Assassin's Creed

My disappointment with Assassin's Creed is, if nothing else, a testament to the power of expectation. I wanted the freeform fun of Crackdown with the intricate planning and execution (pun intended) of Hitman: Blood Money.

I think AC delivers absolutely the environment I was expecting - it's an incredible looking game, and the free running is ace (I'm still scratching my head as to how this was accomplished, they must have some clever procedural geometry tagging to identify foot/handholds, you'd need a legion of artists/designers otherwise). Ubisoft have this sort of context sensitive movement/animation stuff honed to a fine art, it began in Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell, and the dividends are really arriving now. It will be interesting to see where it ends up.

It's clear though, that as clever and talented as the devs at Ubisoft are, they're still mortal like the rest of us when it comes to identifying that elusive 'fun' factor. My problems with the game are the same as those that have been widely noted - namely the shockingly poor side missions, and the lack of depth to the main assassinations.

Other disappointing points:

• Cutscenes. Lots of them, most of them dull.
• Voice acting is ok, but the lead is very poor.
• The story line is Deus Ex with none of the bite, depth or immersion.
• Scholars mechanic is absolutely lame, really incredibly poor.
  

The game suffers as well from having designed itself into a corner - game AI is not really advanced enough to have convincing 'hide in plain sight' mechanics, guards are either ridiculously suspicious (death penalty for bumping into someone), or completely blind. That's not really the fault of Ubisoft, more that designers should really be wary of what is realistic and design their way around such limitations.

It's a bold game in many ways, but I do think this case the tech is really let down by poor design.