next game but the developers need to go back and fix a lot of things before that game ever gets produced. Assassin’s Creed is not all problems but with only nine missions, no replayability (other than a few hidden items and boring side quests), and zero multiplayer it is hard to recommend it for a purchase. The game has some really amazing moments but at the end of the day it is just too repetitive and too many things go wrong for it to deserve a good score, save your time for Mass Effect or Call of Duty 4.
