Metareview: Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Sometimes, we almost wonder if gamers really wanted Assassin's Creed to actually make it onto shelves. Not that they don't want to play the game per se, but because they seem so gosh darn infatuated with that pretty Miss Jade Raymond that they couldn't bear to go a couple years without playing another game produced by her. End run on sentence.
Why? Because that equates to a decrease from the googolplex of daily postings and interviews on her game, her wardrobe choices, and thanks to some blogs, comments on the same parts one of hundreds of thousands of other women you've seen in your life has she's equipped with. (If I see stat modification comments in this post I swear to some higher power the outcome -- for you -- will not be pretty.)
It's time to judge Jade the way gamers should always judge producers and developers -- by how the game plays. So, magical Metareview, show us just how good/bad/ugly Assassin's Creed truly is.
Games Radar (100/100): "With its riveting story, beautiful visuals and surprisingly lifelike world, Assassin's Creed is an incredibly deep, enjoyable game that kept us addicted from beginning to bizarre end. It's bogged down by a lot of monotonous repetition and a fighting system that's sure to frustrate hack-and-slash fans, but neither of those things really diminished our enjoyment of the game, and both were far outweighed by the thrill of tearing around its enormous cities and carefully planning spectacular assassinations. It might not be for everyone, but playing through Assassin's Creed still stands as one of the most outstanding gaming experiences of 2007."
Game Informer (95/100): "Assassin's Creed is the type of game that comes along only rarely – a title that innovates in so many areas it helps to set a new bar in various aspects of gameplay, storytelling, visuals, and controls. Simultaneously, it's an imperfect game in which the small flaws that mar its sheen are all the more noticeable because so much of the rest of the game shines so brightly. Deep, engaging, and surprising from beginning to end, Assassin's Creed's merits will be debated for a long time. However, as a brave attempt at delivering something unique and audacious, it excels."
1UP (70/100): "The fault of Creed's game structure isn't what you do -- gathering intel and conducting hits is actually pretty sweet. The repetition of these actions, however, is severely bitter. I kept waiting for a changeup of the objectives, and, well, that never happened. From the first hit to the last, you go through the same motions over and over and over...find the viewpoints, do the investigation missions, and take out the final target. It got to the point where I only did the minimum amount of investigation tasks needed to perform each kill. To make things worse, despite Ubisoft's faithfulness to history, the three cities of Acre, Damascus, and Jerusalem are practically the same."
