AMN's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What's the Game About
Assassin's Creed is a taste of the future: the future of the action-platforming genre and the future of brand identity in the gaming industry. Crafted by the same team at Ubisoft Montreal that re-imagined Prince of Persia for the modern era, Assassin's Creed combines and enhances the platforming elements from that series with enormous environments to explore, and an innovative new "crowd dynamics" mechanic. Some frustrating flaws keep the game from reaching the upper echelon of gaming, but the individual pieces come together so well that complete experience is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. Despite the game's weaknesses, the potential for a franchise is clear and sequels are inevitable. Everything from the storyline to the control scheme has been designed as a framework around which to build any number of unique experiences to sell under the Assassin's Creed brand. One must wonder just how much better the game could have been if the focus had been making the best possible game today instead of building for the future.

What's Hot
The storyline in Assassin's Creed is sure to be a controversial topic since Ubisoft has been marketing the game as an epic set during the Crusades, which in reality is only half of the equation. Most have probably already guessed what the game's major 'twist' is thanks to the use of a Matrix-esque filter and futuristic HUD in gameplay footage, not to mention hints dropped during trailers and a few leaked pieces of info. Thank you, Kristen Bell. Revealing the twist in this review wouldn't be much a spoiler since the game comes right out and explains everything in the first few minutes, but we'll restrain ourselves regardless so we don't ruin the surprise for those last few who have been untainted by Internet gossip. Specifics aside, the storyline is intriguing and well-written. As the game's flaws start to grow more and more noticeable, the strength of the narrative stands as one of the more compelling reasons to push through to the game's conclusion. Speaking of which, the ending leaves a lot of room for a sequel so it might not satisfy everyone. The storyline is basically a framework that will allow Ubisoft Montreal to create games in any number of different eras, tie them all together and sell them all under the Assassin's Creed brand.

The environments -- more specifically the player's interaction with the environments -- steal the show in Assassin's Creed. There are three major locations in the game, each of which is absolutely enormous and completely explorable down to the last square inch. Each city has a distinct look and feel thanks to their unique geography and culture, and the architectural nuances that stem from those differences force the player to really think about the lay of the land in order to determine the best routes back and forth through the city before tackling a mark. Some routes are obviously faster than others but any path is fair game. The main character Altair is capable of climbing up the side of almost any building, jumping fair distances, balancing on swinging from beams or poles, and generally acting like a Medieval Spider-Man minus the web-shooters. He's not quite as nimble as the web-slinger though – he starts falling faster after jumping, and generally moves like he's made of 200lbs of muscle, and players have to take that into account when they line up jumps. Being able to scale any wall and jump across rooftops offers an overwhelming sense of freedom, and players will likely spend their first few hours with the game simply testing the limits of Altair's abilities.

The control scheme is based on the concept of a marionette puppet and uses almost all of the buttons on the controller to provide Altair with an insane amount of different abilities. It's initially a bit intimidating but quickly becomes second nature. The controls are extremely fluid and allow players to effortlessly shift from one action to another. Combining Altair's abilities is essential to success, so it's a boon to the experience that pulling off a string of maneuvers like running across rooftops, dropping down into the street, blending in with a crowd, attacking a guard, and running back up the wall and onto the rooftops to escape the cavalry feels so completely natural. That said there are moments where it feels as though the control scheme hasn't been tailor-made for this particular game. Having three different run-speeds is just excessive, the head button isn't particularly useful, and many of the actions that could have been satisfyingly skill-based – like climbing up different surfaces or pulling off counters in combat – basically run on autopilot. These moments are frustrating reminders that Ubisoft had plans for this control scheme that go far beyond this singular experience, and they opted to make one catch-all solution instead of fine-tuning Assassin's Creed to be the best it could be.


Ubisoft obviously also plans to put the graphics engine to work in future titles and we certainly don't have a problem with that. Assassin's Creed stands alongside Call of Duty 4 as one of the most photorealistic games ever made. As previously stated the environments are huge but they're also packed with active citizenry and unlike so many other free-form action games, beauty hasn't been sacrificed to accommodate for scale. The entire world is bathed in meticulously-detailed bump-mapped textures and showered in some of the most beautiful lighting and shadow ever seen. Like Call of Duty 4, it's the animations that take Assassin's Creed to the next level of visual prowess, as every movement that appears on-screen, right down to Altair's flowing white robe, is silky smooth and utterly convincing. Altair transitions perfectly from one maneuver to another, which not only looks amazing but also makes the controls feel that much more responsive. Technical merits aside, the game stands out because it drips with a style all its own. Altair's striking white-hooded character design shouts "bad-ass" from miles away, he's the master of the bad-mutha slow-motion walk, his combat maneuvers are simultaneously graceful and visceral, and the discord between the bloom-lit, ancient Middle-eastern setting with the futuristic HUD effects is strangely captivating. The sound design is almost as breathtaking, with a riveting musical score and solid voice acting.