Review – Assassin’s Creed

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platform(s): Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Genre: Action

Rating: Mature 17+
ESRB Content Descriptors: Blood, Strong Language, Violence

The Scoop: Assassin’s Creed was released on November 13, 2007 to wide critical acclaim as being one of the first games to truely step into the next-gen and was definitely a hopeful for being the best release of 2007. Did it keep it’s promise? In many ways, Ubisoft created one of the most unique games that the next-gen has seen, but did they perfect the game play?

In many ways Ubisoft created one of the most brilliant games we had seen at the time but while there was many brilliant ideas, the game was lacking in some very important areas.

The Setup: Placing us into the shoes of two main characters, we start off as the modern day Desmond Miles who has been kidnapped for study on one of his ancestors who was an assassin. Switching between modern times to 1191 AD, we later find ourselves in the shoes of our ancestral assassin, Altaïr ibn La-Ahad.

After being dismissed from the Order of Hashshashin which is the assassin’s clan he was apart of. He broke a strict code of honor on which the Order of Hashshashin abide by which requires him to start over as an assassin. He’s given a list of nine people that he must assassinate in order to be at the rank he was at before. Keeping everything spoiler free, there’s a few twists and turns throughout the game that will excite some, but other then that everything basically remains quiet.

What’s Hot:

• Gameplay: Whether it’s climbing up buildings, blending in with the crowd or assassinating your targets, the controls are completely flawless.
• Graphics: Probably the prettiest game of 2007. The textures are phenomenal and the look of the environments is absolutely uncanny.
• Geography: The maps are all based off real Israelic cities. This game will provide as somewhat of a history lesson as you progress.

What’s Not:

• Story: Assassin’s Creed story is lacking quite severely in my opinion. While it remains as an original idea, it just doesn’t deliver quite as much as we expected.
• Audio: The voice cast is mediocre and the game lacks in any real soundtrack.
• Repetition: You’ll find yourself getting bored quite quickly as you’ll be doing the four or five same things over and over again.
• Replayability: After you give the game one play through, there’s really no reason for seconds.

Final Verdict: Though it’s not one of the best games, Assassin’s Creed should be played by gamers. It’s definitely an experience and one of the best ideas a video game has given in recent years. The fact that it seems unfinished remains somewhat problematic but it’s a beautiful game for sure and gets 3 out of 5 stars.