Review No. 86 Assassin's Creed - Xbox 360 (18+)

Strong Points:
Decent Characters (in the animus) - Altair (your character) is awesome, and some historical names pop up from time to time
Great Mechanics - free-running works really well, although accuracy can get frustrating
Epic Plot - a story that gets twisted more and more as you progress
Beautiful World - Israel looks beautiful, even when sprinting through it

Weak Points:
Freezes on Occasion - may just be my Xbox but is an issue
Annoying Main Character - Desmond is boring and slow and doesn't have the common sense to understand his situation
Weak ending - looks at something and credits - disappointing and has no link to Assassin's Creed II or III

Rating: 83%
In-depth Review:

Release Dates:

North America: November 13, 2007

Europe:  November 16, 2007

Australia: November 21, 2007

Japan: November 29, 2007

Controls:

Left Analogue Stick: walking/running

Right Analogue Stick: moving camera

LB/RB: adjust camera

Left Trigger: targeting

Right Trigger: high profile action

Y: eagle vision/synchronization

X: attack

B: gentle push/tackle/grab

A: blend/sprint/jump

I made sure to play the Assassin's Creed games in order, and so started here. I think it's safe to say I was impressed from the start.

In the beginning you play as Desmond Miles, a guy who's been apparently abducted by an organisation. He is told to get in the Animus - a machine that allows the organization to access memories from Desmond's ancestors - the Assassin's. The organization want a memory right at the end of a DNA line but to access it you must be 'eased in' and complete many tasks leading up to it.

I don't want to give you any spoilers but you do assassinate nine people in the 12th century and there is a twist on a twist at the end. Altair's storyline is amazing. Desmond's... not so much.

The free-running mechanics are well done in this game - revolutionary at the time, I can tell. Sometimes Altair jumps the wrong way and that can be really frustrating but otherwise it works really well. You can re-try assassinations, but once you activate them you can't get out of them until they are complete, which can be quite annoying. Be careful around water though - Altair can't swim.

Towards the end there is a relatively steep difficulty spike, especially on medium and hard modes, so be prepared for that but otherwise the game is challenging without being too easy.

I really enjoyed playing this game - I played it to completion in 5 days straight (playing about 12 hours a day, so it's a massive game. I still loved it at the end and wanted to play it again, but I also wanted to play the sequel and carry on the story despite the weak ending (that is really rather awful). It's a remarkable achievement from Ubisoft.

Euan