This is the first installment of the Assassin's Creed series. The game centers around the use of a machine dubbed the "Animus", which allows its user to view the genetic memories of his or her ancestors, centering around the protagonist, a bartender named Desmond Miles. As Desmond relives the memories of one of his ancestors, the Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad who lived in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade, details of a battle between two ancient sects – the Knights Templar and the Assassin Order – emerge as both scour for an artifact known only as a "Piece of Eden."
A lot of people hate on this game for its repetitive mission construct, somewhat shotty controls, and Desmond scenes. However, I think that a lot of people are forgetting that this was the first game made in the series. There was nothing before it to compare it to, and there was no benchmark of excellence. I think that we need to look at where it lead to. The game at the time was awesome. The ability to scale any building was cool and the parkour system innovative. This game had my favorite pickpocketing system. This game had the best mission construct and use of mini-games. Anything that was given a tutorial at the beginning was used thoroughly throughout the game. None of the other games did this.
Another thing I liked about the first AC game was that the towns were expansive and different. Each city had its own things, and the intercity maps were expansive as well. I was glad they implemented a fast travel function so you could easily get from place to place. Overall, really solid game.
Although this was the first game, it still need to be faulted at what it did badly. The parkour part is what bothered me the most. I was constantly falling off and missing jumps because Altaïr was feeling a little suicidal. I could go on forever about how crappy the first few games parkour element was. It was bad. For a game revolving around that element I wished they spent more time. Another thing that bothered me were the missions. They were repetitive. There were the same nine things over and over again. It got repetitive, but it didn't get boring. This is because, each mission was executed very well. A lot of people like to really harp on the repetitiveness of the game, but I didn't find it all that bad.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game and in really hyped my for the others.