I'm so unbelievably disappointed. Assassin's Creed had me as excited as a loving, expectant mother. It was right up there with GTA IV and Resident Evil 5 in the sacred "this is going to be incomprehensibly awesome and completely justify my spending £400 on a console" club. Indeed, the first few hours of play featured some of the best gaming moments I've ever had in my life and I was convinced that I was going to give this game 11 out of 10. I thought I'd never possibly get bored in such an amazingly well realized game world, with such an agile and fun to control main character. The problem is however, that after a few hours of play I had done everything that I could do in the game - but I was nowhere near to completing it.

You play the role of Altair, an exceptional but disgraced assassin out to regain his respect during the Third Crusade. Your master offers you a chance at redemption by murdering certain prominent historical figures for what is apparently the greater good. As you'd expect these days, there is a lot more to this convoluted yet occasionally thought- provoking story, which I'm afraid to mention, for fear of spoiling it for you. Suffice to say, there is more going on here than initially meets the eye.

The game takes place amongst the three cities of Jerusalem, Damascus and Acre. Each has been beautifully realised and at first feels like the closest a game has come to creating environments that are genuinely alive. Gorgeous lighting effects and incredible attention to detail on the architecture of the cities make for one hugely immersive game world. Hundreds of impressively detailed people bustle through the dusty streets, going about their daily business. Markets buzz, beggars beg, preachers preach and some people just sit on benches and stare at nothing all day! The ambient sounds of the cities are equally as effective, further plunging you into the amazing atmosphere of these living cities, while music is spared for action and is functional yet forgettable Middle Eastern- tinged orchestral fare.

The first time you climb a viewpoint in one of the cities and look around is a great gaming moment. You can see the whole city, with no pop-up or fog - and it fills you with glee to know that it's yours to explore. And what a way Altair explores! He is without doubt one of the most impressively animated game characters to date. The free running is marvellous and escaping from guards by climbing buildings and jumping across rooftops is initially an exhilarating experience. Any ledge that sticks out more than a few inches can be used to climb, so there are always many options available to you regarding which route to take. You just hold R1 and X and push the left stick in the direction you want him to go, which might sound too simple and not very interactive, but you still always feel in control and there is at least some skill required in looking ahead of you and planning the best route.

There are nine main assassination missions to complete. After you learn who your hit is, you must investigate to gather more information before going in for the kill. Investigations involve climbing viewpoints to see what the area has to offer - Altair somehow has this magical ability to see from these viewpoints who to interrogate, who to pickpocket, who to perform hits on or collect flags for in exchange for information and who to eavesdrop upon. When enough evidence has been gathered, a trip to the assassin's bureau starts the mission, although you can stick around to do extra homework first if you wish. Some of the 'information' is rather silly though; for example, whilst gathering info for an assassination at the docks one informer asks that you kill four people for him before he'll tell you his juicy knowledge. On completion of this task he rewards you with "A drunken sailor is worse than a sober one". I just killed four people for you and you tell me that!?

The general template for the main assassinations is quiet entry and loud exit. It's not possible to use throwing knives for any of the main hits (although they do come in very handy when completing side-assassinations for various informers) because Altair needs to be up close for a little one-to-one with his prospective victims, so that they can justify their actions to him and add a touch of grey to the morality of what you're doing before they die. On reaching your target a cut scene initiates, where your interactivity is limited to making your way through the crowd. Once the cut scene is over you must remain inconspicuous by blending with the crowd (holding X causes Altair to imitate a scholar by putting his hands together and his head down) until you get close enough to reach your target and end his life. Then all hell breaks loose and you must get out of there as fast as you can, losing the guards before you can return to the Assassin's Bureau for your next assignment.

Escaping requires you to break line of sight with the guards, which causes the indicator to change from red to yellow. Once you've broken line of sight, you can evade the guards by either blending with scholars again (like you've no doubt seen in the teaser that's been showing for about the last year), sitting on a bench or hiding in one of the many bails of hay or hiding spots found on rooftops. If you're not in a cowardly mood then you can always stay and fight, too. The fighting system is based around countering and although it's very simple (the square button is the only form of attack, R1 blocks and both buttons together perform a counter attack if timed right), it becomes very satisfying once you get the hang of it, rewarding your efforts with some gratifyingly violent kills. There's also nice variety of execution moves, meaning that it'll take a while before you'll get bored of the animations. Despite what we've been told however, the AI in Assassin's Creed is not a great leap forward from the likes of Splinter Cell. We're still a long way off from AI that acts believably enough that you forget you're playing a game - you can sometimes get away with things like assassinating someone right in front of a guard for example, while at other times the alarm will be raised simply from bumping into someone.

This is nothing compared to the fundamental problem with the game though - after the wonderfully liberating gameplay has been discovered, all that's left is for you to repeat what you've already done over and over again. The three cities have been so beautifully designed that I was sure I would want to spend as much time as I could in each of them - but unfortunately, Ubi Soft have failed to fill these amazing places with enough worthwhile things to do. This is infuriating, as it's just such a waste of what should have been such an exceptional title. I was expecting a sandbox game that would keep me occupied until Christmas, but the truth is that after a solid weekend's play this is a game I won't be coming back to. All there is to do, other than the main missions and subsequent investigative missions, is to hunt for flags, find some viewpoints and save the odd citizen (which rewards you by making the vigilantes of that area assist you thereafter when escaping from guards, by blocking their way). That's it!

My other big gripe with Assassin's Creed is that the developers so convincingly created the illusion of a bustling city, only for it to be shattered after about twenty minutes, by which time you will have heard the same speech samples many times. You could play San Andreas on a creaky old PS2 for forty hours and still hear people mumbling new things as they walk down the street, but in Assassin's Creed it seems that all you hear is that begging woman ("Please sir, I beg of you. Just a few coins."), guards harassing civilians for stealing and people saying things in relation to your own bizarre behaviour, like "What's he doing?" and "If he hurts himself I'm not going to help him." It was the begging woman more than the others that annoyed me though; it seems that she's on every street in every city, getting right in your face, repeating the same lines over and over again. This is an especially annoying obstruction when you're in the middle of a mission; it would be perfectly acceptable if it was an occasional occurrence, but it happens far too often. It really does somewhat ruin the whole experience of playing the game. One bizarre thing is that people in different cities say exactly the same thing in a different accent. If the developers went to the lengths of recording different audio then would it have been too much extra effort to write even slightly different lines to make it seem more realistic and less like a lifeless program? Unfortunately, Altair himself has been voiced with about as much life and charisma as a plank of wood [Did they get Hayden "Anakin" Christensen to voice him then? Ed].

The game would've definitely benefited from a few more interiors. There are no indoor locations to explore in any of the cities other than the Assassin's Bureau (the entrance of which is on a roof). I think a few missions where you had to investigate by eavesdropping or interrogating someone in a bar, for example, would've greatly enhanced the impression of a fully realised city after extended play, when the reality that you're amidst a bunch hollow polygons becomes more pronounced. A day/night cycle would also be a very welcome addition; after all, you'd think that most assassinations would take place at night.

Despite my disappointment at such failed potential, I am still awaiting the inevitable sequel to Assassin's Creed as enthusiastically as I did with this first instalment. Assuming that Ubi Soft realise what they've done so spectacularly wrong (and let's be real, how can they not?!), the skeleton of this game is so good that they have every chance of making a sequel that delivers in every single department. It pains me to score Assassin's Creed so low, as it is stunning in many respects and I want to convey the message that it definitely deserves to be played, even though it tragically falls short as a complete experience. Rent it at the very least and see for yourself just how amazing this game nearly was.

Reviewed by Luke Shaw for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).