Last year’s Assassin’s Creed was one of the most successful games in a year full of hits. The game broke myriad sales records, and managed to polarize a good number of reviewers, with most praising the game’s unique story and production elements, but hating on the simplistic combat engine and ho-hum AI. Still, whether you love it or hate it, Assassin’s Creed is quite the force to be reckoned with on the Xbox 360 and PS3, and now Ubisoft is going for the hat trick with the release of the game on the PC.

Touted as a Director’s Cut Edition, the PC version of Assassin’s Creed offers up some cool new mission options and PC-exclusive features, but largely feels like the console experience. Therefore, those who played through the console version probably won’t find enough incentive to take the second leap of faith. Still, if you have yet to experience the game and have a powerful enough PC to handle the steep requirements, then Assassin’s Creed might just be worth a look.

Assassin’s Creed follows two separate timelines, focusing on Desmond Miles, a bartender living in the year 2012 who “volunteers” (read: gets captured) to be in a top-secret program that involves researching people’s imprinted genetic memories to discover more details about their ancestors. This allows him to take control of his ancestor Altair, an assassin for a secret organization during The Crusades. So, as the future unfolds and Desmond learns more about the experiment being conducted on him, the past becomes clear through Altair’s eyes.

Assassin’s Creed on the PC manages to pack in all of the features of last year’s console game as well as some nice extras. As Altair, you’ll perform a variety of missions throughout realistic medieval cities like Damascus and Jerusalem, doing investigation work by interrogating people, running informant missions, and pick-pocketing, as well as rescuing townspeople from corrupt guards and so on. Once you’ve investigated enough, you’ll be able to take on the coup de grace, in which you find the main person of interest and carry out their assassination.

Being an assassin, stealthiness is definitely one of your virtues, so certain measures must be taken to ensure that you won’t be caught. You’ll have to keep a low-profile when going through the huge towns in order to not get attacked by guards. If guards try to attack you, the game gives you ample opportunities to hide, with plenty of straw bales, benches, and scholars (dressed almost exactly like you) to get lost in.

Additionally, there are some hidden items that you can find if you’re a video-game perfectionist. You can find special flags throughout each area of the kingdom, similar to the hidden packages in GTA, as well as Templars,  who will fight you to the death if they see you (and who you can completely eliminate from the Holy Land).

Being a Director’s Cut, the PC version adds some new features not found in the console versions by way of four different side-quests. They are pretty varied and stand up well when compared to the missions that you do in the regular game. You’ll perform stealth archer assassinations, where you’ll have to go through rooftops killing archers without alerting others, rooftop races, merchant stand destruction missions where you’ll have throw enemies at targeted merchant stands, and escort missions where you have to keep an NPC alive while enemies attack. These extra missions are pretty fun and do a good job of switching up the main game quite a bit and adding some variety.

Assassin’s Creed’s control scheme is called the Contextual Puppeteering Controls, dedicating each button to a different body part. The space bar is the dedicated to controlling Altair’s legs (controlling moves like sprinting or blending in with the crowd), the E key is used to control Altair’s vision, left-shift controls his empty hand to push bystanders out of the way, while the left mouse button controls his attack hand. Holding down the right mouse button will switch Altair from Low Profile mode into High Profile mode, changing his moves to be more urgent as well as more distracting to guards.

The keyboard and mouse configuration takes some getting used to, and doesn’t feel quite as intuitive as it did on consoles. The combat is especially tough with the default PC configuration, and even the parkour elements lack the feeling of ease on other platforms. Fortunately, the game fully supports gamepads like the Xbox 360 controller for Windows (which then plays out tantamount to the Xbox 360 version), making a gamepad definitely the way to go.

Additionally, Assassin’s Creed for the PC still falls prey to the shortcomings of the console versions. The combat is very simplistic and feels plain, resulting in a lot of button-tapping and lacking in the overall finesse of other games like Prince of Persia. Additionally, the AI leaves quite a bit to be desired, as guards will act quite sporadically, sometimes attacking you for doing next to nothing and other times ignoring you when you’re being quite suspicious.

Graphically, the game looks pretty similar to the consoles, which means it looks pretty good. The environments are huge and sprawling and the character models look great. Unfortunately, the game requires a pretty hefty PC in order to get all of the bells and whistles. The sound is also quite good, with a great soundtrack and some nice voice acting and dialog elements.

Assassin’s Creed for the PC is a solid version of the game, and if you have a computer that is up to the task, then the added side-quests make it the best version to own. Unfortunately, it still falls prey to the same issues that plagued the console versions, meaning that those who didn’t like the original game will still take issue with this one. Still, if the game’s plot and theme intrigues you and you haven’t yet took the plunge into the console version, then certainly give it a try.

Gameplay: 8.0
Assassin’s Creed for the PC takes the fun gameplay elements from the console version and adds some great new side quests. Unfortunately, the game also still falls prey to the console version’s shortcomings, namely repetitive gameplay, insipid AI, and boring combat.

Graphics: 8.5
Graphically, the game is on par with the console version, meaning that the characters look great and environments are huge.

Sound: 8.5
The game’s sound effects are sharp and the score is very good. The voice acting also sounds quite nice, and the script is pretty good.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.5
While the narrative can be pretty jarring at first, Assassin’s Creed offers a pretty intriguing storyline that will keep you engaged.

Overall: 8.3
Assassin’s Creed for the PC is a pretty compelling action game that benefits from huge environments and an interesting story. While the main campaign can get a bit repetitive, the new Director’s Cut features add some nice variety, and make this the version to pick up if you’ve been holding out until now.