Assassin's Creed

**This review isn't very good, but I'm putting it here anyway**

Assassins Creed - (X360)

It's 1116 AD; assassination is the in-thing with the hip kids who are down with it. Are you down with it? Altair is down with it!

Assassins Creed is a story about a young assassin named Altair who was once the prime assassin in the entire brotherhood, that is until he BROKE THE RULES of course. This lead to a 65 year old man, who I have no idea what his name is, ordering you to assassinate nine men. These nine men are obviously in some sort of powerful political position. Maybe the game told me that, maybe I just made it up, but either way I can't remember or didn't give a hoot at the time.

Once you're through with the games tutorial, you're given a cheap sense of freedom, meaning you have the option in which to decide what objectives you would like to do first, second, third and so on. The objective being assassination, and the option deciding what city to do it in.

So you've spoken to the 65 year old pedophile, and you've chosen your destination. You get on a horse and ride through an instanced zone called 'The Kingdom'. The point being to reach a sprawling city which houses your target. Once you've gained entry to said city through disguising yourself as an Usher or simply crash-tackling the guards at the gate and crawling up a building it's a matter of finding information about the man you have to kill, this is gained through pick-pocketing, interrogating people with your fists and helping fellow assassins with their troubles. You do this nine times! But don't worry, it's certainly not as repetitive as I just made it seem, why I played through about 8 of these kills and there wasn't a second where I found myself being bored. You could probably get through about 10 hours of game play before you started to feel it repeat.

I thought the Altair character was cookie-cutter and dull, he's like every other 'badass' action hero we see in video games, and his ancestor, who I can't even remember the name, was just a HUB for me to get to more Altair missions. Didn't find myself the least bit immersed into either of these two characters.

Speaking of being immersed, the cities do just that. Weather wondering through the Jerusalem poor district or the Assassins castle, everything feels real and natural. It's so atmospheric, as people stroll through the streets, beggars beg and crack addicts smack you in the face. It really helps draw you into the world, especially combined with all the animation in the game, both Altair’s and your fellow NPCs which is really incredible and the main reason why I never found the game repetitive. When I first climbed to the tallest building I could find and saw the entire city, it was a real 'wow' moment. It all looks so great. The sound is also very well done (but damn those middle-eastern accents can get under your skin after a while!)

Run through a city, climb a wall and swing from the roof, it's all done with the right trigger, so not only does it look amazing, it's a blast to play. All the controls are great actually, once you get used to it, it really flows.

IN CONCLUSION, despite Assassins Creed's drawbacks it's very fun and innovative. Sure, it could have been better, but what you get is a fun package of espionage and coolness.