Video Game Review: Assassin's Creed

"The hyped and anticipated historical open world game 'Assassin's Creed' is a messy, repetitive, disappointing game, destroying all high expectations it had"

      Open world games just keep getting more advanced year by year. They started to get popular around back in 2001, when Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto III came out, ever since they have been getting more and more popular, more and more structured, and their stories and plotlines have been becoming better to comprehend and appreciated to the open world format by the year. It’s no surprise that open world games changed gaming, but there is still a lot that can be done with them, even with all the changes they made.

    History was something new to enter the open world genre of video games. It seemed like having a historical open world video game was never really an option, why? well, it was yet to be tested, but back in 2007, with a game called Assassin’s Creed, which was if not the first, one of the first historical open world games to come out, and like every new idea that seemed to be largely marketed, Assassin’s Creed had a lot of promises and a lot of anticipation, but let’s see if the game’s quality ever reached that strong degree of hype, and more importantly, based on how this game is, would it really be a good idea to keep making historical open world games?

    Assassin’s Creed was first, and foremost, a modern day science fiction game, why do I say that? Because the game circles around a bartender named Desmond Miles who got captured by an association called Abstergo Industries, who strap him on a machine called the Animus which can look through the person’s bloodlines and relive the life of any of the user’s ancestors. Abstergo wanted a memory from Desmond’s ancestor, from an Assassin called Al-Tair, so Abstergo hooked Desmond on the animus, hoping to get that information.

    Inside the Animus, Assassin’s Creed circled around an arrogant, but very skilled Assassin in the 3^rd Crusade whose name is Al-Tair, and due to Al-Tair failing a mission, his master, Al Mualim takes away his title as a Master Assassin, and with that said Al-Tair has to go kill 9 different people through different cities during the third Crusade in order to get his title as Master Assassin back. I think the story would have been a great one to tell, but was it really told the way it could have been?

     What’s a great story without great presentation? Well, that was the exact issue with the story of Assassin’s Creed. The issue with the story here really stuck to the way that it was presented, Assassin’s Creed had a great story to tell but the issue was really with it was its presentation. The story was presented in such a repetitive way, every Assassination had the same idea and the same technique, the story lacked a lot of surprise, and it lacked a lot of plot development. But thank god there was an excellent ending to save the story from being a complete failure in terms of presentation.

    Assassin’s Creed is an open world game, and what’s the biggest part of an open world game? Exploration, open world games depend a lot on exploration, was Assassin’s Creed exportable? Yes, it was, there were 5 different cities to explore, from Misiaf, to Jerusilem to Demascus and more. Assassin’s Creed’s large environment and space really made the exploration in this game something special, everything felt organic and exploration was fun, which gave this game one very big advantage.

     One other gameplay feature that was included in Assassin’s Creed was the combat, which was really something that could go either way. Assassin’s Creed’s AI was smart, so fighting guards in the game was something to think about, but it’s the fighting it’s self wasn’t worth all the work, at the end it was mainly just button mashing, it was fun, but compared to the smart AI the combat should have been a lot better.

    Other issues that the gameplay included was the needlessly repetitive missions, every mission was more or less the same, the player just does the same thing every single mission, first he or she goes through a long lecture with Al-Mualim, goes to the destination, follow ssome people, sit on benches, eaves drop, kill the target, then go back to Al-Mualim for another long lecture. That type of repetitive presentation would have been okay if it was every once in a while, but the issue was that every mission like that, which really made this game boring. The navigation and security systems in Assassin’s Creed where both needlessly difficult to understand, due to all there unclear signs and directions. The general lasting appeal of the game was weak, after exploring the cities and finishing the story there was really almost nothing to do. Gameplay is a fatal part of any video game, and the issue here was that while the gameplay here had it’s moments, but the downs where far too strong and too many to compare.

     As for graphics, Assassin’s Creed was easily a strong successor. Despite a few weird faces and some lighting issues, Assassin’s Creed was an excellent game graphically, everywhere in the game looked very organic and beautiful, the landscapes looked excellent, animations where very strong, and a lot of character designs where all very strong and very unique, Assassin’s Creed had some really strong graphics, so it’s too bad the graphics don’t make the game.

     As for the sound, the world in the game sounded alive, crowds talk and they really react and guards change posts. The world was really alive, which actually added to the gameplay, because a living world is essential for an open world game, and Ubisoft clearly understood that, and used it as a major factor and a major necessity for Assassin’s Creed.

     The voice acting was almost excellent.  In the modern world it was all pretty much perfect, it featured stars like Nolan North and Kristen Bell, and honestly  that strongly effected the feeling and made it feel a lot more developed and realistic, it had star power, so the selection was wisely chosen. Inside the animus the voice acting was great, every character sounded right, they all sounded Arab, except for Al-Tair, who had an American accent for some reason, which totally distorted the whole feeling the game had going, but at least it was explained, but with or without the explanation, having the main character an Arab with an American accent before America was discovered would fully destroy the feeling, and that’s exactly what happened with Assassin’s Creed’s voice acting.

    Assassin’s Creed overall was a very different game up to many levels, but different in some cases isn't good, in this game, it’s a bit of both, good and bad, it had some major successes like the atmosphere, the open world, the graphics and the smart AI, but it also has some major stab wounds. Assassin’s Creed had a lot of potential to be a really strong game, but unfortionetly; it didn't reach up to it because of its many flaws. I think it’s fair to say that as a historical game, Assassin’s Creed could lead up to something bigger, but as a game by itself, this game was too sloppy for me. Assassin’s Creed is one of the most disappointing, if not the most disappointing game to come out in my opinion, it had its moments, but it had way too many downers to really be a majorly entertaining fun game.

Gameplay: 6/10
-Great exploration, mixed combat made of mixed controls but an excellent AI system and repetitive missions to make a lot of the gameplay a bore-

Story: 6/10
-A great story, but with so many broken features like poor presentation and repetitive gameplay make the story hard to enjoy-


Presentation: 3/10
-Poorly presented game, boring cutscenes, repetitive sequences, the player spends more time listening to lectures then actually playing-

Appeal: 4/10
-Exploration gains some replay value, but otherwise with the cluttery gameplay and poor presentation, Assassin's Creed is a a hard game to get attached to-

Graphics: 8.5/10
-Assassin's Creed looked terrific, the cities looked organic and the character models where very strong-

Sound: 7/10
-Assassin's Creed generally sounded great, it had a decent soundtrack, along with decent voice acting, the only issue was the main man, Al-Tair's voice-

Average Rating: 5.9/10

Overall Rating: 5.2/10