About to put Assassin's Creed in my 360...
unbiased impressions plz
This game is pretty weird. But it's got tons of innovative elements. It pretty much all works like you've been shown in the demonstration videos. I won't comment much yet because this seems like a longwinded game with a very slow pacing, but so far it plays like Grand Theft Auto set in Jerusalem in the age of crusades, with platforming elements from Ubisoft's Prince of Persia.
It will probably begin to show its magic later on, but so far it didn't. For instance, it doesn't feel epic, I hope that this will change. And, the pacing is very slow and dull, and the in-game cutscenes largely uninteresting.
Don't believe the bullshots too, Assassin's Creed graphics are pretty rough around the edges and devoid of detail in most locations. Of course, this is the price to pay for such a huge free-roaming universe with tons of characters on screen. On the other hand, the scope of the title is absolutely unbelievable, I don't think that there's anything that was ever made before that even approaches it in game form. You'll stop and look around you to see the city's detail and the amount of stuff in the background, and you'll think that this is truly a marvel.
The game's framerate is overally pretty slow, but relatively stable. There is some screen tearing but thankfully it's pretty infrequent. It's very far removed from the disaster that we feared and doesn't affect the experience.
Everything is shown via Altair's perspective as if he was a real person kinda like in Half-Life, only this time from a third person perspective, and without a silent hero. That does make the pacing pretty dull, but it makes the game very gripping, you'll have a very hard time to put the controller down. Suspense and immersion seem to be very important. For that reason I think it'd be better to pick the PS3 version of the game, because the game's aural portion is extremely quiet nearly all the time and the 360's DVD-ROM whining tends to overshadow the dialogue and spoils that element of tension. There's no option at all to put subtitles on, sadly.
Mina on OAs, who is usually a huge Sony antagonist, has played the PS3 version along with the 360 version, and claimed it's a very good port. Also, that while the graphical performance is a bit more sluggish, it's very very minor, overall both games would look the exact same and one would really have to be on the hunt for technical flaws to let this affect the experience.
Lastly, many people feared the sci-fi elements of the game. I won't comment on them because that would somewhat spoil the surprise, but I do agree that they're completely unnecessary, and that Assassin's Creed would have been better without them.
