It's no mean feat entertaining someone for a three hour stretch. Most movies, no matter how good, can't do this. What we're seeing is games that edge closer to carving out a true identity as interactive entertainment are finding themselves in a predicament. Either the game runs short of what traditionalists consider "appropriate", or things tend to get a trifle rehashed as time goes on.

Assassin's Creed errs too much to the latter. It looks amazing - as we all have witnessed through a majestic build-up in the public eye - plays well most of the time, and has a great setting (caveat below). But by the time the end of the game wheels around, you will have definitely had your fill of killing, skulking, and running around.

It's safe enough to talk about the story now, so in my considered opinion, I think it's a pile of ass. As much as the Ubi team has built a formidable rep for flair and creativity when it comes to painting a picture, the premise for Assassin's Creed seems utterly silly.

What's so bad about just being an ass kicking assassin from the dark ages? The game is cloaked in a distracting modern-day plot that just seems entirely unnecessary. Without dwelling on it, you're a bartender slash killer from modern times who gets coerced by suitably scientific types into having your chromosome level memory tapped into in their quest to uncover...stuff. This is a roundabout way of justifying your control of Altair, one time hot assassin fallen on hard times after his pride leads to him breaking the Assassin's Creed - the rules the Assassin's live by - and screwing up a mission.

There's just one small problem with the whole genetic memory thing - WHY go there in the first place? It's entirely excess to requirements. Maybe it facilitates future games in the series but the intro, the spidery DNA strand visuals crawling across the interface, and the whole matrix thing left me cold as ice. Even worse, while you can turn off the display elements, by default they are there, bright, shining and decidedly non-Crusades-ish. Maybe you'll think differently, but for me it really takes you out of the flow of the game.

Flow is a good word to stick to, because if there is one thing beyond looking superb that Assassin's Creed does, it's give you smooth control. Moving Altair about quickly ends up second nature. You will endure a learning curve, but unlike many games the quality of this title makes it worth your while. What you quickly realise is in this game, the combat and violence fall a distant second in thrill factor to the joy of moving all over the scenery. This is not Ninja Gaiden, where you bounce all over the joint, its a more realistic interpretation. Altair scales walls, runs along narrow beams, and leaps with a feline level of fluidity. The NPCs he interacts with fare less well - quite often you'll see people walking into stationary objects or woodenly waving limbs about in a manner eerily reminiscent of blokes trying to be Justin Timberlake on the dancefloor..

While most games feature this level of AI controlled tomfoolery, in Assassin's Creed it's even more noticeable due to the personal level on which you operate. You constantly interact with characters in the game world, and the much vaunted crowd mechanics of the game also hinge on a realistic sensation of moving through a throng of people. It works well most of the time - pushing your way through a crowd has never looked better - but the odd niggly person not doing what they are supposed to can crop up and ruin the moment.

Combat is the final leg of the AC tripod. It's fun for awhile, but it could have been better. I wanted to feel like each encounter was personal - that I knew about who I was taking down, that the story had given me more reason to justify to myself why they needed to die. AC has a stab at doing this, but because you spend a lot of your time fighting (especially in later stages) the value on human life goes out the window. This in turn robs from the emotional impact the story is meant to have on you, and you end up playing AC with the "clear out the in-tray" approach as opposed to a wide-eyed exploration of the stunning, evocative game world Ubisoft have delivered here.

The actual action is a lot fairer. You don't need Virtua Fighter 3TB-style reflexes to hold your own against foes in AC. Counters are possible even by a reasonably slow reflexed player, and there's a decent combat mechanic at work - but because the majority of your time is spent beating up reasonably generic foes, the whole experience falls a distant second to the sheer joy of ripping around the landscape. The most tense moments you will have in the game focus around your flight than your fight - the disparity between the fun factor of the two is quite pronounced.

Is Assassin's Creed the second coming of gaming? Nope. It's a very, very good concept weighed down by some legacy game mechanics. The level of interaction you can have with your environment whilst free running isn't reflected in the approach to combat, which definitely has been seen before. Even so, the game's ambition and promise should see it high on your shopping list, even if the thrills don't endure as long as the action does.

Assassin's Creed probably falls short of many people's impossible expectations, but it's still a hot number in a swag of top games coming out this year. The storyline is a love or hate affair, but the setting and game flow are magnificent compensation. The control is also exemplary, however a little more combat depth and variety would serve well. The lack of multiplayer isn't that bad an omission if you're seeking some kind of deathmatch model - it's just not that kind of game - however co-op Assassin's Creed would have been a thing of rare beauty. Next time? Who knows.