I've now put about 12 hours into Assassin's Creed (PC version) and I think I've been pretty lucky to escape some of the many problems that are apparently plaguing other users. The only crash I've had with it was in the first hour. Since then it's been a completely smooth, glitch free experience. It's a shame so many other people are having problems.
That said, the deeper I play the more this game feels like an exceptional tech demo and a pretty pedestrian game. Even if you can accept the basic conceit (that you're reliving the memories of one of your ancestors), which I have, the implementation of this story just seems incredibly ham-fisted. For example, every time you assassinate a designated target (not just a nameless guard, but an actual target) there's a death scene in which said target expounds at length about one thing or another. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers.) It just doesn't fit. I mean if you want every target to give a dying speech, that's fine (well, it's passable), but set it up so you're not killing the target in the middle of a crowded square with a half dozen guards all around you with swords drawn. Apparently they're just as interested in these speeches as your character is because no one's putting a blade in your gullet while you're sitting there listening to the whole schpeel. Also, if the developers hadn't been so focused on the highly repetitive gameplay (and it is shamelessly repetitive) they really should've let these narrative sequences unfold as part of the assassination mission itself, rather than have each and every target speechify you to death.
It just doesn't feel like they took the time to make the story and the events in this game fit the world they created, which is a shame because it's a wonderful world. Take the near-future scenes that are meant to be present day for the player character. We're set up to believe you've been abducted by this all-knowing, all-seeing company. Yet, their security system is based on ID pens that are easily lost or pilfered? Have they not heard of biometrics? Then there's the assistant woman who speaks freely about things that have happened to her at the company and even lets you access her laptop in full view of a half dozen security cameras. Is *anyone* at all monitoring those things or are they there for show?
Yeah, there's an extent to which I'm nitpicking the game over stuff like this, but little things like that are happening constantly in the game world that break the story's credibility and it's disappointing given how unbelievably cool the game concept is, not to mention the loving attention to detail in the game engine itself.
