I bought assassin's creed this saturday (birthday present to myself) and after doing the first two assassinations (including finding all the view points and saving all the civilians so far) I decided to write my experience with the game.
First of all, I would like to mention this game was a bitch to find around Toronto, all the best buys and futureshop and most eb games I went to were out of stock.
Anyway, first of all the game looks amazing. The cities I've been to so far (Acre,Damascus and Masyaf) look stunning and the character model is really well done. When you see Kristin Bell's character its pretty cool because it actually looks like Kristin Bell. Horse models also look pretty detailed.
The music of the game is pretty good, when there is music that is. The sounds of the game is really well done. The different races of the game speak different languages. I heard, arabic, french, german, italian, obviously english. There might have been more. The noise the birds and horses sound very realistic and galloping sounds pretty realistic as well. The sounds of pots breaking, swords clashing and swords slicing sound really really satifiying. There is nothing cooler than counter killing someone and hearing the sword go right through his torso.
Some parts of the gameplay are solid while others can be improved upon. The jumping and runing is just simply great. Free running through the streets and rooftops while guards are chasing you is an awesome feeling. I know reviews says that the game dosen't really have an open world and I see where there coming from but I don't think it is totally valid. The horse trails and the poor distrisct are pretty large and you can climb almost any building. Sure there are sections blocked of cities blocked but they eventually open up, so eventually you can go anywhere and do anything. Still the areas that are open in the beginning are large and there are plenty of stuff to do like collect flags, find view points, and save citizens. Soldier looking at you wrong, kill the mother fucker when hes not looking.
The Combat system is good but not great. You have four weapons if you count your fists. The others include: your hidden blade, sword and dagger. The hidden blade can't be used as a regular weapon and rmust be used when the target isn't looking or prepared for it. All blades have counter attacks and they are usually instant kills though sometimes all you do is kick the soldiers in the balls. During these sequences the camera zooms in and shows you avoiding the soldier's sword then killing him. Combo kills is similar to counter attacks except it is more offensive. As soon as your blade hits a soldier's sword you press X and that tiggers the combo kill. Daggers can be used also as throwing knifes which is pretty fun to use. Only problems with the combat system is that camera during the sequences can block your view. Also another negative is that I don't have a crossbow (I know he has one, it was in the opening).
Eavesdropping and Pickpocketing are gameplay elements that are a little bland or sloppy. For eavesdropping, all you do is sit in a bench and target the guy and press Y. Like I said bland. Pickpocketing is the worst part of the game. All you do is follow a guy, get close then press a button. There is a problem however because sometimes no matter how close i am to the bag he never pickpokets it, leading to the guy seeing me and me having to do it all over.
This game also has alot of things to collect and find like different flags and view points. They are part of the additional memories and they aren't really fun but being an achievement whore im going to get them all.
Anyway those my impressions so far and from what I've played this game dosen't deserve anything below an eight but calling it perfect is a strech.
