Assassin's Creed

Not the most recent games, so far, but also not very old. Assassin's Creed breaks new ground when it comes to the action/adventure genre.

Like the title implies, you're an assassin, named Altaïr and you have to assassinate people. This storyline takes place in the Holy Land in the Third Crusade. Lots of history.

Just so I won't spoil the plot, the game basically revolves about Altaïr trying to regain his honor, which he loses when he "compromises the brotherhood" (quote from Altaïr's master, himself, Al Mualim, leader of the assassins). Then, after every mission you complete, you gain another skill that will help you in your quest. Of course, being an assassin, guards and soldiers will try to kill you on sight, so you can either stay and fight them, or run. Either way, you have to escape and lose them. Leaving dead bodies everywhere in the city isn't exactly the ideal way of completing the game, but it'll earn you a few achievements for the Xbox 360. The combat isn't the best because it's really easy to win and the bad guys just stand there and attack one by one. It's hard in the beginning of the game, until you get the ability to counter attack. Then, they drop dead, one by one. You have a sword, a short blade (which includes a bunch of small knives you can you can use to throw at enemies, but you have to pickpocket thugs to restash your stock), your fists, and a hidden blade. It's awesome, especially when you realize that you can use that short blade in combat. You can't attack people with it, but when they attack you, you can counterattack, and there's this crazy awesome move that's an instant kill.

But the best part of the game is running around and climbing walls, better than monkeys and Spidermen. It's so realistic, you'd probably try to do that if you could. There's almost nothing you can't climb up to. Leaping across rooftops and fooling around is actually really fun. The cities are just as awesome. The people react to what you do, if you bump into them, attack them, or climb up a wall near them. I've heard this one, too many times: "God save him; he's gone mad." The coolest parts of the game are when you climb to the highest points in the game and then, the camera moves around so you can see everything below. It's crazy. And when you jump down to a stack of hay, it's almost thrilling, the first time you experience it.




Unfortunately, this game is very repetitive because of all the side mission you have to complete. You have to do the exact same things 9 times throughout the game, and it gets boring. You can choose to collect all the flags scattered around the areas, kill all the Templars, and save all the citizens, but it's not worth it, unless you want to earn some achievements on the Xbox 360. Either way, you have about 1000 flags to collect, 60 Templars to kill, quite a lot of citizens to save, and you honestly cannot get through all of them without searching online for maps. If you're like me, you've probably already done that. I collected all the flags, killed all the Templars, saved all the citizens, and got all the achievements. It took days. Don't do it, until you've finished the game. Better you have no flags at all, than 87/100 flags that you've found yourself.

I wouldn't recommend buying this game, but I would definitely recommend renting it.

To find more about this game, check out Gametrailers.com and you've GOT to check this trailer out: Veoh.com