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Assassin's Creed
Author: Andy FairPublished: 27th November 2007
Conclusion
Assassin's Creed is a game that defies classification. Not because it's genre defying in any way, but more because it's not really sure what it wants to be.It tries to be all things to all people: a stealth game, a platform game and an assassination-fighter game. At the same time it’s a futuristic science fiction game with a historically accurate setting in the twelfth century.
Neither one thing or another, this lets the game down because what we've ended up with is a bit of a mish-mash of genres, styles and content.
The two storylines don't really mesh either, they feel more like two unconnected stories. Naturally you spend most of the game as Altaïr, so when you're playing as Desmond, you don't really feel a connection with his character – or his plight. The end of Desmond's storyline also feels unfulfilling – it leaves questions unanswered, which is obviously Ubisoft's way of leaving things open for a sequel.
On top of this, the similarity of the mini-quests makes every mission feel the same, and the only thing that keeps you coming back is the sheer beauty of the game: there's always one last tower to scale, always one last flag to find. The fact that all the towers and flags are the same doesn’t factor into things – obsessive in-game collection disorder quickly sets in.
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The total gameplay time is around 12 hours, but the repetition and lack of any online gameplay means that if you do manage to get to the end then you're unlikely to want to play it over again. There’s really no point.
Assassin's Creed could have been so much more: given better enemy AI, more variation in the missions and a more coherent storyline, this could have been a game that lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, what we have is a game with amazing graphics and not much else.
The gameplay on its own isn’t really that bad, but it’s far from the hyped up genre defining spectacular we were all lead to expect. The brutal reality is that because the game tries to be a jack of all trades it ends up as a master of none.
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There are better stealth games out there and better platformers and better third-person shooters too. For plot, there are more convincing science fiction games and more interesting historical games.
How exactly the game managed to build so much hype on just a handful of screenshots and a trailer or two, I’m not sure. It feels a bit like a developers conceit, and the game has been sold on the one thing it lacks: innovation and originality. The game ends up as entirely average.
Let's hope Ubisoft can fix things in time for Assassin's Creed 2, a game which is surely on its way given the phenomenal and somewhat baffling success of the first game.
