The phrase “late to the party” springs to mind whenever I boot up my xbox360 these days and spend the evening guiding the assassin Altair over the rooftops of Damascus. When Assassin’s Creed was the newest kid on the block I encountered it both in console and PC form, and both iterations failed to impress me. The PC port controls were crippling even on my unusually spidery fingers, and the xbox360 version was sampled while sitting in a gaming chair which stole the show by miles. For several years, then, Assassin’s Creed passed beneath my notice, and only in the last month did I finally come back around and find it in a 3 for 2 offer that I simply couldn’t resist.

Everyone assures me that “the second game is better”, which is a relief because if Assassin’s Creed was an indicator of a full series trend then I probably wouldn’t have invested much more of my time in it. It’s repetitive enough to make Dave’s Mock the Week reruns look fresh and lacks any real finesse as far as gameplay or plot are concerned. Instead, it relies on the lure of completionism to propel players to the game’s conclusion. Filling your “DNA bars” by completing the same tasks in slightly different settings with slightly smarter enemies doesn’t sound appealing on paper, and it doesn’t amount to much in reality either. But it’s the carrot on the stick that leads the donkey onwards.

In other words, playing Assassin’s Creed makes me feel like an ass.