Finally got some time aside to be able to finish off this game…

My final words? More of just a word I guess… disappointing. Assassin’s Creed is a completely beautiful game for about the first 5 hours. You see, the remodeled versions of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem are absolutely breathtaking - especially when you see them for the first time when you ride in on your horse. Doing the missions in each town is also pretty fun. Unfortunately after one assassination in each city, the devs seem to come up short an any form of originality whatsoever.

You then get to return to each city 2 more times each. You then get to repeat the same 2-3 hours of quests 6 more total times. You then get to figure out how to create your own real hidden blade in the sleeve of your shirt. You then finally get to breath a sigh of relief as you use that hidden blade to gouge out your eyes.

This game started out quite strong and just finished off with such a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, each assassination is quite cool, but forcing you to replay the same saving of the citizens, or the same “Assassinate 3 targets in 3 minutes!” over and over is just a new level of lame.

You get the impression near the end of the game that someone finally clued in at just how repetitive it was getting and felt the need to spice it up - and boy did they “spice” something up… my anger. Rather than include some new cool missions, they decide to make them harder. Read between the lines, harder doesn’t mean more challenging, it means more annoying. See now when you save a citizen, instead of having to kill 3-4 guards, now you need to kill 15-20. Now when you have to secretly assassinate someone in the street, they are surrounded by 5-10 drunk people that want to start fist fights with you in the street, or 5 beggars preventing you from reaching your target - both of which attract guard attention forcing you to fail. It is not challenging, hard, or interesting. It is just straight annoying.

I do have to say that from the 9th assassination to the end of the game - it is in fact different, interesting, and entertaining. It seems the final word is that the first 20% of the game is excellent, the last 10% is excellent and the middle 70% is the Ebola virus. Overall, the excellent graphics, and level of fun that is bouncing around from building to building, as well as the previously mentioned 30%, brings up a repetitive annoying game to an acceptable level that is recommended that everyone give a shot to.

Overall? Perhaps a 3.5/5 - and worth a play-through from anyone. Just don’t expect and re-playability.