Assassin's Creed

One of the pinnacles of my childhood; a game I've probably played and beaten 10 different times since I've owned it. Before this game, I never played anything like it; it truly was something special in my eyes back in the day. Altair was a character I embodied; when I wasn't playing this game, I would pretend I was an assassin just like him, pretending to climb churches and towers, jumping from roof to roof tracking my target, and finally, sprinting and thrusting my hidden blade into my opponents neck.

Yeah, this game was one of those games I incorporated in my personality. And now rediscovering it in my mid 20's, it's a damn fine throwback to my childhood, to the frameworks of the Assassins Creed franchise, and to freerunning video games in general.

This game introduces a bunch of lore/mechanics/characters that would be extremely important to the future of the Assassins Crees franchise, most notably, The Animus(the machine you use to see in the past), Abstergo Industries (the corporation that runs the animus project), Desmond (the main character you play as in present day), Altair( the Master Assassin you play as in the 1200s), The Assassin Brotherhood (the secret society you pledge your allegiance to as Altair), and well, a artifact that changes the entire scope of the game (and becomes the basis for the franchise) toward the end. Many of the mechanics become basis like wall climbing, parkour, stealth among crowds, assassinating fellow targets, combat like hidden blades, swords, throwing knives, and of course, synchronizing locations by climbing tall structures. All of it becomes the staple to the series, and is quite impressive to see all of it done so well in the very first entry.

When I first played this as a kid, I could follow along the story to an extent, but doing the quests involving Altair finding, killing, and then questioning his targets, it never really clicked as a kid. Replaying them now as an adult, the games plot makes way more sense, and gives the viewer 2 different POVs with every assassination you uptake. Also something I never noticed with the game; before going back to the Assassin hideout to turn in your evidence, if you go to every viewpoint in the area and synchronize it, you can get more investigation missions to do, which I can't say fleshed out A TON of plot, but I think it was enough to add to the game is a positive way. The side stuff, like saving villagers, wasn't bad, although just one of those repetitive side missions that end up giving assistance with guards. The one thing I absolutely, and I mean, ABSOLUTELY, despised was the flags and templars. Now, don't get me wrong; I really enjoy finding collectibles and discovering areas of the map I wouldn't normally check out in main missions, but how this game handles them are so ridiculous. For one (and this is the biggest factor) none of the collectibles or templars are shown on your map. You cant use eagle vision to find them either, so you literally would have to scour each area thoroughly to even come close to finding all of them. Second, there are over 400 flags to find, none of which show up on your mini-map or don't have any indicators at all except when you're physically looking at one. I'm sorry, but this is stupid, and I'm forced to use a guide to find all of em. And what do you get when you find all the maysaf flags? Nothing. What about the King Richard flags? Nothing. Oh, but the Damascus flags??? Still nothing. Yeah, the flags don't do anything except unlock you a anchoevment, so I wouldn't recommend it to casual gamers. Only diehard assassins creed fans or achievements hunters should go for it. Now, at this point in my playthrough, I only needed to collect the Jerusalem flags and kill the last 10 templars in Jerusalem, but for some reason, I decided to take a hiatus. The hiatus ended up lasting an entire year, but recently I started it back up to finish it and guess what? The cloud saved data was corrupted.... So I painstakingly started the game back from the beginning, with the goal to just beat the game, do all side missions, but only getting the Jersusalem flags and killing all 60 Templars since those were the only 2 achievements I didn't get yet. Replaying the game ONCE again, I would of thought it would of been more annoying having to go through it all again, but surprisingly, this game has a neat nostalgic feel to me that always transports me to its era, always picking up on some dialogue I missed the first 10 times I've played it. After replaying and collecting the remainder of the achievements, witnessing the ending to this game once again was a great time. Brung back plenty of memories, especially back in 2010 playing and witnessing that twist ending for the first time.

If you haven't played this yet, I would recommend if you enjoy 3rd person RPGs with heavy story, as while this game does seem to end right when it gets super interesting, it's a awesome setup to what's to come to the franchise.

Assassin's Creed is basically a cross between Grand Theft Auto and the Hit-man series set during the Third Crusades. The game has a strange premise, it is both set in 2012 and 1191 and you play two characters. In 2012 the main character is Desmond a former assassin who is kidnapped by a company called Abstergo who wanted to access the memories of one of his ancestor. Abstergo place him in a machine called the Animas and the theory behind it was that DNA also contends the memories of out ancestors. In 1191 the playable character is Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad, an assassin. He is a young skilled assassin, but also an argonant man. After a mission to Solomon's temple which led to death of one of his companions Altair was demoted and had to work his way back to ranks (its all an excuse to teach you new skills). The master of the creed sends Altair on missions to assassin leading Knight Templars who had taken control of key cities.

The game is action packed and takes you the cities of Jersulaum, Damasacus and Arce and it does take a little getting use to. But once you master it then the gameplay is pretty easy. It is also very cinematic in it approach and violence with the sword play. The plot is weak, but it doesn't matter so much with games.

However I did find two major problems with the games. First I found it too easy and repetitive; the games doesn't challenge you as much as GTA and Hit-man do and you are just repeating yourself with your actions. Secondly the games is too short and ends too quickly.

It is a decent game a sequel is one its way.

I just love this game, parkcore through buildings and excelent mechanics make this game fun and amazing. The campaign is amazing with a story that leaves you wanting more.

For me, this game comes incredibly close to being a masterpiece. But it's let down in just one area, and unfortunately it's a key one. The missions.

It has a great many positives, for example:

Graphics. The graphics are good enough that the game is still perfectly playable today, especially the environment models, however I would say the character faces are somewhat lacking.

Mechanics. The game still plays beautifully, the combat mechanics are extremely good fun, as is all the parkour. It isn't as smooth as a modern game but who would expect it to be, that's just advancement.

Story. The story is brilliant. It's clever, interesting in my opinion the games best aspect. If anything it is worth playing just for the story, as it sets up the series, and for that reason, the game is a must play for any assassin's creed fan who hasn't already played it.

However, there is one huge negative to an otherwise great game. The missions are far too repetitive. They essentially consist of go to a place, gather information, kill person. It feels like they put so much effort and creativity into the overarching story that they just forgot about the missions within that. Additionally, it's quite tedious to have to ride between locations the first few times, as the horse riding isn't fun in itself and the area between the cities isn't too much to look at.

Overall, although the missions cause the game to have little replayability, it is definitely worth playing once, especially now it is reasonably cheap, even if you're only playing it for the great story.

Let's start with the good... - The game is smooth and looks very good - The Parkour is very good - The combat is great - The story is great - It was very innovative at the time

Now the bad... - Incredibly repetitive - Ridiculously frustrating at times - Often boring

Not a great game, but it's playable. The main reason for playing would be the story. I'm just getting into the series, and I wanted to start from the very beginning, which is basically the only reason anyone would ever have to play it.

Compared to some of the other additions in the franchise, this game is horrible. But compared to E.T. The Video Game, this game is The Shawshank Redemption. It's all about perspective.