Pros: Beautiful game, cool fight system, in-depth story
Cons: Repetitious, bit too long, horrible ending in my opinion, complicated controls, needs work
The Bottom Line: You shouldn't fork out $50-$60 for this. It's good, but maybe rent it instead, or wait until it's a little cheaper. Fun, but frustrating and ridden with issues
hewhocanreview's Full Review: Assassin's Creed for Xbox 360
There's been a mixed response to this game, and I'm gonna do my best here to keep this thing fair and balanced. I've waited on this game for a long time, and having played through pretty much every little part of it, I want to highlight every aspect.
I've got a lot to say about this one, so I'm not gonna waste time introducing it. If you're reading this review, you already know some stuff about this game, so we're gonna jump straight in...
Story This was at one point considered a spoiler, but it hardly qualifies. However, if you're one of those people who wants to know nothing about a game's story until you play it, then skip this section.
Basically, you play as two people in this game. The first is known from the commercials: Altair is an assassin who runs around different cities killing people. The 'twist' if you wanna call it that, is that you're actually a guy named Desmond who is controlling Altair by 'playing as him' on a hi-tech apparatus called the "animus." Most of the game is you playing as Altair, however, every now and then you'll resurface to 'the real world' to advance a current day storyline. I'm not gonna ruin the plot for you, but those are the basics and we'll just leave it at that.
The story is pretty compelling. More than I thought it'd be. There is definitely a lot of religious and political subtext in the story. This applies to both levels of the game. One of the problems I have with this though is that the story doesn't really end. It's just a set up for the second game. What you're pursuing within the animus more or less comes to a conclusion, but the 'reality' portion of the game is left completely open. There are a few little hints at what's going on but nothing is really explained. It's nice to see that there is a level of depth put into the game, much more so than 85% of the games I play, however, I had some issues with the ending to this game. I think this may be a contributing factor to the poor reviews it's gotten by some people. People invest time and money into something like that, they expect a bit of resolution. This isn't a movie that's 2 hours long and $8. It's a game that's more like 20-30 hours long and $50. A comparable ending would be Halo 2. The 'no-ending, can't you wait for more' type of crap. Many people have issues with this. I'm not a huge fan of it, but I suppose it could've been worse. And, hey, at least I was interested in the story, which is more than I can say for many games.
One other thing I can say in this game's favor is that they actually had their character evolve throughout the story. They go to length to make you notice this, but Altair changes in personality as the game progresses. While this seems inconsequential in a video game, it does have a role to play in the story, and also, it makes for a more involving game. Games have come a long way since their advent, and nuances such as this really say a lot about the people making them.
Look
See, the thing is, graphics don't make the game, but quite often, they sell it. Crysis is a great example, and so is Assassin's Creed. I think there's a bit too much value placed on graphics these days, but I did grow up on 8-bit, so I guess I've just learned to use my imagination a bit. I always love when a game looks great, though. To me, while gameplay is more important, graphics really help to solidify a style for a game. And man, this game looks amazing. It's by far the prettiest thing I've played. The level of detail in everything, from the character design to the level design to the water to the horse you ride, is astounding. The look of this game is just beautiful...
Okay, now that I have that out of me, let's really pick it apart. The lighting isn't pre-rendered it doesn't seem, but there's not a whole lot to be said for multiple dynamic light sources; meaning, you rarely are seeing lighting effects from more than one direction (i.e. there aren't street lamps or false lighting, and none of the game is at night). Being as how most of this takes place in the distant past, we don't have to stress that fact. The light source is the sun. So that works pretty well. This goes for shadows as well. They are a bit choppy at times, but they're there, and they work naturally onto the character, ground, buildings, and anything else. If a soldier happens to be above you, you can see his shadow. I think they could be a bit more rounded, but shadows are usually a huge consumer of processing power, and anti-aliasing them down to round them out usually brings your frames per second down by a massive chunk. Overall, the lighting and shadows are as good as they need to be, and rarely take away from the look but rather add to it in most cases.
The player visits a total of 4 cities and 2 countrysides in this game, but really, there are 3 main cities. Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus. Your hometown is Masayaf (think that's how's it's spelled). Regardless, you'll spend most of your time in the 3 other cities. The look of each of these is pretty different. Of course, there is a bit of repetition in the design, but more often than not, each street looks unique and the rooftops are far from looking like rows of clones. Each city has 3 districts (rich, middle, and poor) and each district reflects the economic class that populates it. Attributes such as building height, building condition, construction material, etc. all determine what the area you're in looks like. There's an enormous attention to detail in this regard, and it rarely feels like you're playing the same 'level' over and over in terms of look and design. The countrysides are the same in this way. There are different landscapes, and features to gaze upon. To make a long story short, this game really makes use of it's graphic capability when it comes to the 'level' or map design.
By the way, each city is a bit mixed as far as setting. You'll hear German, French, British, and Middle Eastern dialog and accents. As for the styles of the cities, they change up a bit. The design of the cities reflects architecture from different countries... somewhat. They do tend to look similar, but have small distinctions.
As for the character, you've seen him. He's intricately detailed. There is some movement in the cloth he wears, though it's relatively minimal in comparison to the detail in other aspects of the game. His 'swagger' or walk looks very realistic. In general, all the movement is very fluid. It can really be said for any of the movement, be it jumping, running, riding a horse, or whatever else. The interaction with the crowd is especially well done, as I'm sure most of you have seen in the commercials. It was a big selling point. Even when the characters are talking to each other, the mouths have been shaped and made to look as if they are saying those vowels and consonants. In addition, the other characters, or the crowd you walk through in the cities rather, is varied quite a bit in model design. Yes, you're going to see lots of people who look the same, but it's not going to be 7 rows of the same character model. It looks and often feels like you're in a crowd of different people.
The look of this game is maybe the best thing it has going for it. It really shines in this area, and they've capitalized on that, and sold it on that fact. It holds up what it promises in this regard, so no complaints there... at all.
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed is a 3rd person action/stealth game. In essence, what you end up doing is going to a city, searching out the Assassin's Bureau where you get hints on your mission, and then scanning the city for tasks to fulfill you mission. You start by finding a "sync point," which is a spot very high in the city which you climb up to (usually a church tower or the like), after this you can see certain tasks to do in the immediate area. Usually there are 7-8 sync points in a district of a city. There are 3 districts per city, so do the math: 63+ sync points in cities in the game. There are also 7-8 in the countryside total. So you end up doing this a lot. This portion shows off the nice look of the game as it does a 360 degree pan around every time you "sync." After you sync you can do some different tasks. These include helping citizens who are being terrorized by guards (completely optional), helping informers to get information (this can be collecting flags or assassinating certain people for them, often both have time limits), pick-pocketing specified people for information, interrogating specified people by beating them until they talk, or eavesdropping on conversations. You must usually complete 2-3 of these tasks and return to the Assassin's Bureau to get permission to kill your target. Then you can kill the person you're after. You can get permission by doing all of those things listed, however saving citizens is something you can do if you like, but does not help you out. These things do pile up and eventually increase your life, but that eventually caps and it becomes pointless.
The problem with these tasks is that they are incredibly repetitive. I did every one of them, so I know. You don't have to do all of them, and I'd advise not doing so, because it's gets really boring and irritating. I'm somewhat OCD, so it's just my thing I guess. Either way, it still stands, this is pretty much what the game is. As far as your interaction, that's what you'll be doing. Most people I know that have played this game have their issues with this part of it. It's entirely too repetitive. There are 7-10 citizens to save, 2-3 pick-pocket missions, 2 or so interrogation missions, 2 informer missions, and 2 eavesdropping missions (per district). After 3 districts in 3 different cities, you'll begin to tire of it, trust me. Really, this game could have been half the length and would have been a lot better than it was. It was just too much of the same stuff. That is one of the main reasons I'm grading it down. The first 8 hours were amazing, but then it started to get annoying.
Looking beyond the repetition, this game has a pretty cool fight system in which you can dodge, counter, grab, break someone's grab on you, strike, combo strike, and more. It's pretty involved, and the controls reflect it. They are not the easiest to master, but the learning curve is very gradual and by the time you finish the game you'll be running around the city running up walls, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and fighting like a pro. I won't go into all the controls, because it's just too much, but it does get annoying to hold down the right trigger to do pretty much everything. There are also buttons not used that could have been, and just in general, the control scheme was a bit irritating. However, the fighting is great as it will change into a close angle when you do a cool death move. It's pretty bloody and fun to watch when you nail someone with a good move. The issue with that is that it's commonly obscured by a person from the crowd or a soldier you're fighting, so you end up watching a close-up of a soldier's a** for 3 seconds instead of one of the sweet moves you just pulled off. In addition, some of the counters don't equal a kill. Altair just punches them or kicks them. It can get a bit irritating when you're surrounded by 15 guys and all he does is knock one down. I had this problem a the end of the game quite a bit. He'd never perform a kill, but just knock 'em down, so then I'd have to switch weapons and finish them off on the ground. Bit of a pain.
There are a few different weapons. A sword, throwing knives, a short sword, a hidden blade that pops out from under your wrist, and your fists. All of the weapons have their own moves associated with them, and all of the motions are pretty fluid and realistic. The exception with this is in the fist fighting. You have to use it to interrogate people. It ends up being hit-block-hit-block-etc. There should be a bit more depth to this part of the fighting. It's just too basic when everything else is so involved.
Overall the fight system is cool. You're a bit limited to the moves that are preprogrammed for Altair to do, but there's so many that it's not that bad. You will see the same move several times though.
Additionally, there is another portion to the game. There a several flags placed throughout the entire game. These have no bearing on anything having to do with the story as far as I know. I didn't collect all of them for any area. These are not tasks, nor are they mandatory, so I just collected them as I went. This was the only aspect of the game that I didn't really do all of. However, I did absolutely everything else in the game besides this.
Production
The sound production for this game is top notch in my opinion. The voice acting really gives the characters a sense of life and emotion. I'm speaking primarily about the main characters, however some of the peripheral characters are acted out well also. The exception here being that you'll hear the same lines over 20 times in the game, so when you save a citizen, it might be the one of 5 different designated lines for them to say. Not really a big deal, but this also extends to the comments people in the crowd make as well. The beggars are especially annoying. I stabbed them for fun on more than one occasion, them and the drunk/crazy guys who hit you get really annoying, and got stabbed constantly by me, out of anger.
Again, there is dialog in multiple languages, and several different accents throughout the game, making it hard to pinpoint the bad guys as British or German or French or Mid-Eastern. I suppose this was a political move to keep away from pinning one type of person as 'bad.' It works, though it does get a bit muddled and confusing at points. I think King Richard is French in it.... he wasn't French was he???? Oh well.
Anyways, other sound stuff... the quality of the production is also evident in location. What I mean by that is that you can pinpoint where an event is happening (often this is a citizen screaming when the guards are harassing him/her) by left/right location. If it's louder in the right side, they're in that direction. Beyond that, as you climb higher, distinct voices/scream/yells become more reverberated. It's incredibly realistic sounding. Also, the crowd noises change based on the amount of people in an area, usually including annoying baby sounds. There are market salesmen (though you can't buy anything in this game.. there is no money, otherwise I would have given those stupid begging b****es some money to shut the hell up, and leave me alone), and various types of people who all sound distinct.
Really, the sound in this game is just really really good. I pay attention, because I work in post production and sound design.
There are a few things that could be there. There's a part where you're at a dock, and I was missing the gull sounds, and the typical sounds you'd find there. otherwise, I have no complaints for this department.
The music is not so bad. It's orchestral/electronic. It is interactive so it changes based on the status of the character. If he's being chased, then the music changes. It is a bit different for each city or area. Though much like the game, it is really repetitive. This doesn't bother me much, because A) if you're that sick of it, turn on your stereo and B) if you've ever played an RPG like Final Fantasy or Zelda or something like that, then you understand how repetitious music in games can be. I did like the music. It was very fitting for the type of game and the setting.
Issues
Though I enjoyed this game, it has some really significant flaws and problems that need to be addressed, especially by the time the sequel gets made... and yes, there will be a second one, I guarantee it.
1) Warp points- You first have to visit each city before you can 'jump' or 'warp' there. I have no problems with this, however, even after that point, you'll start a mission in your hometown. You then have to run through your own city, then get on a horse, then ride to the edge of the countryside.. all just to warp to the city you want to go to. This is lazy programming. You should be able to warp immediately. In addition, you can only warp back to your hometown when you complete a mission, never at any other point is this an option. Again, lazy programming. This needs to be a start menu item. Very, very annoying.
2) For the love of god, please give us a 'skip' button. I had to play some missions 5-20 times, I don't wanna sit through the discussion at the beginning of it every time! Good god, this is lazy programming, or thoughtless programming. This applies to any segment of the game. If we don't wanna hear the story, we shouldn't have to. This is really poor programming. Really, there's no reason for it not to be there. Period.
3) The chase cam is useless. When you're being chased by guards/ soldiers, you can use the left button (not trigger) to zoom out and see how far back the guards are. It's useless. I can think of 20 better uses for this button. Not to mention that the right button is never used in the game.
BUG ALERT
4) This is really a huge deal. There is a huge bug in this game. It won't end your game or anything, but you'll have to restart your game if this happens. Basically, what happens is towards the end of the game, when you are going after Robert Desaad (one of the last conflicts after the last Jerusalem mission), if you have second controller plugged in (maybe even just turned on, but mine was plugged in and charging), you'll fall through the ground and die. Then you'll restart from that part, and there will be two of your guys standing there. Two Altairs. I kid you not. You can even fight yourself. As if that's not enough, you can run all the way to the end of the area, and where it is supposed to trigger a cutscene, nothing happens. You can thrown knives at the soldiers and they'll stand there doing nothing. You'll have to unplug your controller, and restart that part. You won't have lost much ground, but it's something that should have been caught in development or testing.
This is a confirmed bug. It happened to my friend when he played and he couldn't figure out what was going on. He happened to have his Rock Band guitar plugged in by chance. When he unplugged it, the glitch went away.
Again, this is the result of either crappy testers or a rushed game. I can't blame 'em. It's a weird bug, but it's still there.
Suggestions for Future Installments
There will definitely be a second game. I have no doubts about that. If there is, I'm making these small suggestions (other than some of the stuff I listed above):
-Different tasks, just change them up a bit please
-Warp available on start menu
-A 'skip button' for conversations
-Weapon upgrades, stuff to purchase, some type of modifiable features
-Different weapons... such as: oh I know, how bout the crossbow that was in all the adds? and the cutscenes? where's that at? Something with distance and an aim-able feature like a bow and arrow
-Better fist fighting, something more detailed than hit-block-hit-block
Overall
This game isn't awful. It's not great. I hope they make some good improvements for the next one. The story was good here, it leads to another game. The fight system was really innovative though complex. The look of the game in general was great. So was the sound design. Overall, it still needs a lot of work though. I'd love to give this game more credit, but I found myself getting mad way too often because of trivial stuff that could've been easily solved with good testers. I wanted this game to be amazing, but I can't ignore the serious flaws it has. Mainly, those flaws are in the length via repetition. And the ending.... wow, I just wasn't feeling the ending, but I guess I can make peace with that part at least. However, there were just too many problems for me to say it was a "great game." At best, for me, it was a bit above average. If I could I'd give it 3.5 stars, but I can't so it's gets 3.
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