Circuit Jerk

Assassin’s Creed was always going to be one of those games that was too good to be true. For 30 years, gamers have always wanted some sort of true assassin experience and when it’s promised, we have a view in mind of how it should work. If the game developers didn’t read our minds and mail us each our personal copy of the game we wanted, we are always going to complain.

I don’t understand why so many people complained at length about this game other than their assassin fantasy world wasn’t met. The scores, almost always about 80%, didn’t reflect how many complaints reviewers and gamers had. If it did, most scores would sit around 50%.

Like with any game there are things that aren’t so great. The half hour tutorial is boring as can be. The convoluted beginning to the story, the “uhh, I’m just a bartender, what am I doing here?” explanation wears you down when you aren’t emotionally invested yet.

This is what I think the main problem was with the game: pacing. If you take a step back and think about what’s happening, or hell even skim the Wikipedia summary of the plot, this story is pretty interesting. It has so many plot points that someone like Kojima needed to be involved to truly pull it off.

The sequel has a one up on the original. Since the story is now set, I think Assassin’s Creed 2 has so much more potential that I’m truly excited about it as one of the top Christmas games.

Speaking of Kojima, another issue I had with the story telling is how much time is spent watching two characters stand and talk to each other. Kojima can barely pull the two floating heads talking to each other through the comm-link off, why did Ubisoft think this was going to fly? I assume the memory glitches were created to sort of break up this exchange, but for the most part the glitches just give you a different angle of what’s happening.

Now, onto things that I thought were done correctly.

The game itself is as visually appealing as Gears of War if not more. There were times where I would climb to a look-out point and actually feel vertigo looking over the edge.

The character models and how their bodies reacted to the crowd or when your character pushes them out of the way just seem natural. Ubisoft really did something great there.

Most people complained that the fighting gets repetitive, which it does if you suck at the game. Most of the fights are over before they escalate if you know how to use your assassin tools. Throw a knife at someone and run up and stab the guy next to him before it registers with the other guards.

I agree, when you go into every situation swinging your sword around, it gets boring. A crowd gathers around you while you wait for someone to attack. When they do, you counter and kill.

I never found the game repetitive feeling. I understand that you were doing the same tasks over and over again, but you didn’t have to. You could’ve skipped almost every side quest. I on the other hand went out of my way to complete every side quest.

The boss battles were disappointing at the beginning. Everyone seemed to just be a copy and paste of “fight this group and the boss is somewhere in there.” It wasn’t until we got to the executioner that the boss battles sort of got their own personality.

There was the guy throwing a party that killed all of his guests. There was the Teutonic knight that takes off in a full sprint through the city, trying to escape. Then the guy that was hiding on his ship in the harbor and seemed to rally an entire city against you. I’m not saying the boss battles were as innovative as a Mario game, but they had substance to them.

With the price on this game sitting around $20 right now you have to at least check it out. You know that there’s the curiosity lingering from last summer. That little itch in the back of your throat that you wish you could just scratch. Well I ask you this: What better time to scratch it?