Poll: Assassin's Creed review
- Thread starter Snuggle
- Start date
Not bad, but not great either - there are a number of sloppy sentences and the writing is rather disjointed. On a less technical side of things the information was good but you don't offer enough of your own opinion, or expand on key areas of the game; it would also have improved the length for the review is rather short.Snuggle said:Assassin's Creed is a 2007 game, developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Should have been integrated into the first paragraph - it doesn't give a good first impression.
The knife cuts through his throat easily, he utters his few last words, the words of a dying man trying to redeem himself, but finally breathes his final breath. Another name to cross of the list. Now I just need to get away. I don't see the point in this paragraph; I see what your trying to do but its not useful or particularly helpful for the reader.
In Assassin's Creed, or AC as it is sometimes abbreviated, you take the role of Altair, an assassin in a group of assassin's in The Holy Land during the crusades, more specifically the year 1191. After a failed assassination, which cost one of your fellow assassin's his life, you are stripped of your rank, and assigned with assassinating nine men. Between the missions you play as Desmond Miles, a descendant of Altair who has been taken captive by a company called Abstergo, who are trying to access his ancestors memories through a machine called the ?Animus?. The story is very interesting and is your main motivation to keep playing the game, but unfortunately everything in between just seems like filler.You have a problem with run-on-sentences, the flow just isn't there. Whilst your explanation of the game was decent enough there isn't enough detail; and you don't really tell the reader enough for them to make an informed decision.
Assassin's Creed has you, as the title may give away, assassinate people. You have a very small, although useful, selection of weapons. A sword, a hidden blade, which is extremely useful for fast kills and finally your throwing knives, which are used for, well...throwing. AC suffers from this, and it gets very repetitive to stab dozens of guards down before doing the actual assassination. The paragraph reads poorly, particularly the last line; you could have gone into more depth regarding the combat and ow it plays out.
You begin every mission in Masyaf, the headquarters of your order, and for the first three missions you have to ride either Damascus, Acre or Jerusalem, depending on where your mission takes you. After the first three missions you will be offered the option of fast-travel. When you arrive you should quickly visit as many of the so-called ?view-points?, which makes it much easier to navigate through the city. Once you've done that you'll have the locations of the ?investigation? missions and the ?save citizen? missions. The investigation missions are remarkably boring and repetitive, and I never did more of them than absolutely necessary. The ?save citizens? are slightly more fun, mainly because of the combat system, which is quite fun once you get the hang of it. The game's strength, however, is in the story assassination's and I can't help but feel that Assassin's Creed has a bit of an identity crisis. It doesn't really know whether it wants to be a hyper-realistic killing simulator (someone has got to make that game!) or an arcadish run-around-stab-things game.
And the cut scenes too. The cut scenes are where most of the story-telling, if not all of it, takes place, and it feels like Ubisoft Montreal wanted to make a movie instead of a game. Decent, but again it falls short of "good" due to a poor writing style. For example, you mention "investigation" missions but fail to explain what they are you what you do - even why they are so poor. You also switch points completely mid-paragraph.
You'll spend a lot of time running away from the city guards and unfortunately Altair feels out of control much of the time, and you'll swear and curse every time he falls to his death because of the slightly irresponsive controls (it should be noted that this was reviewed on the PC version). This also makes the chases more frustrating than challenging. The AI of the guards is terrible at times, and they'll often jump to their deaths after stopping their chase of Altair, after you've hidden in a pile a hay or one of the many roof gardens across a roof-top. At other times it's alright though. Another annoyance is the crazies and the beggars. They are constantly in your way and it is quite annoying that the crazies only attack you instead of everyone else. The paragraph reads poorly - due to inconsistency in the sentence structure. Whilst the information is solid you mention great flaws in the game and don't expand on them.
The game's graphics are absolutely gorgeous, although,like the rest of the game, they do,aside from a few landmarks,get quite repetitive. Nonetheless, Assassin's Creed is probably one of the prettiest games in a long time. There are some problems with the animations though. Sometimes it doesn't really look like Altair's Hidden Blade actually slits through the throat of his unlucky victim, but merely the air of front of him. In one particular case where the developers were lazy, was at a cut-scene featuring a book-burning. When the books were thrown on the fire, there was no noticeable lack of those books on the pile it was taken from. It's a very forgiveable mistake, but still it looks very strange.
The voice-acting is alright, but you'll hear the same lines repeated over and over again. And Altair does have a strange American accent, but you'll forget these things. The game's soundtrack is great, but there's just not enough of it. But the cities feel alive, and that's the most important part. I disapprove of your consistent use of the word "alright" - its to vague. You also seem to be nit-picking rather than focusing on the game as a whole.
Assassin's Creed has many great bits, but there's too few and far too long between for me to give a recommendation of it. I liked it however, and it will depend a lot on which flaws you can overlook and which you can't. The combat system is a delight at times, but the game suffers from an identity crisis. The plot is great, but it is remarkably repetitive. I could continue like this, but I won't. In the end it takes a lot getting used to, but some parts of the game are so rewarding that it's worth it. The language used is sloppy, such as "great bits" and its rather confusing as to how you feel - earlier on you praised the game heavily, but all of a sudden it doesn't get a recommendation?!
Pros:
Great storyline
Good music and sound
Fun combat system
Cons:
Chases are often more frustrating than challenging
Identity crisis.
Extremely repetitive
AI is stupid at times.
I would just stick to the buy it, rent it, avoid it system - shouldn't you have covered all these points in your review?
Good luck and keep writing.
Very well written review. I would give it a 4/5 from what I've played. One thing I'd like to point out is how you said how "...it feels like Ubisoft Montreal wanted to make a movie instead of a game." Now I can understand how some people think that this is not a good element in a game (a game acting like a movie), but personally I love it. I hate it when games have great gameplay, but terrible stories. This game has great, but not excellent, gameplay and a wonderful story. Sure I had to stop the game at the beginning to figure out what was going on, but that's what I like. When a game isn't just mindless gaming. When a game actually makes you think.
Overall pretty good.
Could use some better depth into the game; including the re-playability,the pointlessness of the side missions/achievements (such as the flags and Templars) and the different systems in the game eg. combat and movement. I guess this could all be categorized under needing to be longer but meh. Your review gets across the idea that the concept for the game was good but not as successfully executed as it could have been... at least i hope that's what you're trying to say.
Could use some better depth into the game; including the re-playability,the pointlessness of the side missions/achievements (such as the flags and Templars) and the different systems in the game eg. combat and movement. I guess this could all be categorized under needing to be longer but meh. Your review gets across the idea that the concept for the game was good but not as successfully executed as it could have been... at least i hope that's what you're trying to say.
Agreed, the story is one of the few that has made me try to figure out what was actually going on. I think the story should have been more integrated in the game, and what is the point of cutscenes where you can walk around? But then, you enjoyed the game (I also did, at least parts of it) and as I said it depends a lot on which flaws you can overlook.cooperace27 said:
Yes that's pretty much what I was trying to say.The_Healer said:
It was a good review, but i think you missed out a few things. Like other people have said, the whole horse thing. That was annoying. And the combat, thatt if you ask me, that was the one of the more repetative things about the game. As soon as you learned counter attack, you didnt really need any other move. Of course, counter attacking with the hidden blade is a laugh. You also didnt mention the futility of collecting flags.
Next time, try and put a bit more of your personal view into it as well, pad it out a bit and make it a little more interesting.
Still, nice review. Gave it 4/5
keep it up. And bring on Assassins Creed 2
Next time, try and put a bit more of your personal view into it as well, pad it out a bit and make it a little more interesting.
Still, nice review. Gave it 4/5
keep it up. And bring on Assassins Creed 2
good game visually and had some cool music
however like you said it was way too repetitive, tho what made it worse was it was obvious that it was the same thing over and over. the combat was good until you learned the counter and then it was way too easy
i wasn't too big on the controls, they did a LOT of stupid things, such as instead of jumping onto a roof, it would grab the ledge and let you hang there, which became very annoying when running away
good review tho, just a very mediocre game that could have been great
however like you said it was way too repetitive, tho what made it worse was it was obvious that it was the same thing over and over. the combat was good until you learned the counter and then it was way too easy
i wasn't too big on the controls, they did a LOT of stupid things, such as instead of jumping onto a roof, it would grab the ledge and let you hang there, which became very annoying when running away
good review tho, just a very mediocre game that could have been great
