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With much anticipation, I installed the PC version of the highly-rated Assassin’s Creed into my computer, after weeks of watching my friends play on the Xbox 360 console. My first impression was that Assassin’s Creed was a very brilliantly-detailed game but the impression I got after hours of game time is that it lacks the muscle in gameplay and content to compete with the very best of its genre.

The storyline revolves around a bartender called Desmond who was kidnapped by a shadowy high-tech organization who forces him to make use of a device called Animus to relive his ancestor’s ‘genetic memory’. Desmond’s ancestor is Altair, a skillful assassin of the time of the Crusades and players will assume control of Altair in the ancient cities of Damascus, Jerusalem and Acre. Altair will receive orders from the leader of his order, the enigmatic Al Mualim and, over the course of the game, plan and escape from numerous assassinations. Along the way, you will occasionally assume control of Desmond during his breaks from the Animus and gradually you will learn about the agenda of the organization and what they intend to do with Desmond’s memories.

In the first city of Damascus, you will undoubtedly have plenty of fun, performing pre-assassination preparatory tasks. Prior to any assassination attempts, you will have to gather some intelligence about the target, location, escape routes and so on. These can be obtained through interrogation of civilians, pickpocketing information and maps or performing tasks for informers in exchange for information. After these are completed, Altair will proceed with the assassination.

This is where the flaws of this game start to be apparent. Despite having an assortment of weapons like the short blade, sword, throwing knifes and a hidden wrist-blade, players will find themselves often using only the wrist-blade for assassination as it guarantees a kill. The assassinations become much of a chore after the first few as majority are routine. Blend into the crowd, gather information, assassinate target, run away. It is horrendously routine and repetitive, so much so that gameplay becomes hopelessly boring.

The most fun and creative aspect of the game is actually the escape from the guards after the assassination. The in-game dynamics and physics are very well modeled; in fact, it is one of the best thus far. The free-running Altair can be commanded to leap across rooftops, run and scale walls, jump from a foothold to another and even dive across merchant stalls in the marketplace. Soldiers will climb after you, throw rocks and shoot arrows at you. Yet even for its most original aspect, Assassin’s Creed falls short again, as there are only three fixed ways to totally elude capture – that is to seek refuge in either a stack of hay, rooftop terrace or to sit innocuously between civilians on a bench.

Fight scenes are decent, with the traditional swordfights being very engaging. However, players might lapse into a repetitive combination as there is a direct counter for sword attacks which could kill enemies in a single hit. Other than this, the set of fighting moves for Altair is really restricted. I often find myself killing the random civilian or guard scattered around in the city just for the sake of picking a fight.

One major inconvenience of Assassin’s Creed is the system requirements. If you thought that Crysis had some killer minimum requirements, Assassin’s Creed’s requirements would be considered mammoth. A dual-core computer setup is mandatory and preferably 512MB of graphic memory coupled with 2GB of RAM memory. All these are the bare minimum for playing and I believe that the demanding requirements would exclude many from enjoying this game.

I would have loved to see elements of Hitman or Crysis in Assassin’s Creed. I would very much prefer to see an improved version of stealth kills, allowing players to execute assassinations in more ways than just the old-fashioned walk-up-and-stab. Perhaps introduce disguises or long-ranged executions or even help of an accomplice. One thing that Assassin’s Creed can adapt from Crysis is the open-ended nature of both the story and environment. Enemies can be dispatched in countless ways and that would definitely add loads of fun to the game.

Do not expect much from Assassin’s Creed. It has a commendable gameplay concept, but the actual gameplay falls rather short of the expectations. This game would provide you maybe two hours of thrilling gameplay before proceeding to bore the living daylights out of you.

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(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)
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