Assassin's Creed is a fairly amazing game. The enormous, beautiful environments, which grant you complete freedom to climb and explore. Exploring itself, with the wonderfully implemented parkour control scheme, is an absolute joy. Sword fighting, once you get the timing down pat, becomes a whirling waltz of death. Slowly walking up to your prey, maintaining secrecy and discretion, and sticking a knife through his throat is the kind of visceral thrill that qualifies the existence of action games in the first place. These are just my opinions, but I have a hard time understanding how people could disagree to the extent that they seem to. So why do they?
By far the most prevalent complaint seems to be the repetitiveness of the game. The game is repetitive, but so is virtually every other game
ever made. Repetitiveness is a fundamental part of game design. Consider Halo; all you do in it is run and drive through a variety of similar levels shooting things. Tetris, make solid lines of blocks to make them vanish. Mario kart, drive around tracks using power-ups to competitive advantage. I could go on, but I think the point is made. As long as the repetitive actions are fun, which in the case of Assassin's Creed I most certainly find them to be, it's usually forgiveable. Besides, there is some divergence from routine in the form of informer missions, which involve secret assassinations or checkpoint races, both of which are totally awesome despite not being mentioned in any reviews I've read.
I will agree that the cut scenes being unskippable was a design foible, all that exposition can get rather tedious. That said, the actual plot of the game, flimsy as you may think it, is head and shoulders above the industry standard. Sure, that's not saying much, but such criticism should not be dropped on it without context. As for difficulty concerns, it's true the game won't be the greatest challenge ever for many players, but considering how fun the gameplay mechanics are, I found that to be pretty forgiveable.
Of course, it's fully possible you disagree with everything you said, and that you found those flaws I mentioned to be too overwhelming to properly enjoy the game. I'm not going to argue with you about that. It's a matter of personal taste and everyone else's view is just as valid as mine. My only reason for making this post is that with all the negative press the game is getting, it might discourage some players from giving it a fair chance, with an open mind. Seeing as the game is so different from everything else on the market, so gorgeous and interesting executed, I think anyone who cares about gaming as a medium should at least try this game. You might not like it, but at least it'd be something a little different.
I have a suspicion that if this game had just quietly sneaked out, without the hubub and fanfare and Jade Raymond's boobies, it would have been lauded by the hardcore just as much as games like Okami, or Katamari, or Beyond Good and Evil, or Psychonauts. I think it's a shame that such an interesting game should fall victim to it's own hype. After all, not buying a game because of the hype is just as bad as buying it solely because of it, if not worse. So do yourself a favour, give this game a whirl.
I'll be playing this AFTER I beat Galaxy...and Mass Effect...and COD4 on Veteran....and Halo 3 on Co-op Legendary.....and Zack and Wiki....and Oblivion (yeah i know I'm a slacker)....and Stranglehold on PS3.....and Uncharted...But I will be playing this game.
Mario Galaxy isn't repetitive! You jump AND spin! 10/10!
I'm looking forward to giving AC a whirl.
I own Assassin's Creed for the 360, and I must say I am rather enthralled about the whole thing. Just running around town and free-running across the rooftops is a lot of fun.
It is reptitive, yes. But what games aren't these days? There is enough in Assassin's Creed to keep me going for quite a bit yet.
My thoughts? A rental, since it isn't for everyone. But it's a game that shouldn't be passed over.
I wish the game had a screenshot tool so I could show the world how much fun this game is when you slaughter entire outposts full of guards.
->D: I wholly know what you mean. This is the type of game I wish I had someone watching me play, just so I could share the "oooooo" moments. Probably my favourite thing to do is killing templars without them spotting me first. Sure, you can pretty easily kill them in a sword fight, but it's just not as fun.
->Savant: While I wouldn't disagree with a rental verdict for the monetarily unendowed, I think there's enough of a game here to justify a purchase. Hunting down all of the flags and templars would take a pretty long time.
->D: I wholly know what you mean. This is the type of game I wish I had someone watching me play, just so I could share the "oooooo" moments. Probably my favourite thing to do is killing templars without them spotting me first. Sure, you can pretty easily kill them in a sword fight, but it's just not as fun.
->Savant: While I wouldn't disagree with a rental verdict for the monetarily unendowed, I think there's enough of a game here to justify a purchase. Hunting down all of the flags and templars would take a pretty long time.
my take on the repetitiveness-issue:
its not the gameplay mechanics that get repetetive, as this seems to be your argument against this criticism. the way i see the, the game doesn't ever change. in the examples you brought up, you are right in what you say, but i think you have missed the point about the issue. in those games (yes, you always shoot and always do this and that) the way that you do all these things change.
in assassins creed, you're presented with the premise for the game off the bat, and you're stuck with going through these steps again and again and again. you're still always climbing, running and killing dudes (just the same as you're always running and shooting dudes in halo), but these (excellent) gameplay mechanics are constrained within the confines of the story structure.
i hope i've explained myself clearly, but the gist of it is that i think you have to make a distinction between the gameplay mechanics and how you're actually forced to play the game.
PS: i fucking love this game right now. i'm climbing everything, saving everybody, just having a blast
->Xper: Might be too late for you to see this, but I don't entirely agree with your argument. In a game like halo, you're presented with the premise(ie. shooting shit) right off the bat, and you continue to do it for the whole game. The only real difference here is that AC is a huge, open sandbox type game. GTA established a precedent for a large variety of missions, and the fact that AC doesn't copy by rote seems to be what bothers people. Personally, I'd rather a small variety of missions executed excellently than a large variety with frequent problems(the copland mission from vice city comes to mind). I don't think it's entirely fair to criticise a game becaue it's not exactly how you thought it would be, especially if you have no solid reason for thinking it would be.