It's been a long while since I've wanted to spend so much time with a video game. Most of the second half of this year was just about playing some Team Fortress 2 here and there and the x360 lay dormant and gathering dust. I guess it's life span was expanding as I still have the launch model (which has not given me any problems as of yet).
I picked up Assassin's Creed along with Mass Effect and after playing through the latter I finally started the Creed.
All I heard of this game was that the producer was really hot and you're some assassin missing a finger running around Jerusalem and stuff, didn't take much interest. That is why it became so ultimately cool when you find out you're role playing your ancestors' DNA memories from the present-time. The backstory is an amazingly orchestrated performance, giving you information in such limited quantities that you'll be frustrated to comprehend in the beginning, but later on you'll start to listen and it will make more sense.
The graphics are top notch and set an ideal atmosphere for performing the tasks at hand, I've found some textures to be flickering and glitchy (close up and in the distance), but it was minor.
The gameplay reminds of Prince of Persia, but this time it's more logical and you don't jump around unrealistic landscapes and buildings *almost. The combat system is finally what I've been meaning to see in games of the sort, you have more control of how to react in combat situations and the animations are sweet and accurate. Amongst being really serious, there are some hilarious flaws that can only be described as "oh it's a videogame" - in the main base town of Mysaf you can "gently push" city guards that are standing on a ledge to an untimely - and unnoticed death. The funniest thing is them waving their arms before just falling off and the guard next to him not reacting at all!
You'll be faced with performing various accomplishments to unlock achievements, all are pretty basic and make sense, only if you want to get ALL of the achievements you will probably need a map to find the bloody flags, that's an annoying part of the game I find as it took me more than half the game to find the full 20 flags in Mysaf.
Music is an important part of any game - Jesper Kyd did an great job yet again, but the audio was badly mixed sometimes (volume wouldn't match the game sounds and it didn't have enough bass...).
I'll be looking forward to seeing the producers not screw up such an amazing game for the sequel - there is so much to be done (remove repetition of certain aspects of the game, improve AI - oh and my console started freezing towards the end...) and so much hope for an even more assassinative mood, maybe emphasising on more stealth....
