First impressions:Assassin’s Creed - Days 1-3

Assassin’s Creed is one of the games I’ve been really champing at the bit to get my hands on – since I saw it in fact.  I WAILED when I discovered that its wasn’t available on the PC.  That scream, you may have heard about a week after release, was me.  PC game, where art thou?

So, this week, we caved, we got our PS3, we got Assassin’s Creed.

First impressions – the box
The case has lots of gorgeous artwork on it – the screenshots are great, and enticing.  The information about the age rating is UK, instead of PEGI, which was my only – minor – complaint.  Its hard to explain to my eight year old that he’s not allowed to play it, when its not the standard ratings we’ve discussed.
I think that the rating is about accurate though.

First impressions – ‘extras’
This game requires no extras.  Just a control pad.   It is a one player game.

First impressions – manual

The manual tries to hard to be ‘cutsey’.  It reads more like a first person story than an actual instruction manual, and I didn’t find the handwritten asides particularly amusing.  I’m not one for RTFM at the best of times and this slim manual really felt like they were trying too hard.

Days 1 – 3 gameplay

I’m not very far into the game but not because its hard.  Its a great game to get settled into, though slightly unnerving to get into the flow of the game itself.  Once you do, the game moves at a nice pace, teaching you the things you need to learn under the pretext of ‘unlocking’ memories.
Over the last few days, I’ve played with the basics of the game – and I think that its a good game.  Its very remincent of Prince of Persia (unsurprisingly given its by the same studio) but it IS slow.  You’ve got to have more patience in this game, which isn’t – neccisarily – out of ‘character’ for the game.  You’re an assassin – you can’t charge around and do things brashly.
It is a fairly difficult style to get used to – especially if you’re used to games that don’t require you to stealth, or specifically press buttons to go slower, instead of faster.

That IS one default I have to question.  You can only ‘blend’ on your horse, or on foot, by pressing a specific button.  Otherwise, you’re moving faster and draw attention to yourself – but if you DO NOT move faster, it takes FOREVER to get anywhere, even when you’re not stalking someone to kill them.

Overall though, I’m planning on continuing this game – and am very keen to do so.