Assassin's Creed
I started replaying this recently, and at first it was easy to dislike; Assassin's Creed is at its worst when it's redundant, so playing through the beginning of the game again was a chore. Cutscenes tend to be long and unengaging, and the same can be said about traveling through the Kingdom overworld. But, man, I'm torn - because now that I'm settling into the game's mechanics again, I'm discovering the hidden depths of its exploration and stealth combat.
It's not all flowers and chocolate. I'd posit that AC has reached the uncanny valley of gameplay, such that the game's impressive physics and animation are easily marred by occasional control failures. Even if Altair climbs the tower flawlessly 19 times out of 20, that one time he can't grab the handhold right in front of him, or jumps away instead of up, shatters the illusion.
When it works, though, it's just as much of a blast as the new PoP: climbing up things, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Plus, there is the whole assassin thing. Direct combat is competent, I'm still getting the hang of that, but the preferable alternative - and probably the coolest thing in this game - is the stealth kill. This isn't like so many other games where you need to sneak up behind a dude and then hit a Slit Throat button; Altair freeforms this shit.
I can sneak up from behind, or walk casually by, or sprint up, or even leap from a ledge and use my equipped wrist blade to gank a bitch in style. The robust game engine means that almost any approach will work, and I actually have a lot more fun running headlong into someone and assassinating them, than with the whole sneaking schtick. I wish Metal Gear Solid was like this.
Meanwhile, the other gameplay stuff - gathering information and setting the stage for assassination missions - is still fresh for me. I've read from numerous outlets that these tasks become incredibly repetitive, but the novelty hasn't worn off for me, possibly because I've been skipping a lot of them. (I'd estimate that you only have to do maybe 1/5 or less of the available tasks in an area.)
My opinion of the unique plot framing is a bit waffly now. The story is somewhat intriguing, so I'm hopeful that it will develop into something really cool as I progress, but again I think Assassin's Creed has fallen hard into the uncanny valley. The game's world is excruciatingly planned and presented, yet the control interface is so simplified - as are some gameplay elements, like pressing the Blend button to follow a group of monks around indefinitely - that it's anti-immersive, a frequent reminder that, yeah, this is a video game.
Of note, I recently started playing with an Xbox 360 controller instead of a keyboard, and it does feel a little easier in terms of combining simultaneous actions. But I'm pretty surprised at how poorly the controller support was built in. By default, my X, Y, and B buttons were all transposed; the right stick wasn't assigned to anything; and though the 360 version of the game uses the analog triggers for targeting and high/low profile mode, apparently the PC version's control settings are unable to use these analog controls for digital actions. Bizarre.
Progress: Memory Block 3