Assassin's Creed: How I came to play

I haven't been able to play any Star Wars or LotRO lately, simply because the gaming laptop has been away for repairs, I think for over 4 weeks by now. I know, AARGH. So instead, Tiger's been sharing his PC with me and we've been playing some single-player games: mostly Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed.

Now Assassin's Creed (written as AC in the title since I'm just that lazy) was a series I've always thought wasn't for me. In ancient times, my now ex-boyfriend had let me try Assassin's Creed I, and I didn't like it at all. The controls were weird and I'm not really the conspiracy theory and assassination type of girl. But Tiger has been playing it a bit when I've been studying and I may have accidentally made some remarks about how awesome the game looks. Now Tiger set off on a missionary path. It went sort of like this.

"What don't you like about it?" I explained what I found last time I tried it. "Well, if you look further than the conspiracy thing, the storytelling is actually quite good. You usually like these sort of things in games." 

Me: "But you have to assassinate people. It's evil. Look, there you did it! He didn't do anything to you!" "He was just a city guard..." Me: "He was innocent!" "Well, he worked for the wrong person." "Does he know? I mean, he probably has a family to take care of. A wife and kids. Who wouldn't take an easy job of patrolling the city roofs. I mean, roofs. What's the odd chance...?" Tiger: "You don't have to kill them. You can also just knock them unconscious, you know. Or sneak past them." Me: "So why didn't you...?"

*flying property*

Now Tiger was pulling out the heavy gunnery. "But I understand. You didn't like the controls. I guess you're not too good with controllers." Me: "What?! My first XBOX game was Ninja Gaiden. And I've played it until the end!"* "Hmm, that game is pretty hardcore. Well, if you can play that, Assassin's Creed should be a cakewalk." Sigh. I didn't like where this was going.

"Besides, the controls are indeed a bit clunky in Assassin's Creed I. It gets much better in the later games."

Okay, that was that then. Tiger: 1, Rav: 0. I guess there was only one option: I actually had to start playing Assassin's Creed.

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* I quote from its Wikipedia page: The Ninja Gaiden games gained a reputation throughout the gaming community for their difficulty and attention to detail. Although they appealed to gamers who (...) wanted a "bloody hard, but also bloody good" challenge, it was feared that casual gamers would find the learning curve daunting. IGN warned that gamers with lesser skills might not "get as much out of this game as others due to [its] incredible difficulty"." I can concur, this game was really challenging.