REPLAY: Assassin’s Creed (X360)

12 Aug, 2011

Title: Assassin’s Creed
Platform: Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 / PC (reviewed on X360)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
TL;DR: Climb. Jump. Stealthy kill. Run and hide. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Family Friendly? Considering that the point of the whole game is to kill people in the stealthiest way possible with screaming and a lot of blood, that would be an emphatic No.

If Assassin’s Creed isn’t a love letter to the whole entire historical fiction genre, then I don’t know what would be. In a game chock full of historical figures, beautifully (and painstakingly) accurate depictions of the time period, and events from the past, it’s very hard to dismiss this game if you’re a nut about history, art, and a free-running world where you can do as you please. You can just as easily give this game a miss though, if you don’t care about stuff such as that.

The premise is not the strongest of all, and while the game lacks some serious variety when it comes to free missions, it still is one of the most unique games out there, especially when it was initially released back in 2007. And as is already apparent, future installments of the game add on a healthy layer of “What the f***?”

In Assassin’s Creed, you play as two protagonists. We’re first introduced to Desmond Miles, who’s a bartender being held against his will by big scary pharmaceutical company Abstergo. After a brief introduction to the Animus and a little tutorial, we finally understand that the story of Assassin’s Creed is more about Altair, Desmond’s assassinating ancestor. As the game progresses, the story unfolds through interactions between Desmond and the woman who spends most of the game typing on a computer – Lucy Stillman. In the parallel history portions within the Animus, Altair also has his own story to tell.

Hope you’re not lost yet, because it doesn’t get much more confusing than this. Within the Animus, Altair is revealed to be Desmond’s ancestor, an assassin who disgraces the assassin brotherhood by violating all the rules, and therefore is stripped of his high ranking. In order to atone, master assassin Al Mualim sends Altair on missions to assassinate 9 men in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre.

I’m sure you’ve all played it, but on the off chance that there is somebody out there who hasn’t, I’ll just say (and perhaps the pun really is intended) that the rest of this story is history.

While it was enjoyable to spend much of your time in the Animus assassinating people, it wasn’t all fun and games. Some severe mechanical issues is enough to cause even the best assassins to leap off the rooftops screaming. While it was easy enough to master the control scheme through the Animus tutorial, sometimes the slightest wrong movement of the control stick will send Altair leaping from a tower to the ground a hundred feet below – and not into a haystack. Hello, instant desynchronization.

We’re never going to tire of complaining about bad camera angles either. Locking on to a target is fine and dandy, but when the perspective shifts behind a tree or a bush, it becomes near impossible to time counterattacks perfectly, especially if you’re trying to stare through pixelated shrubbery. It’s frustrating, and it is maddening.

Many of us could possibly go into this thinking it’s a button-mashing hack n’ slash fest as well. If the fighting controls go unmastered, then Assassin’s Creed can easily be tossed into the “I am never picking this up again” pile of frustrating games. Thanks to forethought, Ubisoft has provided us with a practice fighting ring right out front of the Masyaf stronghold, where we can become acquainted with the fighting side of the equation. Timing and patience is key to the fighting styles of this game, and it can very well be a potential turn-off. However, spending ten or twenty minutes understanding that you have to be methodical in your killing will make the whole experience that much more pleasant.

Perhaps the most glaring of issues with this game is the repetitiveness. Unlike its newer successors, Assassin’s Creed suffered from Megaman syndrome, in which once an area was visited, you had to revisit it on a slightly higher difficulty level to find your assassination target. It becomes boring after a while to be consistently in the same three areas of the game. Unless you take the time to find all the extra Templar flags strewn around The Kingdom, you are more or less confined to the three major cities, and they don’t offer much variety between them either. Yes, you have the option of doing free missions such as saving citizens from corrupt soldiers, but each assassination requires you to do either pickpocketing, interrogation, or informer missions before moving on to “the big bad guy.” The formula gets boring after the third assassination.

Enough of the unpleasantries though. The game has plenty of other merits to keep you engaged. The world is large, and it’s actually quite fun to explore. Before Assassin’s Creed, I can’t recall a game where you can climb up walls and leap from rooftop to rooftop in style. I suppose it can be called “easily amused,” but I had great fun simply wandering around the open parts of all the cities jumping from building to building. It really is a sense of escapism, and Ubisoft crafted that quite well. It leaves the player with a greater sense of freedom within a game that also demands confinement.

The fighting, as mentioned before, will take some getting used to, but once mastered it simply is fun to harass soldiers on the streets of the cities. They give you plenty of verbal assault, which is enough to get some blood boiling. As skills become available during the course of the game, it makes the assassinations all the more fun as well.

One of the most prized assets of this game is the detail placed in the surrounding environments. While it certainly will look aged, this four-year-old game is still impressive in its ability to capture every single nook and cranny on run down houses and also the wild vines that climb up the sides of richer palaces and secluded gardens. The music is nothing to scoff at either. Jesper Kyd’s ambient music within each city isn’t loud and obnoxious and captures the tumultuous nature of the war between the assassins and the Templars, but also gives the sense of tranquility of everyday life. Running away to some of the thrumming beats also makes it seem that much more fun as soldiers chase after you clumsily.

Ubisoft’s foray into historical fiction is a fine one with Assassin’s Creed. While it suffers from some glaring setbacks, no game can ever be perfect. As a historical nut, or even an art nut, you will easily fall in love with the world of the Third Crusade as Ubisoft imagines it. As a gamer who craves for something different, you will definitely find plenty to be excited about in Assassin’s Creed. However, if you don’t enjoy any of those or are looking for a heavily action-oriented game, you should probably give this game a miss. Although why you’d pass this game up, I wouldn’t know.

The Good

• Loving details in the world make it a believably easy one to immerse yourself in and explore.

• Once combat is mastered, it’s undeniably fun to harass enemies.
• Giving players the ability to climb any wall, jump on any building, and to go flying off incredibly tall towers grants us a gratifying sense of freedom.

The Bad

• Mechanical issues regarding movement can send even the most experienced players flying off in the wrong direction, and sometimes to death.

• Severe lack of variety in missions makes the game painful at times.
• Terribe camera work will cause obstructions in view, and will lead to untimely deaths at the hands of enemies.

Assassin’s Creed is currently available in retail locations. For $19.99, the game can also be downloaded from Xbox’s Games on Demand service.