Assassin's Creed
While the marketing division for this game had boasted it to be a free-roaming sandbox experience about the life of an assassin in the holy land during the period of the crusades, the game is actually a lot more farfetched than that and hence, a lot sillier.
So, hold onto your tits. Here goes nothing!
The Storyline:
Assassin's Creed is set in the future where you play as Desmond Miles: A bartender who's been kidnapped...
...by a pharmaceuticals company...
...so that a mad scientist...
...whose invention that allows you to relive the lives of your ancestors(known as 'The Animus')...
...can force you to live out the life of "Altair", your long-gone ancestor, and assassin for the generically named 'Assassin Brotherhood' to discover the location of a powerful ancient relic for his own personal gain.
Got all that so far?
The Future: Check
Mad Scientist: Check
Evil Plans: Check
Delorian: Negative
Between missions played as Altair, you spend some time out of the Animus, playing as Desmond. You don't have any of the skills here, but these special sections help draw out the 'future' storyline, which both eventually tie together with the storyline of the past.
At the beginning Altair's storyline, he starts with all of the coolest skills, and weapons, allowing you to completely 'jump in' and use all of the crazy assassin/ninja tricks. Then, loses every last skill and all of his weapons except for the weakest of them all in one fell swoop and has to work from the ranks of "wussy man" to "supreme sonofabitch". I call this 'The Metroid Effect', and I hate, I hate it, I hate it!
With all that aside, the storyline actually draws you in! After a few hours, I was motivated to keep playing, not only to learn what becomes of Altair, as he went from town to town, dusting high-profiling priests and public figures, he began to question the assassinations he was being asked to perform.
All the while, you learn more about Desmond's past, and feel gripped to learn what happens to both characters.
The Gameplay: Gameplay? More like "Sameplay", eh? eh?
Yes, the game starts out ambitious enough allowing you to run and jump rooftop-to-rooftop, climb tall buildings and nosedive to safety below. Allowing you to ride horses, swordfight and counteract attacks against guards and soldiers, throw knives, it'll even allow you to walk up behind someone and shank them in broad daylight all sneaky-like so that nobody else notices for a couple seconds, while you make your escape, and i have to admit, it's really fun for a good long while. But, if you're the kind of guy who starts a game and plays it straight through to the bitter end, like I am, you'll have mastered, and gotten pretty tired of the gameplay by the time you reach the end!
The Sights:
The graphics in this game are amazing, and really stand out! blending in with crowds, Running rooftop to rooftop, or standing at the top of a tower and looking over the whole city, the sights will take you away!
The Sounds:
I'm not going to comment on the regular sounds that you'd hear in any game, like the "horse galloping" or the "swords hitting together", while those all sound great in the game, it's the sounds of the people that you interact with, or, even the ones you don't interact with that stand out.
Walking through a plaza and catching a man standing on a soapbox, giving his two cents about religion, or poverty, or the government. Hearing onlookers reactions as they watch you scale walls in broad daylight (some of them actually made me burst out laughing). While those reactions are all good, they suffer the same problem as the gameplay: It gets repetitive. You hear the same thing a billion times and you get tired of it.
The Overall Experience:
Through its faults, it's still great game, well worth playing. The storyline will hold you in (once you get over the initial blast of insanity), and the game actually ends on a cliffhanger - for which, i'll state for the record: I would absolutely play the sequel, and anticipate one.
I may have sounded like I was harsh on the game. but all I have to say is: Pick up the game, give it a play, because it is worth a play, but I'm sure you may say almost the same when you're finished it.
