Please note that I got the Assassin's creed 2 game of the year edition + Assassin's creed version of this game. In this case, you downloaded Assassin's creed (hereby abbreviated to AC) to your PS3 or PSP (I haven't tried if the latter works, though) and Assassin's creed 2 (AC2) needs the disc to be played. Thus, it is possible that this version of AC has shorter or maybe even longer loading times and other slight differences. For once thing, some of the speech was sort of disorted, but not by much, possibly to compress the game for minimum size and whatnot. In other words, I cannot speak for the stand-alone version of this game, i.e. the one on a seperate disc, only this one version I happen to own.
As for the game itself, which is probably why you're reading this in the first place; all I need to say that it took me 5 years for me to play this. I remember the trailers and that it was pretty hyped during its release. It was supposedly a good rival of Prince of persia. In the end, it recieved pretty decent reviews, ofthenly with final ratings in the likes of 7 or 70% and the likes. Which isn't bad, but not enough to pipe my curiousity enough to actually buy it. That, and because I had no PS3 or 360 back then. Still, I liked the look of the game and the character designs. I even got the mobile version, which was ok in my opinion.
So where does this all lead to? Not much, actually. To be perfectly honest; I have very little to say about this game. Since it's so story driven, saying too much will end up spoiling the story and give away major plot points. I can still talk about some of the gameplay, though. During AC's initial release, it recieved complaints about the climbing, many claiming that pressing and holding one single button will get tedious after a while. Honestly, I didn't feel much of that, since Uncharted uses mainly a single button for climing, but not entirely., and Uncharted has some of the best climbing control I have experienced so far in a video game. This game's climbing is ok, though. It feels a little akward to get the control scheme down at first if you have played Uncharted as much as I have, but it will stick eventually. For example, in AC you hold circle to catch onto ledges when falling or dropping. In Uncharted, you hold circle to NOT grab into ledges. However, once I learned it, which didn't take long, it felt pretty good. You do climb kind of slow, though. I also don't get why you have to climb towers and churches and look over the area (aka viewpoints) in order to see your surroundings on the map. Why is this so necessary? I find it next to no fun, although I do understand that it was put in the game in order to add to its "variety-factor". I will talk more about this later.
The fighting mechanics are pretty decent as well. Attack with your weapon with square, grab with circle, block with R1 and lock into enemies with L1. Naturally, you will learn more moves along the course of the game. I do like that you recover health pretty quickly in this game, especially useful after accidentally dropping down from a building and hurting yourself pretty badly. However, enemies hurt you suprisingly hard, and it can be easy to die quickly if you are careless. Playing it safe, like standing in a corner and counterattacking all attacks, can too be a little annoying at times, especially since there are some times you HAVE to fight and not flee like a coward. There is one thing I still don't get. How does the enemies sometimes counterattack everything you do without fail and sometimes they don't? Some enemies counterattack all your attacks and grabs leaving you with little to nothing to defend yourself with. It depends on how strong the enemy is and how far you have gotten into the story, as your sword skills improve over the game. Sometimes, though, especially in the final parts of the game, enemies counterattacks everything you do. At times, it's easier to simply throw them to the ground and finish them off with a single stab, instead of having to fight them for a minute or so. This is especially annoying in the early parts of the game when you can randomly stumble across the more powerful enemies that roam the entire map who and you can't do anything other than run and hide. I know this game encourages feeing and hiding ,like Metal gear solid, but when the game forces you to fight, it shouldn't have to be so random just to land a hit.
Also, if you want information on the game's plot, go buy the game, even if you have never heard of it. I won't go into much detail, all you need to know that you play as the assassin Altaïr and your job is to assassinate people and get away from the guards. It's about as varying as it sounds.
Amazingly, this game's civilians are more unhelpful than any civilians in all Marvel comics combined. The beggars run up to you and blocks your path, begging for coins which you can't give them even if you wanted to. The carriers (women holding pots on their heads or men carrying boxes) will drop whatever they're carrying and give away your position to the guards or assassination targets if you bump into them, although this can be avoided by using the Gentle push command by holding circle while walking. The drukards and madmen will push you, which will poltentially break your cover. They can also push you into water, causing instant death (another thing I hate, Altaïr can't swim, and this game WILL exploit this). You can punch or grab them to make them flee and will not cause the guards to notice you, most of the time. Lastly, there are the thugs who will engage in fistfights with you, which can be annoying since you have to engage in fistfights in order to get information. If a few thugs happen to be around, they can hurt can possibly kill you. The only helpful civilians are the scholars, which act as moving hiding spots, hiding among them will not cause the guards to be suspicious of you. Also, the game clearly state that you must not kill civilians, doing so will cause you to loose HP (I know it's not actually called that in-game, but people get my point) and killing three will kill you. Their bodies will also cause guards to be caucious, once again potentially causing you to have your cover blown. Honestly, whenever I see a drunkard or madman, I wish I could simply assassinate them to save me the trouble. Honestly, in the end, it might not be worth the trouble.
The graphics are actually pretty nice for its time, and they hold up pretty decent by today's standards. The scenery is pretty beautiful and the lightning effects are good. The music is pretty good as well, but nothing that will go down in history. Overall, I guess I'm fairly neutral in these particular aspects, but at least someone out there might enjoy them more than I did.
The voice acting is ok. The character's accents are believable at best, although it's weird that Altaïr seems to have none when all others do. Nolan North does a pretty good job as one of the characters, not going to say whom, though (Nolan North is also the voice of Nathan Drake, yet another funny similarity to Uncharted) and Philip Shahbaz is ok as Altaïr. The lines themselves are usually good as well, can't recall any extremely silly moment or laughing out loud at a single line or something. Could have been a lot worse.
One thing I really did like was the story. The game shows some interesting and somewhat fresh ideas and they make the story as a whole a lot more whole and enaging. This part I wil not talk to much about, as I recommend the story and playing the game through just to get the story.
However, there is one final and major complaint I have: Sometimes, it can be pretty boring. You go to a town, climb viewpoints just to know what's going on in the district you're in, gather information about your assassination target by talking to pickpocketing maps, making small quests for informatives, eavesdrop etc, rest up and finally kill the target. Repeat eight times. They only give interesting tweaks in this formula late in the game, and by then I was pretty tired of formula anyway. Fortunately, the story does keep the game interesting most of the time as it's the only reason I kept playing it. The motivation Altaïr seems to have for most of the game is to restore something, until he realizes there are bigger things to worry about, and before those bigger things unravel, there was little to no motivation for me to keep going. The tiresome foruma and unhelpful civilians sure didn't help either. Plus the fact that you seem to drop like you've just been shot when you're near a ledge if pushed or attacked, mostly causing you to fall to your death even with circle held down. Sadly, for me, the very good parts of this game, its story and ideas, are almost lost. If the parts I have talked about, its variety-factor in particular, this game could have been really good. Sadly, it's merely decent to me. It was the start of a pretty good series, though. I do recommend that fans of this series replay this game and see if it still holds up as well as they think, which it doesn't in my opinion.
How do those guards summon stones to throw at you no matter where they're standing?
Summary: This game's strong points, its story and ideas, are almost lost in the of lack of variety and tedious NPCs, although this is marked the beginning of a good video game series. However, it will not stand the test of time.
Grade: 6.5/10
All images found via google and are copyrighted by their respective owners.
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