A spiritual sequel to the Prince of Persia
games of the last generation of consoles, Creed has a familiar feel but
replaces the linearity with an open world, wall running and time
control powers with an awesome free-running system, the fantasy setting
with a science fiction one, and the mediocre combat with slightly
different mediocre combat. Many have complained about the repetitive
mission structure, and they're justified in doing so. There are only
about half a dozen types of activities you can do than make up the bulk
of the game, leaving the actual assassinating a little too infrequent.
But it's not that big of a deal. I wish they could have fleshed out the
whole investigating idea, and made it feel more like you were planning
a highly delicate operation instead of just repeating some simple tasks
before getting to go after your target, but I can't blame them too much
when it's so fun just to play around in the world. If you don't like
picking pockets and doing all the other assassin's chores, you only
have to do some of it. If something's frustrating, you usually can
ignore it and still move on with the game. Personally, I did every
investigation, rescued every citizen, and climbed every vantage point.
The game rewards you for doing so, giving you tips and maps that make
the job a little easier and extra means to escape pursuers. I didn't
collect all the flags though, because that would be tiresome and
completely pointless, as all they unlock is achievements in the 360
version.
Other problems people have is with the AI and combat
that's all too easy once you learn the counter-kill. I agree that it's
pretty ridiculous that you can get away with killing guards right in
front of each other if you just pose like a monk while doing it, but
once they do start chasing you, I was pretty impressed with how they
kept up. Getting away from guards is about as fun a chase as there is
in video games. Altair can climb and jump and do anything a human could
conceivably do, and it's a unique sort of fun to use your awesome yet
believable abilities to evade soldiers who can chase you almost
anywhere. It is pretty lame how enemies only attack one at a time, but
while it's too easy, I did have fun toying with enemies before
dispatching them in a number of satisfying ways. The open space between
cities was also a bit of fun to ride around in on a horse, and
definitely gave off a Shadow of the Colossus
vibe with the look of the environment. It's not really a spoiler to say
that this game doesn't take place during the crusades, since it's
revealed you're in a simulation during the near future right at the
beginning. There are two plot threads, the crusade one which wraps up
by game's end, and the future one that does a good job of stringing you
along with little bits of information before leaving you hanging for
the obvious sequel. It will be interesting to see where they go with
that, I imagine it will take place at a different point in history,
with perhaps the third game finally being all in the modern day. The
voice acting is a bit repetitive, but otherwise the game sounds good,
and looks good too. The look is very nice, and technically the world is
very impressive, except for some pop up when outdoors and an
inconsistent frame rate. What's odd is that it doesn't slow down, but
speed up in a couple unique situations. It's not a big deal, just
strange. Assassin's Creed isn't the completely amazing game it looked
like it could have been from the trailers, but they definitely built a
very promising foundation for the future.
