Assassin’s Creed PC Review

By: Curtis Takaichi | February 15th, 2010

Assassin’s Creed is a wildly imaginative game that flips from the Medieval Christian Crusades from 1191 to a futuristic environment.

The game has many environments to explore, and because of its sandbox style of play, gamers have the freedom to explore and do virtually whatever they want. Despite its commercial success via consoles, the Ubisoft developers translated a great game into an even greater PC game.

First off, Ubisoft made full use of DX10 and DX9 compatibility and gave users graphic customization. Like many people, DX10 has its bugs, glitches and slow loadings, so it’s better to play through it on its more dependable counter-part, DX9. For stronger PCs, it’s grand to have the graphics spruced to their maximum, so that you may observe the picturesque scenery the game has to offer.

The game is comprised of two simple interfaces: exploration and combat. The object of the game is to climb tall structures in order to receive a bird’s eye view of the city below. In doing so, you’ll discover many sidequests that will allow you to gain information, so that you’ll be able to find and assassinate your main target. Much of the fun in the game comes from controlling Altair (the main character) through the rooftops and city streets of each of the main cities. In your exploration, you’ll find some of the most beautiful scenery a game has to offer today.

Despite your duty to search and explore, much of the fun comes from the combat system. The game starts off simple, but quickly becomes more in-depth with each successful assassination. You can use stealth to take out unsuspecting enemies, throwing knives for distant enemies and a sword for intense combat. In the combat interface, you’re allowed to attack, counter-attack, perry and throw your enemies, which give the game a fun and exciting feel. The only downside to the combat system is the difference between a short sword and a long sword. I often switch between the two blades not really finding any difference between the two. They both counter-attack well, they both fight well and they both deliver killing blows.

The slow-down of the game comes with its lack of originality with your acquisition of new research with each boss. Though improvements have been made with the PC, gathering information is the same for every boss. You have to perform a series of tasks, and once you have the minimal amount you’re able to seek out your target. There is no reward bonus for doing more than the minimal amount, but because there is a wider variety of sidequests on the PC, the feeling of repetition is somewhat alleviated.

As a result, improvements have been made, but Ubisoft desperatley needs to implement some sort of reward based system for doing more than what is asked. This should also change the outcomes and leave gamers wanting to play the game over again if event X is performed differently.

Similarly, the biggest low of the game is that there is no online play nor any incentive to play through it again once it has been completed.

Though information gathering can be somewhat redundant, assassination is not. The most fun of the game comes when you try your hardest to quickly assissinate your target and high tail it out of the area without being noticed. There is a rush with each successful kill. For some of the bosses, I find myself replaying the experience over again either for the intensity or to see if I can do the kill like a true assassin. This is definitely the best part of the game.

The game is memorable, and it is very enjoyable using all of Altair’s free climbing ablities and combat moves. Although there are some glitches with DX10, and the gameplay can be somewhat redundant, there are some extremely high points to the game. Overall, it’s a must play for all PC gamers.