I’m a little less than halfway through “Assassin’s Creed,” in terms of the number of targets to assassinate, and I am having a good time. The art direction is great - it’s like playing “Kingdom of Heaven: The Video Game” and the sound effects are especially grisly in the fighting sequences. There’s one move, if you’re using the long knife in a counterattack, where you knee the opponent in the groin and if you hit the ‘attack’ button at the right time, you plunge your knife into the top of his skull. The crunching and squishing sounds really paint a vivid picture. Oh, and don’t forget the gurgling sound you hear after you’ve slashed another opponent’s throat. Did I mention that this is a “Mature” game?
I don’t mind doing all of the little side missions, like saving the citizen and doing tasks for an informant. They really help your skills with the game: fighting, free-running, etc. Climbing up to all of the high points in the cities is also fun, similar to hunting for orbs in “Crackdown.” Standing at the peak of the cathedral in Acre was really beautiful, especially viewing the city and the water.
My biggest gripe with the game is the interface/menu screen. I can’t tell what the ‘F’ is going on. Did the game save? Can I just save the game? The game will say that it’s saving content after you’ve found a flag, but you don’t get that same notification after you’ve reached a checkpoint. When you go to quit, you’re told that you’ll lose all of your unsaved progress, but it doesn’t give you the option to save again before you quit. If they do, I can’t find it.
While I’m not blazing through the game, since I want to do all of the side missions, I am focused on finishing this game next since I don’t want the ending spoiled for me. I know that “Mass Effect” has about twenty different endings, so I don’t have to worry about that one and I think I’m not far from the end of “Call of Duty 4,” but on the higher difficulty it could take awhile.
On a side note, here’s a hilarious ‘review’ of “Assassin’s Creed’ from Zero Punctuation (the audio is NSFW):
