By now, most will know that you play an assassin named Altair from the year 1191. Altair has been tasked with taking out nine historical figures, however, it’s not as simple as that. All of your targets are connected, and the whole story in general has been expertly crafted around historical happenings. And if you haven’t already found out the ‘twist’, we’re not going to spoil it, except to say it’s a great way to mix things up, and not just to place you in a single protagonist's shoes and let you be on your way. The historical characters have been colourfully portrayed and whole story evolves at a great pace. At times, it can be heavy handed with its morality, but it more or less gives you a situation and asks you to sit back and make your own judgement. Some may not like the eventual direction, but overall, it’s quite a compelling tale.
As Altair, players have a large amount of freedom to go about their business - its really up to the player to make the most of what the game has to offer. At the beginning, Altair is stripped of his rank and required to earn it back through his primary goals. As you eliminate targets, you earn ranks, which in turn will earn weapons and abilities, and his progression is certainly noticeable. Altair will visit three historical cities: Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem. While each city is divided into three districts (poor, middle, rich), access to each is initially restricted, and areas are unlocked as you play.
Catch me if you can.
The aspect that really opens up the game is the 'free running' system. It’s expertly crafted, runs remarkably smoothly and is on the borderline of flawless. It places Altair in the ilk of Mario and Ryu Hayabusa. The only times that you’re likely to get it wrong or do something stupid is before you’ve gotten a handle for the unique scheme or if you’re not patient enough. Otherwise, it’s one of the most enjoyable mechanics introduced so far on the HD consoles. There are almost no limits to which structures you can climb or rooftops that can be traversed. Scaling the heights of the game and making your way across the top of cities is fluid and intuitive. We had just as much fun simply exploring where was the next thing that we could climb or jump across. The brilliance is that it allows for something that isn’t often seen in games - the ability to improvise.
Before you go and assassinate your victim, you need to find out where they are and what’s a good way to get to them. You do so by investigating the city for clues, by eavesdropping on conversations, pick pocketing, interrogating and liaising with informers, who in turn will give you tasks before handing out hints. There are two ways to go about this. You can either scale the nearest high point and ‘synchronise’ with the area to reveal the nearest objective points on your ‘GPS’, or set out to find them yourself using your ‘eagle vision’. This allows you to distinguish NPC from point of interest. As an aside, you can save citizens, which can be messy but rewarding. You’ll either earn a group of allies that attempt to block guards when you’re being chased, or a group of scholars that will help you sneak into guarded areas. For players after a challenge, we strongly suggest the second method, as it will really test your ability to listen and gather information about the surroundings.
Along with the free running, the other highlights of the game are the assassinations themselves. Players are rewarded for planning their moves, though at the same time, you’ll often need to think on your feet. While the scope of assassination choice isn’t as deep as the Hitman games, it at least assures that players don’t need a degree to pull of any of the moves. After the deed is done, the chase is inevitable. Altair needs to get away by breaking enemy lines of site and hiding either in hay bails, roof structures or within the crowd. The game is assisted by a very intuitive alert system.
Masterful.
Pulling off stealthy assassinations is easy and the combat has actually turned out much better than we expected. You primary assassination weapon, the hidden blade, is easy to use and takes out a lot of the frustration often found in stealth games. In can also be used in open combat, though unless you’ve mastered the parry and counter system, the short and long swords are the way to go. While not as deep as something like Devil May Cry, the combat is robust enough to allow you to take on several enemies at a time. It’s interesting to watch how guards and enemies relentlessly attack you when your guard is down or how they start to cower as you cut a swathe through them.
It’s not only the free running or the highly accessible stealth that allow the game to feel fresh. You only need three out of the six investigations to progress. However, you will learn much more by going after all six and it can be really helpful to save a lot of citizens. Assassin’s Creed is a game that’s more enjoyable when you relax and really take-in the details that are on show. If you rush through things, you’re unlikely to notice the details that make the game and experience feel organic. While the game is open ended, it's more a matter of action and consequence, rather then aimlessly causing havoc. Finally, while there are times that Altair seems a little too good at what he’s doing, you never feel like you’re anything other than a master assassin.
There are only two real flaws to the game. There is a large open field that connects each of the towns know as the Kingdom. In short, it’s useless, unless you’re playing the Xbox 360 version and are achievement hunting. However, you don’t have to spend much time there at all, so it’s not a big deal. Secondly, during the last third of the game, there are a lot of guards aware that you have a presence in the city. This makes open conflict and getting around difficult, as by the time you’ve finished one battle, another guard is already there and it starts again. It can get annoying and requires you to be much more alert to your actions. We hope that in a potential sequel Ubisoft will be able to perfect the formula, but right now it feels somehow incomplete.
Playing Assassin's is a leap of faith in itself.
The only part of Assassin’s Creed that is a major disappointment is the technical performance, especially after the favourable previews. Issues such as screen tearing and some pop-in take away from what is otherwise a truly magnificent looking game. The level of detail is excellent and the fluidity with which Altair moves is second to none. The game makes use of several visual cues, and each city has its own characteristic look. Across versions, the Xbox 360 version has a more vibrant and better colour, while the PS3 version is more saturated and almost more realistic. The Xbox 360 suffers slightly worse pop-in, while the PS3 version has a marginally lower framerate. Otherwise, both versions are more or less identical.
The audio experience backs up the visual one but without any real flaws. Just about everyone is voiced superbly, backed up with excellent dialogue - even the NPC’s, though they can get rather repetitive. While Altair’s American accent is somewhat out of place, there is a reason for it. The sound effects make excellent use of cues as well, and happen to be very good as well. The music, incidentally is composed by Jesper Kyd, who did the music for Hitman.
Assassin’s Creed is one of those games that will immediately impress anyone, even your non-gaming friends. No other game delivers the same thrills, from pulling off the perfect hit to reaching the top of the cathedral in Acre to dodging the chase with a ‘leap of faith’. As long as you don’t rush things, Assassin’s Creed is one of the best experiences of the year, and it’s one of the few games to genuinely fulfil the promise of providing a new experience, in a year that has seen a crowd of shooters and mascot revivals. It will be fascinating to see if Ubisoft will eventually manage to make the game that they intended.
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