OMG This is a GOOD GAME!

Ok, first let me say that I am most certainly behind the times writing this article, but let me explain the context a little.

I got my XBox360 well after the core HoC group did, and I spent most of the first few months just trying to catch up to them in the online games they played. Then came Halo3, COD4 and Burnout: Paradise in relatively short order, basically taking up all of my gaming bandwidth. There is currently a lull in the release of quality multiplayer games (it looks like Fronlines: Fuel of War is going to be a dud), so I decided to fire up eBay and pick up a couple of games that fell under my radar.

So I bought Gears of War and Assassin's Creed.

Gears of War came first and I played it a bit. It was okay, but it hasn't, at least up to now, fired my imagination in any way. I can't really tell you what I think of it because I haven't managed to really get into it.

Then came Assassin's Creed.

Burnout who? COD4 what?

This is one heck of a game!! I picked it up in from the mailbox when I got home yesterday, put it in the XBox and the next thing I knew it was Midnight.

Obviously the biggest drawback is no mutiplayer, which is probably why I hadn't gotten to even look at it before, but my god, it is pretty.

The storyline is solid, but a little drawn out. The graphics and backgrounds are breathtaking. The character movement fluid and believable, and the controls and gameplay are simple to grasp, yet become increasingly challenging as the game goes on. The storyline seamlessly integrates the initial tutorial and it leads you through the increasingly complex controls so fluidly that you really don't even know it's happening until you realize you are using more sophisticated weaponry and getting better and better at getting in, killing, and then disappearing in the shadows.

The environment, set in the Middle East during the Crusades, is so breathtaking that sometimes you just have to stop and take it in. The first view of Damascus, coming through a pass on your horse (the horseback riding is amazing as well) is really high on the 'Wow' factor.

Anyway, this game will never make it big in the HoC world because we are, in essence, a multiplayer only kind of group, but I am afraid I am going to lose a fair amount of this weekend (a long weekend here in the US of A) to this game. Which is fine, since the rest of you losers need to catch up to me in Burnout anyway.