Well, this is going to be an awkward start for a review of the first installment of my beloved franchise. But let’s get it over with. Assassin’s Creed I is one of the worst and most repetitive games I have ever played. This game has nothing to do with the epic gaming experience of the next Assassin’s Creed and it’s the most overhyped games I unfortunately bought. 
But let’s start properly. The year is 2007, Playstation just came out, this year we have finished amazing games like The Witcher, Bioshock, God of War II and Resident Evil 4. But there is this little French developer who used to do great platform games like Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, of course they became more serious with rebooting Prince of Persia, but they had an ambition to make something even more serious and as epic as God of War, Halo or Bioshock. So they decided to instruct their branch in Canada who did a good job with mentioned PoP games to develop the best game they came up with. On their way to success they found the most gorgeous producer in the industry – Miss Jade Raymond, whose unique appearance helped to promote the game on events such as E3. 
She told gamers about the plot that takes place both in the past and near future and about Ubisoft’s emphasis on historical accuracy. After the first trailer came out we saw Altair- the protagonist, assassinating his target in the medieval city square and running away from the men chasing him in. All of that he did in a nice and effective parkour style. I cannot say I wasn’t impressed by that. When the game finally was published, it appeared that the trailer was actually a gameplay of the final product. This was even more impressing.
The plot centers around The Animus, which is a machine that can reread/relive/replay the memories of user’s ancestors. This way Desmond Miles kidnapped and locked by Abstergo – a mysterious corporotians, relives memories of his great, great, great, great……grandfather – Altair ibn La-Ahad. While the future parts of game are not really that entertaining, at least when it comes to an action, the XII century story has some cool stuff to do, introducing amazing fluid movement. Apart from assassination the antagonists by hidden blades and a sword, we are pickpocketing, eavesdropping, interrogate, riding a horse and climbing gigantic buildings just to look at the city from above and locate your targets and key locations… The problem is, this is it. This is ALL we can do in this game. Every mission is exactly the same: First, find a guy who knows something about your target, than pickpocket/ eavesdrop/interrogate him, multiply this by 3 and finally kill your target. And you have to do is nine times, nothing more and nothing less than that. The games put a strong emphasis on counterattacking your enemies, so when you learn how to do it, AC becomes ridiculously easy. 
I almost forgot, by the end of the game difficulty level somehow changes and even with counterattacking, fighting is really hard. I don’t know why Ubisoft did it, but instead of elimination of a repetitiveness of the game, it becomes annoying and you start to hate it even more. When I finished the Assassin’s Creed, I was so fed up with it that I didn’t want to play any sequel and actually anything that has to do with Ubisoft’s third-person action game. Thankfully, a couple of years later, my friend showed me the second installment, which for me was the opposite – the best sequel I have ever played, to the worst game I have ever played. Janusz Bogdaniuk
Janusz Bogdaniuk 