The attention surrounding Assassin’s Creed seems absolutely ludicrous in retrospect. We’re genuinely astonished that a game of such promise has turned out to be an ill-advised, pretentious waste of time. That said, some elements of the game, such as the intricate animation on each of Altair’s actions deserve applause. In a technical sense, Assassin’s Creed is one of the first true next-gen games – apologies for once again using that dreaded phrase, but this is actually a game in which it’s true.

The ambience of each environment is universally impressive. There’s almost always a huge number of NPCs strolling around, the sounds are relatively atmospheric and the vast cityscape is quite a triumph. It’s quite curious, really, that these incredible features are lodged in such a fiercely distasteful experience; appreciating them is akin to fishing a pot of money out of Loch Ness. Anyway, note that we’re getting the (slightly) cheerful stuff out of the way first, because a tirade is about to begin. Oh, didn’t we tell you? Every hour of Assassin’s Creed was a worthless, belligerent attack on our mortality, inducing a petrifying and sinking feeling of apathetic doom. If you think that we’re being melodramatic, then play the game for yourself. Unless, of course, that involves you paying actual money for Assassin’s Creed. That would be outrageous.

From the assassinations to the combat, back to the exploration and the story, none of Assassin’s Creed makes any sense. If you’re simply galloping on a horse, enemies will hunt you down. If you climb on a roof, archers will shoot to kill. If you run through the streets and knock someone over, urban warfare will commence. Why is this, exactly? Why all of the nonsensical violence and volatile AI? In every kingdom, their dogged pursuit of you occupies far more of the game’s time than it should. Unfortunately, it tries to remedy this by having hiding boxes on every fourth building, enabling you to escape your pursuers – this, in case you didn’t notice, doesn’t make any sense either.

It wouldn’t be insane of you to presume that the assassinations are the best part of Assassin’s Creed (the title being an obvious hint), but these, oddly enough, are the biggest disappointments of all. Before any actual assassination can happen, a minimum of two ‘investigations’ need to take place. These are menial tasks, such as sitting on benches and listening in on badly acted conversations, and every assassination is preceded in this way. The first time you’re forced to listen in on someone, or pick their pockets like a molesting Lothario, it seems pretty questionable, but forgettable enough for the time being. Unfortunately, it’s the third or fourth investigation that’ll push you over the edge of reason; the repetition becomes noticeably insulting and lazy. Why would it have been difficult for Ubisoft Montreal to implement a unique, narrativedriven and exciting investigation for each of your targets? The ideas on display are limited and frustrating.

Descending into further pointlessness, the assassinations are as simplistic as the investigations that lead up to them. With so much build-up, you’d expect something enormous and incredible to happen when you’ve wasted so much time travelling, climbing, and groping people for information. Nope. The assassinations are clearly intended to be clever, but the only real incentive to get them done is the tired, faux-knowledgeable worthlessness of the cut-scenes. They never vary in an interesting way, either, and they’re all remarkably easy targets to overcome.

This is only the tip of the problems with Assassin’s Creed. As a basic platformer, it works fine, but the one-dimensional combat is only interesting when you employ counterattacks, and even then the repeated instant-kill animations are grating and basic. The exploration becomes tired, and the constantly quaking frame rate absolutely shatters the goal of immersing the player. This is not the expansive and groundbreaking PS3 game that we were promised.

Assassin’s Creed is, in fact, one of the greatest anticlimaxes in the history of PlayStation. Ubisoft spent two odd, ridiculous years hyping this to the point of hysteria. If any franchise deserves to sell less games this year, we’re not sure what unfathomable beast that could possibly be (well… maybe Diner Dash). The creative spark is completely oppressed by the overconfident and wearisome structure of the game. It’s entertainment is sparodic at best, with moments of fun bookended with long periods of tedium. And for all its technical achievements with the precise animation, and the excellent engine it utilises, none of it matters when the game bathes you in such tedium. If Assassin’s Creed has somehow stumbled into your PlayStation 3 collection, we’re very sorry that this has been the case. The game is misguided and selfimportant from start to finish, and there’s a lot that needs work in the sequel.

Samuel Roberts