I know what you might be thinking to yourself, how is one of the best games of 2008
similar to the most over-hyped game of 2007? One is extremely sci-fi, the other is a crime
game. One is extremely well received, the other had mixed reviews. Just looking at them at
the very basic level, they are not very similar at all. But if you dig deeper, you will find that
the two games are pretty similar.

Last night I was listening to The Podcastle. It has turned into one of my favorite podcasts
on the Internet. Anyway, Jim Sterling and Wardox were talking about GTA IV. I remember
Wardox made the comment "GTA IV is just a broken game." I thought about that for a
while, and I remembered that I heard that before about a game, but I couldn't remember.
Then it hit me. Thats what everyone was saying about Assassin's Creed. The more I
thought about it, I realized that GTA IV and Assassin's Creed have similar problems with
their gameplay, yet GTA IV received significantly higher review scores than Assassin's
Creed. Right GTA IV has a Metacritic score of 98, while Assassin's Creed has a score of 81.
While 81 is not a low score at all, I really do believe that it is better than that. But I think
the biggest difference of score is with IGN. They have GTA IV a 10/10, while giving
Assassin's Creed a 7.7/10. Lets look at the similarities these games possess.




Repetitive Gameplay

This is one area that Assassin's Creed got blasted for. Everyone was complaining about
repetitive gameplay. Same investigation missions, traveling on a horse got boring, sword
fights were the same. But a quick Google search shows that many people feel that GTA IV
is pretty repetitive. Even in the GameTrailers review they mention that each mission has
some guy telling you to go kill someone. And if you think about it, the missions in GTA IV
are pretty much the same. Drive somewhere, get into a firefight, drive back, rinse, repeat.
GTA IV has side missions, like stealing cars for Stevie, or hunting down the pigeons in the
city. But Assassin's Creed has things like this to, like finding flags...thats about it. But each
game has their own way of breaking up the action between missions. I think this is an area
where the games are similar, but GTA IV is let off easier than Assassin's Creed.

Glitches

Both GTA IV and Assassin's Creed are filled with glitches. I really don't hold it against either
development team for said glitches. I understood that for both teams, it was the first time
they were using a brand new engine for a huge game. When working with any engine for
a sandbox game, there are going to be glitches. Now if both games were FPS where there
was one path for each level, then I would be upset about glitches. People do get upset over
the glitches with GTA IV, but not as much as Assassin's Creed did. Anyone who started
bitching about glitches basically stopped playing the game. Assassin's Creed does have
some big glitches, like falling through the level. I haven't run into many glitches in GTA IV,
but there are plenty of them. Once again, GTA IV is let off easier than Assassin's Creed.

Story

You might ask yourself, "why the hell are you comparing the stories?" Because I feel both
of these games have some of the best storylines ever in a game. I think the story for both
games is one of the best parts of the game. Assassin's Creed had an awesome, sci-fi story
behind its medieval setting. I really liked the ending boss in Assassin's Creed, and I thought
the last cinematic was done really well. I can't wait for Assassin's Creed 2. I just hope you
play as the guy in the future now. Make it all Bourne-like. GTA IV has a great crime drama
storyline mixed with humor. GTA IV reminds me of the movie Snatch. Both have colorful
characters, involve crimes and drugs, and has wonderful dialogue. If GTA IV was a movie,
it would definitely be considered one of the best crime movies of all time. For each game, I
think this is the area where they both shine.



Don't get me wrong, I think that GTA IV is a better game then Assassin's Creed. But the
reason I wrote this blog post was each of these games possess similar problems, yet GTA
IV is one of the highest rated games ever, and Assassin's Creed is just pushed under the
bed. I'm a big fan of Assassin's Creed, and it makes me upset to see a game like GTA IV
that is similar in some areas be praised in the same areas that Assassin's Creed was
blasted for. So my question to Dtoiders is, do you think that GTA IV got a high score
because it is a really good game, or because it has Grand Theft Auto in the title. Think
about what I have said.