And the story must be stunning to compensate for the presentational problems you describe–yawning logical flaws, poor dialogue, lack of variety in the general public, etc. But even so, I don’t get how AC deserves an 8.2 rating when you don’t think it plays well. :/

You’re side-stepping the issue, TruthHurtz. You won’t name any specific games that you like because you know I’ll tear them apart and just make you look like a hypocrite. The fact is that most “innovation” these days is just a simple combination of things from other games. GTA3 wasn’t really all that innovative if you pick it apart. It offered driving and third-person action/shooting. None of that is new, but they both had never been done before at the same time. Actually, it’s really no different than the original GTA that I played on the PC ten years ago. GTA3 just happened to be in 3D.

Nobody’s defensive. We’re only entering into a debate which you appear to have decided its conclusion without our input.

Above anything else this game is average and just becuase a game is average dosen’t mean its bad, its just ok.

Thats point i was trying to make is simple but everyone got so defensive about how great and orginal AC is (when its clearly not) that i had to pull out the stops.

We have to start to desire more from our games or the best we’re ever going to get out of developers is average.

And by the way average is 5.0

And I play whatever game can hold my intrest for more than 4 hours.

Plus being able to scale “almost” anything is something completely new.

As far as I’m concerned the only problems with AC are all the graphical faults, the terrible framerate, and perhaps too many similar missions.

The rest of it is Gold.

Out of curiosity, what games DO you like?

1. You can’t scale any surface

2. The “living cities” are just as living as GTA or Dead Rising

3. And once again, parkour is nothing new (prince of persia).

Basically what I am saying in the review, is that the graphics and animation in this game are so outstanding, that if I was breaking the score down by component they would each get a 10. This weighed very heavily into my final score because the game is astounding to look at and experience.

However as people have pointed out, there’s a lack of variety (cookie-cutter levels), etc. This did not diminish my enjoyment of the game too much, partly because I really enjoyed the climbing and parkour in the game and didn’t mind focusing on that endlessly. However, I do take issue with the simplistic stealth, crowd, and combat elements in the game.

Like Heavenly Sword, Assassin’s Creed is amazing to look at but slightly on the shallow side. I recommend you check out my Heavenly Sword review from October to see the similarities in my evaluation.

Oh, and even though the review is up a month after the game’s come out, that’s because it took me a while to obtain a copy, and I made sure to play the game through completely before settling on a review.

Whether this justifies the score is another matter, since it’s all about how well it does it, and uses the revolutionary engine that has been built. I.e. The animation, the ability to scale any surface, the natural parkour, the living cities.

Open world is far from new, its been done alot, same with climbing up walls and jumping on roof tops. And killing people…

If you can give me an example of real creativity in Assaians Creed that will justify the 8.2 then let me have.

But untill then 8.2 is too high and the writer did not give proper justifcation for it.

Good level design/environments are defined by how good the gameplay they offer is.

Assassin’s Creed could thus be marked very highly simple for its creative open world that allows for a lot of gameplay like never seen before.

Surely it’s how the environment is USED in Assassin’s Creed – and really in any other game. The environments in most games are recycled (eg. WW2) but it’s the level design that makes them good.

Andrew mentioned only two good points:
1. Graphics
2. Movment

The good does not balance the bad. If you though the game was good why not mention some more good points.

I’m not mentioning the location becuase its not orginal, it has been done before, both Dream and Medevil world BS.

Are you referring to MY review of Madden 08? Last I checked, Andrew and I do not share a brain.

In regards to you being sure/thinking we are concerned about getting “blacklisted” with publishers, you are entitled to your opinion/thought, but for the record, that is not what we are about.

Thanks,
Chad-drew