Assassin's Creed

Don't worry, he won't see me. I am but a knife in the crowd.

Ubisoft’s claim to fame has always been their stealth and special ops games. So I was a bit surprised when Assassin’s Creed was announced. I thought to myself “a medieval game? What are they thinking?” So I followed this game to see what it was about. I had very high hopes for this game and so did many people I know. We all had a heart attack during that one stage demo where glitches were everywhere. Ever since then, Assassin's Creed went from one of the top most anticipated games to one of the ones everyone was scared would turn out to be a flop.

Did it make the cut? Read on to find out.

Gameplay - 8

The main story follows the assassin Altair, a member of the Assassin's Guild during the Crusades. The Assassin's guild exists to preserve peace and harmony by eliminating individuals that hinder it. Your mission in the game is to eliminate nine leaders of the Templar Knights who are attempting to use the chaos and fear spread by the Crusades to further their own agenda. As you carry out your missions, you begin to piece together what the Templar's true plans for the Holy Land are.

As mentioned above, the main goal of the game is to assassinate nine key players in keeping the Crusades happening and hindering the path to peace. The assassinations themselves are easily the highlight of the game. After collecting some information around the town about your target (such as location and alternate routes to get close to the target) you then get permission from the Assassins Guild Embassy of the town to execute the hit. The hit can be a quick "charge in" sword brandished and fight 50 soldiers until you eventually kill your target. Alternatively, you can take your time and gather all the intel on your target so as to reveal secondary paths or any habits of the target that would leave him open to attack. Scouting out the guard locations and "surgically removing" a few of them is also good so that after you make your surprise kill you have a clear exit. The level of thought and stealth possible in these assassinations is classic Ubisoft and its what most Ubisoft fans have come to know and love about their games.

I have one major complaint about this game, it can get oh so repetitive. While the assassinations are all a different, unique experience, the things you must do to gather intel in order to unlock the assassination are always the same thing. The only hint of variety is in the Assassin informer tasks but, while definitely the most enjoyable ones, even those only come in a couple varieties. Each type is exactly the same as the ones in the previous cities, the only difference being what information you get out of the task. Thankfully you don’t have to do all the tasks in order to get enough intel to make your hit but if you are going for achievements you have to do them all. I just wish there was more variety or that they would have gotten more challenging in the later levels but alas, they did not.

One thing I have to say that Ubisoft pulled off perfectly in this game was the Parkour, also known as freerunning. They nailed this flat on the head. The motions are fluid, quick, and impressive. I had so much fun running along the rooftops of Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre, performing daring leaps and climbing to the top of churches before jumping hundreds of feet into a conveniently placed pile of hay. Not to mention that jumping though the merchant stands was hilariously fun. In what other game can you climb to the top of a cathedral and then free fall 200 feet to the ground? Now granted I am an amateur traceur (a person who practices Parkour, yes it is viewed as a martial art) so this REALLY appeals to me but I believe even the average gamer will enjoy this particular game element.

Altair: Currently listening to I Believe I Can Fly

This game does have one more aspect that will be appealing to a certain demographic, mainly the completionists. Each city holds 100 flags hidden on the rooftops, in alleys, and other obscure locations throughout the city. There are also viewpoints to climb to and Templar Knights to hunt down and eliminate. After completing the main storyline the player is allowed free-roam of the world of Assassin's Creed to collect anything that was missed during the first playthrough. The achievements awarded for completing these collections are not a bad incentive either.

The story of Assassin's Creed could have been better. From the very start you are confused and have absolutely no idea what is going on. The intro is really bad. I can see maybe for the future of the franchise why they did what they did but they did a bad job of introducing that aspect of the story. The main storyline is no better. While you do learn more about the Templar's plans while you are gathering intel on your targets, the whole thing always seems vague and leaves the player with no clue as to what is going on. Once I found out what the "big picture" was I just groaned. It was so lame.

Visuals - 9

The visuals in Assassin's Creed are breathtaking. As I said before, Assassin's Creed is an open-world game. As such a lot of stuff needs to be rendered at all times and Assassin's Creed does a great job of keeping everything rendered and clean. If you were to climb atop the cathedral in one of the cities you would have a view rivaled only by the top of Crackdown's Agency Tower. As far as I could tell there were no texture pop-ins at all. The animations for Altair are fluid especially the Parkour and swordplay animations. However when the soldiers climb and jump there are painfully obvious animation flaws. Facial expressions and mouth movements could have used a bit of polish as well.

The shining point of the visuals is how well they pull you into the times. The architecture replication is magnificent. The old clay homes and buildings of the natives are the box-shaped contraptions of a simpler time accented with cracks, chipped walls, and just the look of aged stone and clay. These simple buildings make the beautiful, Gothic cathedrals, churches, synagogues, and mosques stand out like their builders wanted them to: to remind the onlooker of the glory and majesty of God and heaven compared to this rugged and dull earth. Hanging above the streets are clothes lines with robes and rugs hanging from them and below are the small, wooden stalls of merchants. Also in Acre there had been a battle not long before you arrive and the city really shows it. There are severely damaged buildings near the city walls and the arrow-pierced bodies of soldiers still lie in the streets. It looks like Ubisoft's artists did their homework on this one.

Fighting in Assassin's Creed can break out anywhere, even on the roofs of churches.

Sound - 7

As mentioned before, the sights and sounds of Assassin's Creed really give the player a sense of what it was like back in those days. Say you are walking through a busy marketplace stalking some prey. You'll hear a merchant call out to you, inviting you to check out his newest shipment of products. You may also be suddenly surrounded by a group of beggars who plead for a few coins to feed their starving children. Over to your left you hear a loud voice, praising whichever side of the Crusade they are on and trying to rally the people to support the cause. You approach your target and suddenly bump into an Arab soldier. He eyes you for a moment and suddenly yells "Infidel! Kill him!" and the chase is on. Just like what a normal day would have been like in Jerusalem during the Crusades.

There is one problem with voices and it relates to something I have said before: repetitiveness and almost no variety. Whenever you save a citizen, you get one of 5 generic thank you's. The speakers in the streets say the exact same words with the exact same voice as the speaker 10 blocks down the road. Its moments like those that do pull you out of the experience.

I think there is music in this game. Its hard to tell. The music is just loud enough to be there but unless you are standing still you won't be able to hear it. The best way I can describe it is like elevator music. Nothing that you will remember 2 minutes from now but enough to break the silence. So yeah there might as well not be any music. A shame really because from what I have heard the composer for Assassin’s Creed is very talented.

Longevity - 6 (Only for collectors)

Assassin's Creed is a very fun game to play through...once. The only people that will even pick the game up again after they have beaten it are the completionists and the achievement hunters. For them there are flags and Templars to hunt down for achievements. Finding all of these also unlocks what I think is a bonus level or some sort of bonus content. I have yet to unlock it so I really don't know what it is. So there is some incentive to keep playing after beating it but only for truly dedicated gamers. The average gamer will just beat the story once and never play again. A one shot experience if you will.

Learning Curve - 9 (What learning curve?)

Assassin's Creed does a great job of teaching the player how to play. Every time Altair gains a new weapon or skill, a tutorial is instigated that will help the player master the new technique after just a few tries. The tutorials in Assassin's Creed are masterfully hidden. You are taught how to pickpocket, eavesdrop, and interrogate all under the mask of revealing a traitor inside the Assassin's Guild. You never even realize that you are playing a tutorial. In fact, the only thing that you must learn to do on your own is assassinate a target but since there are tons of ways to do this there really can be no tutorial. The only real tutorial is the first level where you learn the basics of crowd interaction and how to blend in with your surroundings. No one should find it hard to learn how to play this game.