Features:

• Be an Assassin! Plan your attacks, strike without mercy, and fight your way to escape.
• Realistic and responsive environments - Every action has its consequences. Crowds react to your moves, and will either help or hinder you on your quests.
• Eliminate your targets wherever, whenever, and however. Do whatever it takes to achieve your objectives.
• Dedicated historical accuracy, from the models of the in-game cities to the weaponry to the portrayal of actual political figures who died or disappeared in the year 1191.
• Experience heavy action blended with fluid and precise animations. Use a wide range of medieval weapons, and face your enemies in realistic swordfight duels.

Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Jerusalem, 1191 AD - The Third Crusade is tearing the Holy Land apart. You are an elite Assassin sent to stop the hostilities by suppressing the powers on both the Crusader and Saracen sides. But as you carry out your missions, a conspiracy begins to unfold. You find yourself tangled up in a conflict that threatens not only the Holy Land, but the entire world. Experience the power of a feared Assassin. Your actions can throw your immediate environment into chaos, and your existence will shape the events of this pivotal moment in history. ESRB Rated M for Mature

Amazon.com:
Assassin’s Creed is the next-gen game developed by Ubisoft Montreal that will redefine the action genre. While other games claim to be next-gen with impressive graphics and physics, Assassin’s Creed merges technology, game design, theme, and emotions into a world where you instigate chaos and become a vulnerable, yet powerful, agent of change.

The setting is 1191 AD. The Third Crusade is tearing the Holy Land apart. You, Altair, intend to stop the hostilities by suppressing both sides of the conflict.

You are an Assassin, a warrior shrouded in secrecy and feared for your ruthlessness. Your actions can throw your immediate environment into chaos, and your existence will shape events during this pivotal moment in history.

Key Features

• Be an Assassin: Master the skills, tactics, and weapons of history’s deadliest and most secretive clan of warriors. Plan your attacks, strike without mercy, and fight your way to escape.
• Realistic and responsive environments: Crowds react to your moves and will either help or hinder you on your quests.
• Action with a new dimension - total freedom: Eliminate your targets wherever, whenever, and however. Stalk your prey through richly detailed, historically accurate, open-ended environments. Scale buildings, mount horses, blend in with crowds. Do whatever it takes to achieve your objectives.
• Relive the epic times of the Crusades: Assassin’s Creed immerses you in the realistic and historical Holy Land of the 12th century, featuring life-like graphics, ambience, and the subtle, yet detailed nuances of a living world.
• Intense action rooted in reality: Experience heavy action blended with fluid and precise animations. Use a wide range of medieval weapons, and face your enemies in realistic swordfight duels.
• Next-gen gameplay: The proprietary engine developed from the ground up for the next-gen console allows organic game design featuring open gameplay, intuitive control scheme, realistic interaction with environment, and a fluid, yet sharp, combat mechanic.

Rating : - Give me names, and I'll give you blood
Honestly, this is my favorite next-gen title so far. So, let's look at the story first.

Set in 1191 AD, or so we think. There are two main people in this game. Altair, and Desmond. Altair is Desmond's ancestor, whom Desmond is reliving the memories of. You'll spend most of your time as Altair, the greatest assassin alive. Desmond lives in the time line of 2012 (I believe that's what it was) and uses a machine called the Animus to relive these memories. The story is deep, and filled in mystery. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Now, let's look at the all important game play.

When I first took control of Altair, I could tell this was like nothing I've ever played before. The movement was great, climbing on buildings and jumping off 500 ft. buildings... Definitely worth it. As on the back it says "Learn the art of the Kill." Well, you do. You can stealthily stab your enemy in the back and continue forward, throw a knife at them from atop of the building, or you can go straight at them with a sword or short blade. The people also react to your every movement. If you decide to throw a citizen around, they'll run away and call the guards, which you can either kill, or run from and hide. Also, you have to steal knives from thugs around town to keep your inventory full, you don't have unlimited knives you know. Plus, the free-roaming is just great. Absolutely fantastic.

Graphically, this is an amazing work of art. Some of the best graphics on the next-gen consoles, honestly. I'm not sure how to describe the graphics other than amazing...

And the characters... Their personalities are great. I love just about all of them.

Glitches... I didn't see any, but maybe that's because they made patches? I'm not sure, but I encountered none in the game.

As for the M rating... It really is barely to where it should. You can turn off the Blood in the options if you so desire, and they only drop off the F-Bomb once. Just enough to get an M rating, so don't be too worried if you are about that sort of thing.

Overall, like I said, my favorite next-gen game for now. Nothing has beaten it yet, I question if anything ever will.