The social interactions cannot go without comment either, as they are integral to pretty much everything else in the game. This is sort of where the AI begins to falter. You can quietly assassinate some Joe Somebody in the open, blend in like a scholar, and have no one suspect you. Later on, your allotment for devious mischief will decrease, since your exploits previously put the guards in an even more suspicious state to the point where they will attack you just for walking closer than five feet. When the guards are after you, the only way to shake them off is by breaking their line of sight and hiding in a rooftop “thing” (some kind of shade structure, I assume), group of scholars, a bench, or a pile of hay. You can also try and kill all of the guards after you, but since the combat is balanced in a way that more than one enemy is significantly dire to your survival, it's better to just run most of the time.
Two major annoyances are certain types of citizens you'll encounter. First and foremost are beggar women. They are the most annoying things you will ever deal with in your street wanderings. These *misogynistic plural term* will get right in front of you and constantly wail out how they need your coins because of their unfortunate plight in life. Even if you try to get away from them by wall scaling, they'll start chucking rocks at you that cause Altair to lose his grip. They pestered me so much that I simply made it a habit to silently kill any that were bugging me. Another, far more detrimental kind of persons is the lepers. These guys will shove you if you get too close to them for no apparent reason. It's especially bad because they draw attention to you when you're attempting to pickpocket someone or follow a target silently. It's especially bad later because their unwarranted violence almost instantly brings guards down upon you.
I can't really fault them for not making the AI totally life-like. I may not be particularly tech-savvy, but I can imagine that programming the NPC's to act as they already do was a monumental task itself. Asking anymore might have delayed Assassin's Creed by a significant while. It's not even as though the lackluster AI is game breaking, it's just a little annoying every now and then.
Ubisoft, being as big as it is, has the ability to pour some nice amount of cash into production, and it shows here. The cities are incredibly detailed and the character animations are fluid and transition very well in cut scenes. I'm going to assume that Ubisoft did their homework on the setting because it all feels rather genuine and nothing seems too odd or out of the ordinary for the background, aside from the obsession with flags lots of characters seem to have.
One complaint is the voice acting. While most of the other flaws in the game can be readily forgiven, this cannot. Altair, while not bad on his own, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have an American accent while everyone around him speaks in an Arab accent. Otherwise, most of the other characters have decent, if not good voice work going for them.
The music is pretty good, but rather forgettable. It helps raise your adrenaline during fights and escapes rather well, but doesn't do much beyond that. Certainly nothing to the extent of Shadow of the Colossus.
It's hard for me to recommend Assassin's Creed to everyone because I know not everyone will like it, though not because of quality. It is a very well executed game with great visual presentation. What I know is that there is a significant portion of gamers that will become frustrated by the repetitive side-missions and lose interest, even though I enjoyed them. It's definitely at least worth a rent. If you don't like it, then no harm done. But if you become even a little intrigued, then you'll be treated to an original game that plays like a dream and ends on a high note. I would personally like to see everyone fall in love with Assassin's Creed.
Final Score: 8/10
