Assassin's Creed - Pt 1. (Xbox 360)

I will freely admit that I read "professional" reviews and bitch about the scoring systems, but I do not ever base buying decisions on them. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and plenty of people can get almost irrationally fixated on some plus or minus of any given game and his entire opinion becomes shaped around it. Recent middling reviews of Assassin's Creed reflect this problem perfectly - they obsess on various design aspects of the game that they decide are flaws. Gamespot delivers a 9.0 with a very fair assessment, as do several others...but more that two or three major outlets called it a "letdown" and gave it between a 7 and 7.5.

Don't get me wrong, this doesn't bother me. Fuck 'em, I play what I want. It does however present me with an interesting opportunity. A game this open to interpretation could be reviewed in three phases: initial impressions, thoughts after playing halfway through or more, and then musings upon completion. Perhaps this evolution of opinion is what led to those middling scores, perhaps not...but I think it's a fun experiment either way.

So what exactly are my initial impressions? This game is a home run. It is hands down the single most beautiful video game I've ever played, and keep in mind this is on a standard CRT - not HD. The level of detail, the depth of model animations, the sheer scope of the sounds and music...these things and more add up to something that literally must be seen to be believed. I could rant and rave about these things for paragraphs on end, so I'll just stop here and say again: this is hands down the most beautiful game I've ever played.

The game play is not nearly as odd or unique as some would have you believe, although it does introduce novel concepts that have a bit of a learning curve. You have two categories of actions you can take - the casual set such as walking or gently pushing your way through a crowd, things that will not draw much attention - or the aggressive set that WILL draw attention, such as physically attacking someone or running at full speed. The types of actions mapped to the buttons are the same and you merely switch "sets" by holding or releasing the right trigger. It's a bit tricky at first to remember when to hold and release, but it quickly becomes automatic. Combat requires some control skills and timing that definitely take some practice, but they do provide you with several "get out of jail free" moves to fall back on in a pinch that don't take TOO much coordination. It's a system that so far hasn't gotten old at all, although that might also be because the special moves are so much fun to watch.

The plot summary is pretty interesting - you're an assassin during the Crusades with a list of people to well, assassinate. It's a good story, but...well, I'm not going to really go into any more depth right now except to talk about one of the touchiest points to some reviewers. Ubisoft first showed Assassin's Creed as a historical game and stayed very tight-lipped about the details. Further trailers and screen caps showed a futuristic look to the HUD and to a few other elements, leading to all sorts of speculation about a plot twist that involved time travel or who knows what else. The upshot is that it is neither. It's not a twist to know that the game is set in present day and you're using a machine that can make you relive ancestral memories, and I can say that because it's how the game STARTS. Ubisoft kind of screwed this one up a little bit; although they didn't call it a twist they also stayed far too quiet about it, which gave a lot of people the wrong impression. The IGN reviewer in particular went apeshit over this point. I think he's being silly, but I can acknowledge the logic behind the issue.

(Personally, I think Ubisoft should have announced this fact proudly - it's a very neat concept that truly sets the game apart from a normal action title.)

So far this is one of the best games I've played this year. Let's see if it holds up after another 10 hours or so. More to come...