Final Remarks
We've seen a number of Assassin's Creed reviews, and we've run more benchmarks on the game than we'd care to admit. The question most gamers really want answered is: should they consider purchasing AC, or should they give it a pass? That's a judgment call that will vary by individual preferences, so let's dissect things a bit further.
First, there's a suggestion in some circles that AC is heir to the Thief throne -- that those who loved the Thief series will think AC is awesome. We definitely wouldn't make that recommendation, as the style of gameplay is dramatically different. Where Thief primarily involves skulking about and avoiding confrontation where possible, AC revels in wanton violence. Sure, you can use stealth at times to avoid the guards, but it typically is not required. In fact, we're more inclined to view AC as being closer to FPS games like Serious Sam than to "thinking" FPS games like Deus Ex. (Ed: the first Deus Ex.) Besides, a bit of violence generally results in the more entertaining free running escapades, which are one of the better aspects of the game.
The second complaint that comes up is the matter of repetition. There's no getting around this one: the game is repetitious. If you're looking for a game like Oblivion where you can wander freely and experience the game world for hundreds of hours, AC will disappoint. At their core, however, most games are repetitious. In FPS games you explore levels killing foes and going from point A to point B; in RPGs you fight battle after battle where the specifics change but the essence remains static. Some of the best games of the past year or so -- STALKER and Bioshock -- are also quite repetitive. What I can say with relative confidence is that if you didn't like the story and presentation in Bioshock (I know a few people out there that really dislike that game), it's unlikely you will enjoy AC. And as for repetitiveness… well, maybe it's the fact that running benchmarks is part of my job description, but I didn't find it to be a huge concern over the course of the game. If the game had extended beyond the 20 hour mark, it would become more of an issue, but doing similar tasks repeatedly seems to be typical of almost all games. (MMOs anyone, or how about Solitaire? You don't even want to know how many hours I've spent playing Solitaire and Minesweeper over the years!)
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Personally -- and ignoring the DirectX 10.1 controversy -- I found the game to be highly entertaining and wouldn't hesitate to recommend people give it a look. This is made all the more viable with the reduced pricing: the game is available for $35, which is very reasonable for the 15-20 hours of entertainment it provides. It's unfortunate that Ubisoft didn't release a demo for the game, as that could have helped more people come to a decision, but if you have a chance to try the game at a friend's house or elsewhere I'd suggest you do so. AC certainly rates high on my list of best games released so far in 2008 (for the PC), but then 2008 hasn't been a stellar year so far. (Ed: I'm drooling while I wait for Fallout 3….)
Ultimately, gaming likes and dislikes are highly subjective. I've seen mediocre reviews of AC and I've seen others hailing it as the best thing to hit the market in recent history. I'm inclined to take the average of those viewpoints… and then leap 200 feet into a waiting pile of hay to avoid the pursuing trolls. Some will find the sci-fi "setting" of the game a nuisance; others will go into full fanboy mode and wander around conventions dressed as Altaïr. The game doesn't have any multiplayer aspect, and it's linear enough that there's no major reason to replay the game. However, $35 for 15 hours of entertainment is a lot better than three or four trips to the movies.
Still not sure if the game is worthwhile? We've put together some videos of the various gameplay elements on the next page. The videos come from the second major mission in the game and should help to give you a better idea of what it's like to step into Altaïr's sandals.
| Assassin's Creed - System Requirements/Recommendations | ||
| Required | AnandTech Recommends | |
| CPU | Pentium D 2.6GHz or Athon X2 3800+ | Core 2 Duo E6600 or Faster |
| RAM | 1GB XP, 2GB Vista | 2GB or more |
| Storage | 8GB free HDD space, Dual-layer DVD-ROM | 8GB free HDD space, Dual-layer DVD-ROM |
| GPU | 256MB DirectX 9.0c (SM3.0) PCI-E Radeon X1600 or better GeForce 6800 or better |
256MB DirectX 10.0 PCI-E Radeon HD 3850 or better GeForce 8800 or better |
| OS | Windows XP/Vista 32-bit | Windows Vista |
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geogaddi - Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - link
...now, what did i do with that babelfish...
ssgoten00 - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
AC was only an average game overall. Graphics presentation was it's strong suit but gameplay was lacking and the game seemed to drag on as the player progresses through the game. Undoubtedly the repetitiveness was the worst part of AC. Not simply the fact that is seemed like some tasks were a redue of previously accomplished tasks but the shear fact that tasks were repeated verbatim with same characters and voices, only changing dialogue to create variation. Some characters players will have to kill multiple times under the guise of actually killing different characters in the game. AC was also disappointing in the fact that it mislead gamers in presenting its self a a somewhat stealth game. Nothing could be further from the truth. In AC players will often be forced into full on combat with multiple opponents to progress in the storyline. In vary select situations players have the choice of using stealth as a viable option. Ironically the last 5 or 10 minutes at the very end of the game are the most compelling. After the credits roll players are left in the main room to explore and decrypt code and hidden messages. It's unfortunate AC's developers couldn't have spent more time on puzzles that actually pertained to gameplay. Out of a possible 10 I give Assassin's Creed a 6.0 barely coming in at par, bordering on subpar.Donkey2008 - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
It does have a Thief feel but after playing it on Xbox, I found it to be more Thief meets BloodRayne meets Splinter Cell with some of the best graphics I have seen in a while. It is sorta repetitive,but the violence cut away any boredom I had. I enjoyed it a lot.But I guess they could have done what other Rockin high-profile companies do and make an even more repetitive game exactly like its previous versions, but with a much worse soundtrack. Throw in some terribly low-res character models and reuse the same, bottom-of-the-barrel, cartoon-looking cutscenes and they would have a perfect 10 as well.
poohbear - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
this is the kind of game reviews i'd like to see, wherein hardware is tested w/ a game to show performance. I mean, you guys ARE a hardware site and there are'nt many sites that do game reviews w/ hardware testing shortly after. I dont think u should do game reviews without hardware testing cause there are a ton of game review sites, but your niche shines when you do these hardware and DX analysis. cheers and thanks for a very informative article.DesertCat - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
The article talks about wanting to check the performance of Assassin's Creed on a Phenom processor (and its 4 cores). I can speak to that to some degree.I have a Phenom 9600 (2.3 MHz) on an AM2 board (Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe) with an EVGA 8800GT OC (650 MHz). I play at 1280x1024 so I play in a letterbox mode. This processor is enough to run the game at acceptable frame rates but I would tend to think that a fast dual core would do just as well (like was found with the Intel processors in the article).
With the performance hurting TLB patch enabled, I noticed one area where frame rates truly took a nosedive: when doing the "look" pan from the top of one of those towers. I didn't have an fps counter on at the time, but I'm guessing it was in the 12-16 fps range based on the chunkiness I experienced. I got similar slow framerates when diving from those spots into the hay (especially the really high towers).
With the TLB patch disabled on my Phenom, those two low fps spots were much better. I'm guessing that those areas were in the low 20's of fps. The rest of the game was smooth as silk and probably above 40 fps. I do not, however, see high utilization on any particular core when I've checked.
If I was to point to areas that really stress a system in AC, I would say that the tower pan shots are the most common. (*minor spoiler ahead*) King Richard's speech from horseback about 3/4 the way through the game is also very intensive.
aguilpa1 - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
I know I've had it for a long time?emboss - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
The word you *are* looking for is possibly letterboxing?PrinceGaz - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
I was going to mention that as well. Anamorphic means the pixels making up the image are stretched either horizontally (as with wide-screen DVDs) or vertically when displayed. If the game were anamorphic, it would be like it running on a monitor at 1920x1080 but being rendered internally at some other resolution such as 1440x1080 and stretched to the displayed 1920x1080.The correct description is what you said originally, that it allows only a 16:9 aspect-ratio view, so if I ran it on my monitor (1600x1200 native) the game itself would only use the central 1600x900 of that.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Sorry - I saw the original comment and thought I corrected it. Missed the other two occurrences. I wasn't thinking and just used the word after reading the thread on widescreengamingforum.com about AC. (I was hoping someone had found a way around the locked letterbox view.)AnnihilatorX - Monday, June 2, 2008 - link
This review is great! I have never read a game review that includes all the analysis, benchmarks, gameplay video conveniently presented.Excellent work!