Assassin’s Creed is a game that is special to me, but I will hold off all bias for the purpose of this review. For those of you who have been living under a rock and are probably still working on inventing fire, Assassin’s Creed tells the story of a man named Desmond, who has been kidnapped against his will and is now trapped in a creepy, albeit squeaky clean, facility with an unfriendly doctor and a presumably smoking hot blonde assistant. Desmond is being forced into a machine called “The Animus,” which will allow him to re-live his ancestors’ genetic memories. Exactly why he is being forced to do this isn’t revealed until much later in the game. Assassin’s Creed features a lot of the things an action aficionado is looking for; high profile chases involving leaping across rooftops and escaping like a boss, swordfights in which you take on multiple enemies and leave each of them with a gaping hole somewhere in their body where there wasn’t before, deadly assassinations with a variety of bladed weapons, and a story decent enough to keep you interested. For the perfectionists, there are a ton of little things to collect, such as hidden flags, to keep you exploring the entire map.
First off, I must say that Assassin’s Creed is a beautiful game. The graphics aren’t perfect, but when I’m playing and someone is on the other side of the room asking me “Is that a game? I thought you were watching a movie!” it says something about the overall quality. The cities of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus are a sight to behold, especially when seeing them from one of the many “viewpoints” in the game. Some of the voice acting is off, and sometimes the AI and story don’t always seem up to par, but for its flaws, Assassin’s Creed is a worthy purchase.
When you are playing in the Animus, you are exploring the memories of Desmond’s ancestor from the 12th century, a Syrian Assassin by the name of Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad.
- This guy. The one in white. Don’t EVER talk about his mother. He will CUT you.
It is during those sequences in which you will be doing all of the cool things mentioned above. It is an open world, so you can approach things how you want almost from the very start, with the exception of the beginning gameplay being a scripted sequence you must follow to get the story going. After that, you’re free to do whatever you want, within limits. Killing too many civilians will get you “de-synchronized,” and cause you to go back to a recently saved point. Your synchronization bar acts as your health as well, so if you get hit too many times and then accidentally kill a civilian, you’re out of luck. The bars regenerate over time. It’s a flawed but interesting system.
There are basically two modes of gameplay as Altaïr; combat and stealth. Combat is satisfying, with a variety of ways to kill your opponents, each of them looking equally painful. There is essentially only one attack button, but that won’t matter once you delve into it. You can string combos together to take enemies down, perform counter kills, and throw enemies into each other or kick them in the gut to create openings for attack. Keep in mind they can do most of this stuff to you too. Button mashing will get you killed. You have to time your attacks and counters, or you’ll be breathing your own blood within a minute or two. You can also perform combat with your longsword from horseback, but it feels clunky and unrefined, so it’s really not worth it.
The further you get in the game, the more that is revealed and the better your weapons get. You will have your longsword, shortblade, hidden blade and throwing knives. The longsword is best for fending off attacks from multiple enemies and counter attacking, while the shortblade allows you to take the offensive and attack much faster. If you are good at stringing attacks together, you’ll be able to kill a few guards with the shortblade and make a break for the nearest bale of hay. The hidden blade, a sweet blade that hides in Altaïr’s gauntlet, can also be used in combat, but it cannot block. You can only perform a counter kill, and if you time it wrong you get cut. If you time it right, though, it always results in one of the guards regretting their career choice and lack of neck armor. Besides weapons improvements, furthering the story will also allow you to play as Desmond for short sequences, having exited the Animus for a much needed break. This usually just involves talking to the good *cough* doctor and his assistant to reveal more story element, going to sleep, and waking back up to get in the Animus again.
- “So if I pee in real life during a memory sequence, will Altaïr have a stain on his tunic? Because that would be hilarious.”
Stealth is pretty basic. You sneak up behind someone with your hidden blade equipped, and stab them in the kidney-ish area. Game over for him. Walk away before the guards show up, and nobody will suspect a thing. You can do the same from the front, but with a little more risk. They could counter it if they see it coming. To add some variety, you can use throwing knives to kill from a distance, or approach someone from behind with your sword and run them through with that instead of your hidden blade. If you hold down the “high profile” button (R1 on PS3, right trigger on Xbox 360) you will perform a high profile assassination, which will usually be more brutal, but draw more attention, usually resulting in you being chased by multiple guards. In order to escape, you need to break their line of sight and find a hiding place. Hiding places take place in the form of stacks of hay, rooftop gardens, benches you can sit down on to blend in with the people, and groups of scholars, dressed in all white and allowing you to hide among their numbers. You can perform some pretty awesome assassinations from rooftops, wooden beams overhead and hanging from ledges. One time I even ran up a wall, wall jumped off of it, and landed on my pursuer’s face, sticking my hidden blade in his neck. It was pretty sweet. Remember, though, that killing someone in high profile or with a weapon besides your hidden blade or throwing knives are guaranteed to draw attention.
- No guard chase here. He just really has to pee, and there’s a rooftop garden one house over.
Once you’ve angered a few of the local soldiers and need to make a break for it, you’ll be making use of that high profile button I told you about before. Holding down the high profile button will make your assassin run. Holding down X (PS3) or A (360) at the same time will make him sprint. If you run into a person, you will stumble unless you are holding the tackle button, which will shove people out of the way. If you approach an obstacle or a wall while holding the appropriate buttons, he will respond accordingly. You have an unlimted number of routes you can take. You can scale the walls of almost every building and leap from roof to roof until you’ve lost them. You can run through the crowds and shove people out of your way to get around the corner and hide in some hay. You can leap through market stalls to create distractions and bypass the crowds altogether. Platforming in this game is very fun, and I spent several hours just running from building to building, killing a few guards along the way just for the challenge. Be careful when you’re climbing though; archers can shoot you down and other guards will throw rocks at you and cause you to fall.
Also worth noting is a feature called Eagle Vision. If Altaïr is fully synced, you can go into first person view, and the way you see the world changes. Enemies glow red, hiding spots glow white, friendlies glow blue, and targets glow yellow. It’s useful for planning out your assassinations and figuring out your escape routes from a distance. If you try to move or you are hit, you go back into normal third person view and Eagle Vision ends.
So you’ve had the good, now it’s time for the bad. First and foremost, this game is so repetitive sometimes that I had a hard time completing the story. The story was fairly interesting, but each and every mission consists of the EXACT same process. Interrogate someone, eavesdrop on someone, and/or pickpocket someone, all to get enough information to find one guy and kill him. Nine times in a row you must do this, and it never, ever, ever changes, except for the final battle, which I won’t spoil but I must say was a bit of a mind trip the first time. There are some side missions to add a little variety, but those quickly become dull as well. You can rescue maidens from the guards harassing them, resulting in some vigilantes that will help stall the guards chasing you if you run by them, which are actually very helpful. You can rescue scholars in the same way, the difference being that your reward is a group of scholars in the area to act as a moving hiding place. You’ll know when you have an opportunity to rescue someone, because you’ll hear some guard yelling the same two lines over and over, which will usually result in you killing him just so you don’t have to listen to his crap anymore, rather than saving the civilian.
The game is repetitive, but if you like stabbing people, this is definitely your cup of tea (or blood). If the story interests you, it will be worth it to make it through, but I suggest playing in short bursts so you don’t burn yourself out before you get to the third guy you’re supposed to kill. This is a solid action title that will leave you with many pleasant memories, and leave you clawing for the answers to the questions at the end of the story.
Related posts: Assassin’s Creed 2 review, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood review
