Gorgeous environments, chases over rooftops and fun swordplay in this game (PC version)
I bought this game on Steam.
The video game was amazing. Here are the pros and cons that I saw:
PROS:
1. The outdoor environments are huge and all beautifully detailed. You also get to ride on horseback.
2. The buildings, mosques and churches and other architecture are amazingly realistic and I think these along with #4 below "made" the game. These really made it feel like you were in Jerusalem or Damascus. FREAKING amazing. I think this game is a landmark video game just because of the quality of the graphics for the buildings. Even the golden domes on the mosques shine with the sunlight. The game should get an award for this.
3. You will have many hours of fun because of the swordfights. Every time the player levels up, he acquires new swordfighting and combat skills. This makes combat always interesting and there's always something new to try out on your targets.
4. Both the "Bourne Identity" movies and the new James Bond movies have scenes where the hero has the climb walls and jump from roof to roof all with just his bare hands. In this game, YOU are Jason Bourne doing all that stuff. This and #2 "made" this game. When you're jumping from roof to roof and you're being chased by 12 guards while archers are taking aim at you, the feeling is exhilarating.
5. When you are in a city, you have a lot of freedom about where to go and what to do. It feels like "GTA" with horses and not cars. There is even a meter that indicates how "wanted" you are by the guards.
CONS:
1. The "Save a citizen" quests feel very repetitive after you've done a hundred of them.
2. You cannot swim. If you land in the water, you die. Why? If the hero is able to pull off the roof jumping stunts, why can't he swim?
3. You have to pick the pockets of armed thugs to replenish your knives. There is no assassin's store.
4. There is not enough variety in the dialogue spoken by NPCs. It becomes irritating to hear the same thing said over and over by towncrier-type NPCs.
Note to the folks at UBISOFT:
UBISOFT, be careful that the depiction of the Christian religion in your video games is fair compared to the depiction of other religions or beliefs. There are people who seriously consider that when choosing to buy your high-quality games or high quality games from another company.

Great game
This is a great game that offers many hours of play time.
Some people might be worried about the controls in the PC version but once you get used to them they allow for much quicker actions than on console. If all else fails you can always buy a Xbox 360 controller for your pc.

Simply Gorgeous
I decided to give this a try on the pc since it was only 30 bucks and don't want my pc to collect dust.

I'll start with the good: This game is beautiful and has the most immersive maps I have ever seen in game. It's like watching HD for the first time. Truly the best graphics I have ever seen and yes better than the crapiest game on earth, Crysis. The movement during fights is as realistic as can be and is fluid with you in full control. I've never seen that either, I've seen fight sequences that go into automode to impress you but you lose control of the fight. These fights, you are in complete control and are making the movements which to me is revolutionary for an action game. The audio is top notch with excellent voice overs. This game is so realistic, I actually got a knot in my stomach when I climed the highest tower thinking I was scared of falling! That's impressive when a game can do that. The whole virtual story line was also kind of refereshing. Hollywood is probably already making a movie out of this. Also, there were absolutely no glitches on this game! I ran it at it's highest settings and not one freeze lockup or crash! The game was extremely smooth. I'll put my pc specs at the end of this review.

Okay now the bad:

This game is for a console. The learning curb for keyboard and mouse is extremely high. I had so much trouble the first couple of days trying to get used to the movements. This game becomes very hard to control because of this. So much so I actually considered stopping all together, but the key is persistence and practice. Eventually the controls became second nature and I was able to play it fairly smooth with the keyboard and mouse. You could also add a pad to the pc but I didn't want to go through the troule. Also, the game became extremely repetitive half way through. It's basically climbing towers, pickpocketing, saving citezens and assasinating the leader. This was constantly repeated and became boring a little half way thorugh the game. I was also very annoyed at the capturing the flag side missions. First of all, what the hell do you get for getting them all? Second of all, it's boring looking for every single one. So I passed on that side mission as it was way too boring. While the cities were immersive with many citezens making it seem real, in the end the immersive maps and people looked more an more unreal. Like robots since the missions and actions were so repetitive. Example: you save a citezen and the second your done with diologue they look at the bodies and are horrified as if you never saved them at all. This is done so repetively that the dialogue is the same citezen after citezen. There was little interaction you could have with poeple. It's like they were locked to do only basic functions like robots. I don't fault the game too much since I'm sure most of the resources were probably used for the graphics and immersive maps.

This game is without a doubt a classic; however, I play this now just to show people how amazing it looks but I don't play it for replay value. If you have a next gen console, get if for that but if you only have a PC 30 bucks is a bargin if your willing to through the high learning curve with the controls.

PC SPECS AS PROMISED:
Vaio desktop pc
300 gb hardrive
2 gig memory
2.8 gig dual core pentium D
Nvidia 8800 GTS 640 mb graphics card

Has a Few Flaws and no Ending but UBISOFT is Working on a Sequel
Assassin's Creed is one of the best games I've played, but it has several flaws that I hope they correct in the sequel.

The main flaw in Assassin's Creed is that there isn't enough variety and planning in the assassinations. Most of the time it is impossible to get to your target without fighting your way through the guards so planing and stealth doesn't help much in the actual assassinations(it's a good thing that Assassin's Creed has a great combat engine). The other flaws are: The assassin can't change disguises and you would think a real assassin would, The assassin can't swim and it seams like someone so well trained in all other ways would know how to swim, and the story doesn't end but this isn't really a flaw because they are making a sequel but I don't know when it will come out except that UBISOFT has started on the sequel and it probably won't be out this year(2008)

Assassin's Creed is a good blend of action/adventure and open-world. It far longer and more open than most action games and much more story driven then most open-world games. Also it has far more realistic and detailed game Play and graphics than any game I've played: running, jumping, climbing, and fighting are all smooth, fluid and realistic. Game play is well balanced between your mastery of the controls and the difficulty of your opponents while maintaining a smooth realistic look(I never got tired of the fights even though some of the other aspects of the game got rather repetitive and dull).

I recommend a X box type controller and even though the game's tutorial isn't designed for it a PlayStation type controller also works well if you set the game on X box and press 1 when it tells you to press 0, 2 when it tells you to press 1 and so on(I used a PlayStation type controller)

Assassin's Creed worked great on my computer and the only problem I had was that it froze three times:

* Windows Vista Home Premium
* EVGA Nvidia nForce 680i SLI 775 A1 Version
* Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 2.40GHz
* Corsair Dominator 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2
* 2(SLI) EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS Superclocked
* Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty with 64MB of X-RAM.
* 2 Western Digital Raptor X 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drives in Raid 0 Array,

Unstable and disappointing
I bought the game before discovering that there is a significant reputation for lock up and crashing problems on the three platforms for which it is available. It is truly unfortunate that the stabillity issues are not being addressed by releasing company. I can only blame myself for not researching the game better before purchasing it. The graffics on the PC are wonderful, given some good horsepower, but the game crashes within 5 minutes. The problem is slightlyt more prevalent on nVidia based systems (my preference) but the problems are common on PS2 and XBOX 360s as well. I will check once a month for the hoped for update. Wait for the price to drop, as it will, as a reuslt of the stabillity issues, and later it may be a good value, after the needed fixes are available. I have hope for a fix on the PC, those unfortunates with PS2 and XBOX 360s may be SOL for an update.

Good luck, you have been warned.

on the plus side though, the graphics are amazing :)