Friday I got home from work a little early – a doctor’s appointment to get a couple of moles removed, yecch. Since I was out early, I stopped by Blockbuster and rented Assassin’s Creed for the XBox 360. Seeing as I’ve got a couple of stitches in my back now, I figured I could treat myself and stay reasonably quiet this weekend.
It’s been a pretty good so far. I’m really, really impressed with the background artists and the exploration/free-range kind of movement you can enjoy with the game. It’s really sort of a linear story-line (nobody said it wasn’t), but if you enjoy roaming about in a game looking for all the various crevices, this is the game for you.
So far I’ve finally figure out how to assassinate a few Templar knights in the game (bad guys in this one, apparently) – and I’ve learned that they generally kick my butt in a straight up fight. I can’t “pickpocket” with the controls to save my life, but it looks like I get to mostly avoid that function too. Thank god.
The visuals in the game are really what’s worth writing about. I can’t praise the Ubisoft artists and engineers enough for it – the sweeping views out over a virtual Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre are just amazing. Not surprisingly, the review that Gabe made in Penny Arcade really nails it.
Rhonabwy 
Assassin’s Creed & Mass Effect are the two games that are finally going to make me go out and pick up a 360… Hoping they’re worth it.
LikeLike
Assassin’s creed is, after a night of sleep, a tough repetitive in it’s gameplay, but the environments that you can go roaming about in really make it worthwhile to me.
I’ve got the same hopes for Mass Effect. Going to just outright buy that one Tuesday evening, and Assassin’s creed it due back Wednesday at Noon… I’m set for the Thanksgiving Holiday! 🙂
LikeLike