Worst Assassin Ever

I recently picked up Assassin’s Creed now that it finally price dropped to a reasonable amount for a video game. I’ve gotten to the point where I am literally refusing to buy new games. The first reason being that $60 is an asinine amount for the “crap-in-a-box” they call video games today. And secondly, I like to wait until all the reviews, guides, and word-of-mouth has gotten around about the game before I decide if I should blow $40+ on 20 hours of mild entertainment. You can’t trust the “previews” and the demos and the trailers because they are all designed to make you want to buy the game. You don’t get to see all the bugs (well, sometimes with demos you do), the flaws, the shitty “side-quest” mechanics systems that they ever-so-eloquently leave out of all the marketing. You never know how good a game is going to be until after it is released. Which is why I implore everyone to stop wasting money pre-ordering.

Back on topic, Assassin’s Creed. Well, according to my wife I am “the worst assassin ever” because of the sheer amount of times I’ve had to fight 30+ guards because I accidentally ran into a street beggar too fast or something. There are a lot of good points to the game, but many times it becomes rather frustrating.

The Pros

Well, graphically the game is beautiful. I’m not really a graphics nut (I still play Diablo 2 and think it looks ‘o.k.”) but it does look on-par or better than every other 360 game I’ve played lately.

The combat is fun and intuitive. It’s easy to pick up literally every part of the system from dodging, grabbing, blocking, countering, and so on. The cinematic, yet still very engaging, combat was, without a doubt, the best part of the game. It lead to some very amusing and bloody battles that I continued to enjoy through the entire game.

Climbing buildings, jumping across rooftops and running through markets was also very well done. The smooth flow from the “automatic grab/jump to the next thing” mechanic is something to brag about. It was definitely leagues ahead of similar systems, and is now being quickly copied by a little number called Mirror’s Edge (which basically looks like Assassin’s Creed . . . but without swords).

The Cons

Having to pickpocket thugs in the streets to replenish your throwing daggers was nice, except when you go in for the pick, and you happen to walk past one of those annoying beggar women who just continuously get in your way and annoy the fuck out of you. Or worse, one of the poor guys who pushes you when you get too close to them, knocking you into the thug and alerting half the damn city that you’re an “Assassin! Get the Assassin!”, as if somehow that bump in the street informed everyone that I’m out to kill them all.

The story is tolerable. It’s not more than I’ve come to expect from “video game stories” but it wasn’t horrible. The parts of it that are supposed to be a surprise come as no surprise at all. I think we’ve all heard the “Hero’s Mentor Turns Evil At The Last Minute” story arc about 50 million times now, so it is expected, especially when the game literally tells you there is one more “mission” after you kill all the bad guys. Who could it be, I wonder? Actually I don’t wonder, I figured it out the very first time I stepped into the Animus and saw that “oh look, there is one level after the final *bad* guy, I bet it’s a good guy gone bad”, and I was not disappointed.

The “Hold Right Trigger For Everything In The Game” mechanic kind of wore me down though, and I play FPS games non-stop, so that’s saying something. There really wasn’t a time during the entire game where I wasn’t in “High Profile” mode, except during cutscenes or when the missions literally demanded that I stop mindlessly charging into groups of guards and actually use some stealth or be at least subtle about killing everyone.

The “automatically grab/jump to the next thing” mechanic created a smooth flow to moving through the world but other times became very, very frustrating. Sometimes I wanted Altair to go to one spot while the AI system decided “No, I’m going to jump you off this building so you fall to your death – Haha!”. The worst case of this was during one of the final acts when you have to traverse a port and harbor. Altair, although a world class assassin possessing super-human agility, grace, speed, and strength and living within miles of the ocean his entire life, never learned to swim. So much as touching the water leads to an instant death, yet you have to jump across these poles to get to different locations (while be shot at by arrows I might add). The problem is; unless you are 100% accurate with your jump, Altair leaps into the water. I had this problem . . . over and over and over again. And the more you die, the more impatient you become and the more you miss jumps and die again. It’s a vicious cycle.

Finally

So, while the game has some very frustrating moments it is still overall a decent game. I’m definitely happy with my purchase and I don’t get to say that often with video games these days. I would definitely suggest this game to anyone who thinks they might be interested in it, but haven’t tried it yet. It may not be everyone’s “cup of tea” but it was a pretty fun game and that’s all I really ask for.