What joy for me: sheer greatness made in Quebec

Assassin's Creed starts extremely slowly to leave you plenty of time to learn its controls and then spirals into one of the greatest games I have ever played. Its intrigue, though not very difficult to figure out, is gripping and its playability is just awesome. I am very proud to know that fellow Quebecers put it together.

The game starts with Desmond Myles, a bartender who has been kidnapped by an all-powerful pharmaceutical company that wants to experiment on him. It's not as if they give him much of a choice either. Their premise: your memory doesn't just store your own life experiences, but those of your ancestors as well. It turns out that one of Desmond's ancestors, Altair, was part of the Assassins, a group of warriors that fought the Crusaders during the holy wars of the 12th century.

To access Altair's memories, the company has created a machine called the Animus. It is through the Animus that you perform your missions as Altair and unlock bits and pieces of his memory. At first, Altair is the Assassins' top asset. However, he gets reckless during a mission in which he is meant to recover a treasure of the Knight Templars. Angry, Assassin leader Al Muhalim strips Altair of his credentials and many of his slick moves and tricks (which is naturally an excuse for you to have to earn them back as you complete missions). In other words, you kill your way to the top of the food chain. To do so, you are sent to the holy cities of Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem.

As you complete missions, you alternate between controlling Altair while plugged onto the Animus and Desmond when the two scientists who supervise you give you a break. The two scientists are radically different. The main man is a doctor whose name escapes me right now and who seems to be in a major hurry. You'll begin to understand why as you progress. However, his assistant Lisa is of great help. Desmond quickly befriends her and she gives him valuable bits of information. The storyline has a way to tantalize you so that you keep going because you must know what happens next.

The game's graphics remind you why you upgrade from one generation of consoles to the next. Every corner of each city has extraordinary detail and one of the best parts of the game is when you must climb up tall buildings to find your objectives. The distance at which graphical detail remains ridiculously good is astounding. Almost every person and building casts a shadow. Just about every animation is smooth as silk and nearly succeeds at making your forget you're playing a game. Altair moves effortlessly and I believe swordfights are as natural as they can be given the current capacity of the consoles we play. All this in spite of the fact that cities are vast beyond what you can imagine and filled with several thousands of citizens.

The sound is also stellar. When you're on the ground, you hear people several people speak including merchants who attempt to sell you their products and you see groups of people who gather around orators who bark out their propaganda. In contrast, when you climb to the top of buildings, the conversations of the aforementioned people become more distant and you can hear the wind and the eagle that constantly follows you around from up high. The musical soundtrack is also excellent, with subtle themes that will have you stopping to listen every once in a while because you've just noticed them for the first time. The voice acting is fairly good, with Quebec actors doing a very convincing job of sounding French. The only weak point is that every citizen you save has one of three things they can say to you, so it can get repetitive, especially when you can't wait to get away because hordes of guards are hot on your tail. The other annoying thing is the "horn," if I may describe it as such, that won't stop when you're being chased by guards. And even when you manage to lose them, it will keep blaring until you hide for a few seconds to restore your anonymity.

The controls are mostly a joy to use. Altair is not just a skilled stealth assassin; he's also a great swordsman and a world-class free runner. It's a joy to jump from rooftop to rooftop effortlessly by just holding a few buttons. Nearly every action, for all the time you'll spend learning the controls, is a one-button affair and is extremely easy to execute. You can use four weapons with equal ease, including the secret blade. Every successful blow with this blade is a one-hit kill that never gets old. However, it's the swordfights that will amaze you. Before you acquire some of the more useful skills, it is a little bit of a button-mashing affair, but when you do get those skills (especially the counter option), it gets extremely entertaining. The only setback is the occasional time when you'll miss the ledge you're trying to reach and jump to your death, but it doesn't happen often enough to spoil the experience.

I have heard many criticize the game by underlining the repetitive nature of the missions. To some degree, I concur. However, I don't think it's a major issue. Each boss battle is different and any excuse is a good one to wander around in the streets of these gorgeous cities. The only repetitive element that got on my nerves was the capture-the-flags challenges, which basically require you to fail them a few times to realize where the flags are and then complete them.

The final punch is obvious, the ending is not very satisfying because it doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that a sequel is coming, but these things are minor flaws in what is otherwise an amazing experience. Not since I galloped through Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had I come across a universe of such beauty and width along with such graphical advances. It also controls amazingly well and the storyline is compelling. Every character, whether it's Altair or the warlords he kills, are nuanced and bring credibility to the story. Breezing through the game without minding the extra objectives and side quests might take you around 20 hours, but crank that up to 50 if you really decide to explore and clear every objective. Talk about bang for your buck.

This is the kind of game that reminds me why I love video games and why I have continued to play them past my adolescence. It's so good, I could see a good movie being made out of it. Assassin's Creed is one of the five best games I have ever played and it doesn't have one single dull moment. Think of how rare that is in a game.