I finally got to spend some time finishing Assassin's Creed.  I must say that this is one of the more engrossing games I have played.  The story was somewhat predictable, but the way you play through it ensures that you won't be bored by it.  The game play mechanics are amazing even by the standards of today's games.  I'm glad I was able to give this game another shot after my first attempt in early 2008, and this is proof that taste in games can mature and change over time.
        The title of the game comes from the set of rules followed by the Brotherhood of Assassins.  The Creed is made of 3 rules.  Rule number one is, "Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent."  In other words, only kill your target or those who would try to stop you.  Rule number two, "Hide in plain sight."  The assassin can blend with any crowd so that he may silently kill his target and escape unnoticed.  Finally rule number three, "Never compromise the brotherhood."  No matter what happens, your actions are not to bring any harm to the brotherhood whether directly or indirectly.  The story of Assassins's Creed is a somewhat traditional tale of redemption.  Altaïr is a master assassin whose rank is only exceeded by his hubris. After breaking all 3 tenants of the Creed he is stripped of his rank and equipment. Altaïr is then given a mission that will give him a chance to restore his lost equipment and status among the Brotherhood.
        The overall feel of Assassin's Creed is fantastic.  The world that Ubisoft Montreal created feels very lifelike, especially for a game made back in 2007.  Although I have no idea how large the 3 main cities in the game really were in 1191, they feel quite large while still being manageable.  The graphics and detail in everything in this game is astounding.  I really feel that buildings are where the design team did their best work.  You can see every crack and flaw in the old walls of every building.  The characters look goos as well, but the buildings seem to have been the main point of focus.
        For anyone who has played either of the Batman: Arkham games, you are going to enjoy this game.  Throughout this game one thought kept going through my mind, "Why on earth haven't these people made a Spider-Man game?"  The flow of movement in Assassin's Creed is incredible.  It is very similar to both Arkham games but it feels as if you have an even better ability to move how you want.  You can run around the tops of the buildings or on the ground.  There is an amazing transition from low ground to high ground in certain areas, others you have to climb the face of a building to get to the top.  Climbing can seem a bit slow at times but you learn to spot the areas that will give you the quickest ascent.
        Admittedly the combat system felt a little dated, but I still enjoyed the simplicity of just using X for attacks.   The combo system is based on when you pressed the button and not which combination of buttons you used.  I really enjoyed this feature in that I could learn to time my attacks and have some small measure of skill involved instead of just repeatedly pressing X+B+X+B+Y.  Having to time when you press X in order to successfully follow up an attack was a great bit of foresight on the part of the developers.
        The many weapons are a source of endless entertainment.  I loved being able to sneak up behind people and perform a stealth assassination with my hidden blade.  I don't know if this game brought out the inner evil in me, but there was just something so satisfying about getting rid of a guard who continually got in the way of a mission and leaving him in the street for another guard to find.  I am normally a very nice person and in real life I would never hurt anyone, but at one point I even made a game out of this.  I would assassinate one guard and wait for another one to come over and investigate.  Right around the time he would start to say, "Who did thi-"  He would have a blade in his back as well.  This became a cycle that I would repeat until I would get caught by one of the guards who came in groups.  There was also the fun of throwing knives.  First of all, I thought throwing knives would take several to kill a person.  This is not the case, but rather one knife is enough to kill anyone except for a Templar (There are 60 of these around the world to kill for an achievement) or your main assassination target.  Throwing knives are great for taking out a rooftop guard who may see you before you can close the distance and silently take him out.  An unexpected bonus comes in the form of them falling off of the roof occasionally after being struck.  They would then cause screams of terror to rise from the street where they fell.  For some reason this always gave me a perverse sense of joy followed by an evil chuckle.
        The story was fairly good.  The ending was no real surprise to me, but it can be hard to come up with a truly surprising ending anymore.  It was still a well executed story.  No pun intended.  I wasn't driven to continue focusing on the story the whole time but I actually found that refreshing.  It gave me time to move around the city helping people that were being harassed by the city guards, and finding the high places for scouting.  These little side missions made it easier to get the achievements and I can see why they were implemented but they really didn't help the progression of the game.  The only bonus you gain from saving people is the help of the local vigilantes but I didn't find them to be very helpful, but once again, it was useful for fleshing out the game.  The only side section I did not like at all was collecting flags.  I do not like pointless collecting in games.  There is no point in collecting flags but there are over 300 of them to collect in the game.  It's a bit excessive, but I'm sure that there are people in it for the challenge.
        I really enjoyed this game, and I am really looking forward to starting the second installment.  The game looked beautiful and the movement was amazing, but the combat system could have been just a little more involved than it was.  In a game like this, combat is one of the biggest parts of the game so it is very important.  I feel comfortable giving this game an 8.5/10.  If you have any suggestions for games you would like me to review or if you have any suggestions please feel free to let me know.