One Flag Too Few

I enjoyed Assassin's Creed when I finished it a while back. I really did. The plot twists were unique and well contrived; the combat was fresh and oh-so-fun; and the achievements seemed frequent and fun to get. I'm not going to lie, when I saw the "Enemy of the Poor" achievement pop up on my screen, I literally laughed out loud. The game seemed to be this one continual ride...until it hit me that I wanted to get the last achievement at the same time as I finished the game. The result of this resolution was to keep me between the seventh and eighth assassination missions searching for flags for about two weeks.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Assassin's Creed's achievement listing falls into four basic categories, as referenced above: plot, combat, exploration, and extras. The plot-based achievements are impossible to miss as they unlock through a standard play-through of the game. Basically, as long as you continue to complete the game, these will continue unlock happily. The combat ones are pretty linear as well. Killing people in varied fashions will inevitably unlock them all, especially if you're horrible at staying hidden from the guards as I was on occasion. As expected, the hardest achievements come in the form of the exploration and extras.

Before I delve too deeply, I want to address the flags. Most, if not all, of the people I have talked to have complained about the flags. Phrases commonly heard include "They don't do anything, so why are they there?" and "What's the point of having them besides artificially lengthening the game and making more achievements?" While these points are all well and good, allow me to remind my readers that achievements are COMPLETELY VOLUNTARY. That's right. If you want to, you can complete the game, get the simple plot-based achievements and never worry about it again. That's your right. What the flags and other achievements of the like are for is for people like me who finish the game and want more of the same game...something more to brag about. Thus, flags are born.

That being said, collecting the flags made me want to twist my own thumbs off. Sure, they weren't supposed to be easy, but it got quite frustrating when I found 99/100 on my checklist (yes, I did use a map) only to realize that my list had 100/100 checked off...and I was still missing one but I had no clue which...which then lead to a scurry about the city checking for each and every flag until I found the one I was missing. Now, what I would have preferred would have been something like what they did in Acre. In that city, the flags were broken down by the district they were located in, making it easy to know which flags I was missing or not. While this would be nigh impossible for the Richard flags strewn about the frustratingly massive kingdom, it would have made the cities just that much more bearable.

On a side note, killing the Templars was far too satisfying.

There's a few extra achievements that fall under the extras, "Absolute Symbiosis" for one. This particular achievement made me think of the Legend of Zelda games...and how many times I searched for that last fragment of heart...at least this time I got something more than a bit of life out of it.

In the interest of brevity (for this post is already far too long), I shall wrap this up with a final few thoughts. I enjoyed Assassin's Creed, hands down. The achievement list, though painfully tedious at many moments, was one that was completely capable of being achieved by an average Joe such as myself. As this game was the first (and as of this posting the only) 1000/1000 gamerscore I have achieved, it has found completion and will mostly likely never be played as intensely ever again.

Overall Gamerscore for Assassin's Creed: 855/1000
+ Solid Achievements
+ Achievements weren't contrived post-production
+ Had some humor and thought put into them
- Had several long moments of tediousness
- Could have used something other than flags......