I’m an avid gamer and love my Playstation 3. One of the most innovative games to have come out for this generation of gaming was Assassin’s Creed, developed  by Ubsisoft Montreal. Assassin’s Creed sets you as an Assassin named Altair during the crusades and the game had you complete various quests in an open environment. It was a great blend of new technologies and interesting gameplay mechanics. Well Gameloft is here with Assassin’s Creed on the iPhone and it’s actually quite a remarkable game.

The original Assassin’s Creed was a clever blending of modern day elements and medieval story. However this being a mobile version of the game it’s no where close to the same depth or follow even a similar storyline. It’s just a very simplified version of that story. You play an assassin named Altair and the game follows a very linear path of which you complete missions that lead to a final target. Nothing complex and it’s forgettable, but considering this is a mobile game I wouldn’t expect much more.

The game itself is looks amazing. You play in a top down perspective of a fully 3D environment. The textures are really well done and everything looks crisp and colorful. The environments vary from being the streets of Damascus to crawling through sewers. Animations for Altair are smooth as you jump and run across the roof tops and the same can be said about the simplistic combat. It’s definitely one of the better looking games on the iPhone. The sound is also quite well done and they have voice actors performing the parts of the characters. Not to say that the acting is any good but at least it’s better then just reading scrolling text.

What about the actual gameplay? The console version was all about lurking around on the roof tops and trying to avoid getting caught. The ability to traverse environments in any way you want, with multiple paths you could take to get where you need to be. On the iPhone, I know it’s limited in what you can do but giving only one path to the objective isn’t doing the franchise justice. You’re told that you need to find this guy and then it shows you the path on how to get there. No exploration whatsoever, it’s just follow the path to the final goal and move on. Each level starts out with someone telling you to find another person to interrogate or assassinate. Then you have blue orbs show up to mark your path to the objective. It’s just follow the same linear path over and over again.

My biggest problem with the game are the incredibly frustrating controls. You move your character around using an on screen analog stick and then there are two other buttons for combat and jumping. The problem is that with the camera and timing your button presses on the touch screen will result in you dying a lot. Falling off edges, missing jumps and a lot of other problems happen and it can get really frustrating. It really goes to show that perhaps developers should work more on doing something innovative and works for the iPhone rather than making the iPhone work for the controls.

Overall the game is an enjoyable experience if taken in bite size chunks. The biggest problem most people will have is that the controls are frustrating and that there really is no variation in the gameplay. Gameloft has tried adding a few things like weapon upgrades but it serves no purpose because the combat in the game is extremely easy. If you’ve played the original Assassin’s Creed you might find this to be a disappointing experience as the game doesn’t capture what the original was going for. However if your looking for a quick pick-up-and-go game to keep you somewhat amused this will do fine. $9.99 at the App Store.