Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut (PC)

So with all the teaser footage about this game in the hype of this impending release, gamers were wetting themselves everywhere. Anyone remember, the video.. the guy dressed like a monk, jumps off a building, and wrist spikes someone amongst a pile of guards, then the dramatic chase scene, and then, he looses the guards by blending into a crowd of holy people, and we all thought wow.. that looks amazing.

Looking amazing is all this game really does im afraid to say. Don't get me wrong, it has a very interesting plot, but it just get lost in how poo the game itself is. First off, you are a man named Desmond. You are being held captive by a company, who is doing research, and using you to get them information. They have a machine called an Aminus, which allows anyone to delve into their own genetic memories passed down through their descendants, and access memories of what their family did in the past.

In the case of your character, you find out that you are from a family of people who came from the ancient order of the Assassins, who on the face of things, see it as their duty to keep the world in balance, and not allow people of evil intent to gain too much influence on developing world politics, whom might cause harm, or ignorance to the common person. Their arch enemy throughout the ages have been the order of the Knights Templar. The knights Templar have for years been subject of world dominion conspiracy theories. Basically, they were a group of people who protected the interests of Christians in the "Holy Land". They were donated to by the rich and affluent, and they set up international banking for christian pilgrims on their way to Syria, and Jerusalem. They built innovative structures all over the east, and castles with 30 to 100ft thick walls, which were a remarkable feat for the time. Some of their structures were so well constructed that even today in Syria, the crumbling remains of their building which have never seen maintanance nor restorations, are being used as houses by people. When loosing lands in the east to muslim armies, and they fact they were getting (as individuals) too rich and influential for their own good, the order was destroyed by the church, most members heavily tortured, put to death, or made to repent, only to recant, and then subsequently be put to death.

The first memory you access is of your ancestor ballsing up an operation to kill some Templars and to steal something they have been looking for. As punishment for your reckless behavior, you are demoted within the order, and forced to work as a lacky boy, eventually to kill various targets you are gathering information about, without actually really being told what's going on, or why. As the plot thickens for both Desmond (who learns the company keeping him captive are modern day Templars) and his ancestor, you soon learn that the story has alot of twists and turns, and is genuinely an interesting one. Also, the scenery for this game is very well designed and all the cities you visit such as Domascus, Acre, Jerusalem etc all look how you would have expected them to, and you can tell alot of time and effort went into making the game very presentable.

It's the "game" part that lets everything down sadly. There are like 8 or 9 "levels" (or memories) to access, the goal of which at the end is to unlock a memory that this company needs, as it reveals something of importance to them, and as discussed we conclude each memory with the assassination of a particular individual. This will become the most boring thing you will ever do. Before each target, we gather "information" on them by doing the same collection of 4 or 5 different things EVERYTIME. I cant begin to explain to you how bored I was by the time i got to level 3 or 4 and its like, "ok.. go to a different area, do the same things again, go to another area, unlocked a new district... oh and now i have to do the same shit there over again too..>" and thus it continues. Once you learn how to counter attack, you are pretty much invincible which makes all further conflict a waste of time, quite literally, you could have 20guys surround you and you wont get a scratch. This is further shown in the long protracted end sequence which has you fighting groups of muslims and crusaders in groups of 30 at a time, only to go all the way back to your own keep, where you end up doing the exact same. In all the assassination missions, only 1 out of all of them is varied in the sense that the guy runs away from you, and you have to chase him up the rooftops, in all other missions they just stand there letting you kill them, or they stand there and order their ineffective guards to kill you. This game manages to take the concept of being an assassin in the holy land in crusading time and make it really really dull.

So where other than story and graphics does this game get it right..? well not much. Running up the buildings whilst not on a mission and jumping from rooftop to rooftop is pretty easily the most fun thing about the game, and hacking into the companies emails as Desmond give some nice story development. The controls whilst reminding me of the way Prince of Persia handled, has alot of flaws. Quite often the character wont jump from height in the direction to pressed which is really annoying as it means you have to go back and climb up large structures again, this is also not helped by the fact that for some jumps that are awkward, they give you a really shit camera angel to work with.

I def wouldn't recommend buying it, rent it, you'll finish it within a day or two anyway, I am currently playing and about to finish Assassin Creed 2, and I can say as a game, there is a world of enjoyable differences.