Assassins Creed

Assassins Creed is a game I have heard about and been recommend many times since its release, however I never really had much of interest in the game until I finally saw it out on the PC at a discount price. It was released in 2007 and developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The games main designer is one Patrice Désilets, the man who gave us the recent Prince of Persia games. I played the Sands of Time and thought it was pretty good, nothing amazing now, but I enjoyed the platform climbing elements. I felt this would also be an similar effort, and at €15 was prepared to give it a go. Much to my delight I discovered a true gem of cosmic proportions!
 

Desmond Miles

One of the biggest surprises for me was the discovery that this was in fact a sci fi game. I was certainly confused during the installation with all the depiction of DNA strands and other obviously technological symbols and designs. I initially thought there had been a mistake and the wrong game had been packaged. Once the game began I could see that this definitely was Assassins Creed. In the game, you take on the role of Desmond Miles, a modern day barman who is being held against his will by a mysterious and obviously well funded corporation. Desmond is forced to use the Animus, a cool machine that lets him delve into his genetic memory and relive the life of his ancestors, in this case one Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, a 12th century member of the Hashshashin, or assassins, who lived during the third crusade in the Holy Land. Interestingly, this was in fact a real order existing for about 200 years during the middle ages. The game jumps between the past and present as Desmond is brought out of the animus for rest and plot development. He is free to wander around his bedroom and the animus room looking for clues to his captors identity and his intended fate. Most of the game is spent as Altaïr but these interludes are cool and add an interesting side to the game.

The Animus

The reason for this forced use of the animus is revealed as the game progresses and it is an interesting one, but I will not spoil the plot those who have not played the game yet.

The games cities are huge, giving you lots of ground to cover

The game is an openworld third person adventure where the player must move around different cities and a large world in between. The world is home to thousands of NPCs who wander about their daily routines. You need to scout out and learn the movements and habits of your various assassination targets before striking. There are also lots of small optional side missions to be completed and many hidden objects scattered throughout the game world. As an assassin, Altaïr is an highly trained and athletic individual who excels at parkour and can quickly scale building and roof tops to move fluidly across the city without ever setting foot on the ground. When you occasionally attract the attention of guards, and you will, you need to flee and hide, usually in a hay cart or in a roof garden. The citizens of the games cities also react to you presence. If you carelessly sprint or run through the streets, you can knock people over, damage property and generally piss off the locals. This is unwise as they are quick to call the city guards. You must move carefully and with purpose through the crowds, avoiding killing civilians and loitering near guards for long. The gameplay is alot of fun, moving through the city is very enjoyable as is stealthily taking down your targets.

The first thing to strike you are the fantastic graphics. The rich, highly detailed, immersive presentation really does the part and sucks you into the amazing setting. The scale and depth of the gameworld is breathtaking. The developers clearly did a lot of research into what life was like during the crusades and it really shows with the historical context feeling very realistic. Facial animations and the movement of Altaïr are highly refined and accurate. The games atmosphere is thick and you really feel like your moving through a genuine city. The sound effects are excellent, the markets and streets sound authentic with hawkers selling their wares, prophets speaking out against invasion and oppression, people having quite conversations and guards demanding that you move on or prepare to die. The games musical score is also worthy of note, really capturing the excitement and mystery of the games plot. The voice acting is excellent as are all of the sound effects with swords and bodies colliding realistically and with sickening satisfaction.

The games plot is gripping. Your various assassination targets are all different and have their own interesting stories. When you do manage to kill your targets, Altaïr has a very interesting conversation with them as their life slowly slips away. This I felt was one of  best parts of the game with fantastic acting and cinematic direction as your target explains why they were doing what they were doing and the reasoning behind killing them seems less certain. It really helps to get the story moving and is an excellent reward for completing each mission.

The games combat system is simple but a lot of fun. Altaïr has a large variety of moves and attacks that can be utilised. He can defend and counter, then launch a ferocious attack where he hammers his opponent into submission before sending them to the afterlife with a well placed sword through the midriff and a dislocated limb or two. Pulling off combo moves and successful counters result in very satisfying and often grisly killing moves that can occasionally have guards running for their lives. The reactions of the crowd of onlookers to the violence is also very realistic with your first kill or split blood resulting in screams and panic as everyone flees the carnage. Despite the large number of moves available, there is not so many that you will ignore any many of them with nearly every move required at some stage in order to best some of the tougher opponents. Again the graphics and animations are smooth and well done, with no slow down or lag even when fighting large groups of guards.

You have lots of different weapons and abilities in the game, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Your hidden blade is ideal for quiet kills and instant death, throwing knives can take out targets from a distance and your vicious curved dagger is handy for eviscerating guards or sending jets of arterial blood into the air from some cleanly opened jugular veins. However I found the sword the most handy for general combat as its defensive and offensive abilities are the most rounded and useful. The game slowly opens up your inventory and armoury as the game progresses as well as unlocking new climbing and combat abilities. This keeps you interested as you find out what new ability you will have for your next mission.

There were a couple of issues that have to be mentioned. The controls for the PC version was definitely the biggest problem. The game can be quite tricky to play using a mouse and keyboard. It can be difficult to navigate some of the tighter or more complicated areas. Crashing into walls and obstacles was very easy. It could get quite maddening to get stuck trying to scale an unclimbable pillar whilst being chased by a regiment of the city garrison because you cant turn fast enough. There were many situations where death or other silly mistakes occurred as a result of the difficult control setup rather than player gameplay errors. Even towards the end of the game it was sometimes necessary to check the control layout and key mapping as I was never always sure of which buttons were which. The speed at which you react to situations is so critical in Assassins Creed that this would get very frustrating. The game is clearly designed with a joypad in mind, so it was annoying to find no real effort had gone into creating a decent and intuitive set up for PC users.

As cool and interesting as many of the games side missions are, they do get quite repetitive as the game progresses. There are only a small number of extra mission types available and they are the more or less the same throughout the game. In every city there is same few to do and towards the end of the game it was more of a chore to scale every view point and save every citizen. When you do rescue a citizen, you are forced to listen to their little thank you speech every time. There is a limited numbers of speeches and a similarly small number of different voice actors resulting in the annoying repetition of the dialog and no way to skip it.

As fun as the combat is, it started getting boring after I saved the 40th citizen

The games minimap on the HUD does not display the street layout, rather just the general direction of an objective. The street map could be viewed from the games menu however it would have been much more useful to have on the HUD. This would often lead to confusion as you got close to an objective. You could be right on top of the marker but unable to see what you were supposed to do, only for you to eventually realise your target is behind a wall or building. The need to pause the game to find the street map felt a bit cumbersome.

Oops! Sorry...  Fuck, time to flee again!

Another point is when you accidentally bump into a city guard, they, and any others in the vicinity, automatically begin chasing you. Its not always easy to quickly lose your tail, especially if you haven't already cleared all of the archers in an area. So this minor mistake can result in a 10 minute flight across the rooftops as you try to lose the legion of guards pursuing you. This can often mean you end up on the other side of the map forcing you to traverse the city again to get back to where you were. The size of the cities mean you usually sprint when your moving around so it can be very easy to attract attention. When this happens repeatedly the whole thing ends up becoming rather irritating after a while. When your in the world section of the game, some hiding spots can be very far away, if your horse is killed or lost in the pursuit, a lengthy stroll on foot is often the only way back. The controls also make it hard to dismount easily from your horse. Altaïr is a supreme athlete, acrobat, swordsman, marksman, horseman, pickpocket and spy but he cannot swim...

I have no complaints about the games excellent story, however the ending is a little weird, being a bit unclear that the game is in fact over.

Despite these minor points, Assassins Creed has been one of the best gaming experiences I have had this year. The fantastic presentation and depth, cool story line and sheer fun of the free running dynamic make this a game one I would recommend to everyone, although having a console may be better from a control point of view. A lot of effort has clearly gone into making this game and really pays off. I have just begun playing the sequel and cant wait to see how the game has been improved on. 4/5 thumbs.