assassins creed

It finally came out yesterday. I had been following the development for Assassin's Creed for the past year, eagerly waiting for its release.

I'm not a hardcore gamer at all. I only play a game if I love it, and that means that I might play 2-3 titles per year (or sometimes no titles, if nothing comes out that's interesting to me). But the games I do play, I play with passion.

I had been a PC gamer until I saw Ninja Gaiden four years ago at a friend's place. That game suckered me into getting an Xbox just so I could play that one game. The same thing happened again last month when I saw an ad for Heavenly Sword on TV. I couldn't believe I had never seen or heard about it before, but I knew I just had to play it. So I went out an got a PS3 (just before the price-drop, mind you), and I don't regret it one bit.

So now comes Assassin's Creed, a game I anticipated and loved to play just as much as Ninja Gaiden and the Heavenly Sword, and I must say my first experience playing it was a bit of a let down. I had every reason to look forward to this game: It's made by my favorite studio Ubisoft Montreal, The characters and story were very interesting, the game was clearly next gen, and the setting seemed out of this world.

I'm still on the first mission, but I totally aree with this IGN review of the game. What could have been an extra-ordinary game just falls short because of a few bad gameplay decisions.

I must say I adore the realism and historical accuracy of this game (I can only look back and wish they had strived for the same accuracy in the Prince of Persia series), but the slow pace of the game and the less-than-ideal combat system is what breaks it for me. Also I was looking forward to a great soundtrack, but unfortunately that's almost non-existent.

Still, I look foward to finishing it, and even more so to the release of the sequel.