Closing Comments
If you play Assassin's Creed for an hour, you will probably think it's a fantastic game. But as Assassin's progresses, its dual storylines and repetitive quests begin to grow tiresome. There are so many great individual elements, but they are lost among the myriad of poor decisions from Ubisoft Montreal. Wasting the big twist on the first five minutes of gameplay is a tremendous mistake, but not nearly as damaging as the ill-conceived assassination investigation quests, which get old fast. The exploration aspects of Assassin's Creed and the combat are both plusses in my book. But those two elements are only a small part of the whole. And most everything else in Assassin's Creed is mediocre.

Another Take
from Jeff Haynes
Let me get this out of the way first: Assassin's Creed is a beautiful game to look at from afar. The visuals are impressive, and the animation is particularly slick and fluid, especially when you're in the middle of free running segments or bouncing over rooftops. Similarly, if you understand swordplay, you'll recognize the flowing nature of parrying and attacks that makes combat rather enjoyable (even if you have to relearn simple things like countering strikes all over again). However, when you get closer and you see the constant amount of pop-in of items and NPCs, repeated render passes, textures that tear and other visual issues, you can't help but feel like some bugs weren't fully eliminated. Perhaps this is because solving elements like the repetitious gameplay elements for assassinations or the buggy visuals were somewhat lost in favor of the bigger picture, which was the set up for an obvious sequel. The future context comes across more as an interruption than a device to help push the plot forward, and its clunky segments, coupled with its abrupt and disappointing ending will probably have fans throwing controllers at screens after they've invested dozens of hours exploring the secrets of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem. Had the game kept its focus squarely within the time period of the Crusades and only at the end explained its Matrix-like attachments to the real world, the supposed cliff hanger would have been much better. As it stands now, Assassin's Creed is one of those titles that was big on promise, but short in some ways on its overall execution.

IGN Ratings for Assassin's Creed (X360)
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8.0 Presentation
The historical setting is brilliantly recreated. The story is slow-paced and has some uninspired elements.
8.5 Graphics
The world is beautiful except for the pop-in and framerate issues. The animations are top-notch.
7.5 Sound
Every voice actor is fantastic save one -- the lead actor. The ambient noise could have been a lot stronger.
7.5 Gameplay
Go anywhere and kill anyone. These are Creed's strong points. The game gets bogged down in repetitive tasks too often.
7.0 Lasting Appeal
It could take anywhere from 10-15 hours to complete depending on how thoroughly you explore the world. There's no reason to come back for seconds.
7.7
Good OVERALL