Riding on a massive media rollercoaster, Assassin's Creed is a game
that had me worried from the start. The idea of being able to run
across rooftops freely, kill with ease, and blend in with the crowd is
a technical gaming feat which is hard to master. Ubisoft Montreal ran
with this idea and produced a sugar coated fantasy which didn't uphold
to everything it promised, but gave enough to leave you satisfied in
the end.
Assassin's Creed is based off of two story arches and two
characters. These two characters are Altaïr, an assassin living in
1191, and Desmond Miles, a distant relative of Altaïr living in the
21st century. The game revolves around the idea that Desmond has been
kidnapped by a secret organization which wants to analyze the memories
of a particular ancestor. To do this, they have Desmond lay on a
machine called the animus which can search through his genetic code for
key points in the memory of his ancestor, Altaïr. The main plot is
largely uninteresting and seems uninspired. For someone who's being
kidnapped by a shadow organization and being forced to relive the
memories of his ancient assassin ancestor, Desmond seems perfectly fine
with it and cool to a point. Desmond's actions and emotions seem out of
place and do nothing to elevate the plot.
Fortunately, Desmond is jacked into the animus early into the game
and you are taught the simple controls of Assassin's Creed. In
Assassin's Creed, there are two types of actions Altaïr can perform:
Low Profile and High Profile. Low Profile actions, for the most part,
will not draw the attention of nearby guards or civilians, while High
Profile actions do just the opposite. By holding down the right
trigger, every button that was originally mapped to be Low Profile will
now become High Profile. For example, instead of walking, you will now
run, and instead of just gently pushing people out of the way, you will
tackle them or throw them to the ground. However, once you get farther
into the game and perform more assassinations, choosing to be Low
Profile or High Profile don't really matter anymore, because just about
anything will make the guards want to kill you.
Thankfully, the rest of the controls are fairly easy to learn.
Climbing buildings requires no effort at all. You just grab onto a
building and use the left analog stick to move in the direction in
which you desire. Other than scaling buildings and jumping across
rooftops, Altaïr also has a special ability called Eagle Vision. When
fully synchronized (which means when you have full health), Altaïr can
look at his surroundings in an entirely different way. The sky and
ground become dark and blurry, but people, such as allies and guards,
become more prominent and easier to spot, which in turn makes your
current job easier.
The main objective of Assassin's Creed is to gather intelligence
on a certain person, find out where they're hiding or what they're
doing on the day in which you plan to assassinate them on, and then
follow-up by performing the hit. There are three ways in which you can
gather intelligence on your target: pickpocketing, eavesdropping, and
interrogation. These short mini-games are fun the first few times you
do them, but throughout the game, you will be doing them over and over
again, so they quickly become repetitive and boring. Aside from that,
you can also save citizens from corrupt guards, but this only provides
you with protection from "vigilantes" or scholars, which for the most
part is unneeded. There isn't a whole lot of depth to the gameplay of
Assassin's Creed until you get to the actual assassination itself.
There are many different locations in which the assassinations take
place, and every assassination is different (albeit the actual kill).
Altaïr must always be close enough to the target so that he can take
out his hidden blade and kill them with it. This means that no amount
of throwing knives can kill your target, though you can weaken them
with your blade. After each assassination is complete, you are shown a
cutscene in which Altaïr and the assassinated target speak. These
cutscenes are meant to add more drama to the story surrounding Altaïr,
but in the end, they are bland spices sprinkled onto an already boring
and tasteless plot.
Between Altaïr and the target are hordes of enemy guards but
Altaïr has a selection of weapons at his disposal to take care of them.
This includes a long sword, a small dagger, throwing knives, his fists,
and his hidden blade. The long sword is mainly used for taking down a
small number of foes at a time while the small dagger is better for
quickly and efficiently taking down larger groups of enemies. Throwing
knives can be thrown either in or out of battle and each hit will
usually kill your target instantly. For the most part, unless you're
fighting another person who is also using their fists, getting dirty
with just your hands is utterly useless unless they're being used for
interrogation purposes. Last, we have the hidden blade, Altaïr's
ultimate weapon. If done while not having nearby guards alerted, the
hidden blade can be used for either Low Profile or High Profile kills.
The hidden blade can also be used while in combat, but it is not a wise
choice to do so as it leaves you unguarded against your attacker's
blade.
Other than defending against throngs of enemies by yourself,
Altaïr also has the chance to ally himself with scholars and
vigilantes. To gain access to these two types of allies, you must first
save a citizen or scholar who is being abused by the city guard. After
killing the corrupt guards, the citizen or scholar will thank you and
either the vigilante or scholar allies will then be unlocked to you in
that specific area of the city. Vigilantes are helpful when you are
being chased by numerous guards, as they will leap out to defend you
and keep the following guards occupied by grabbing onto their arms and
allowing you a chance to make a break for it. Scholars on the other
hand work as moving cover: if you are being chased but you have broken
the line of sight between you and the guards, you can blend in with the
scholars to walk away freely. As helpful as these two allies may seem
through words, they are actually quite useless and it is only by chance
that you might accidentally run by one of these two groups while
fleeing. It is much easier (and satisfying) to just kill the guards
yourself, and finding rooftop garden sheds and piles of hay is a much
more efficient way of hiding rather than searching for a group of
scholars.
However, if not to add a sour note to one thing about Assassin's
Creed, the game is simply beautiful. It's clear that Ubisoft Montreal
put a whole lot of effort into their building design and characters.
You won't usually see (or notice) the same citizen twice, but it still
remains the fact that they are there. Beggars and drunks will usually
use the same character models (and sound effects), but it really
doesn't matter in the end because the game looks completely seamless.
Even a great deal of time went into the water effects of Assassin's
Creed, even though you don't spend a lot of time wading through it (or
swimming for that matter; Altaïr can't swim). Assassin's Creed is
flowing with a mysterious atmosphere, and you can really feel at times
that you are an actual assassin out to gather intelligence on a target,
no matter how mediocre or repetitive the objects may seem.
A big let down from the graphics, however, is Assassin's Creed's
sound effects. The voice acting is great, but the same voices for the
beggars, preachers, citizens in need, and several different dynamic
characters are recycled and used over and over again. Just listening to
the sounds of Assassin's Creed is as repetitive as completing the
in-game objectives. It almost feels like Ubisoft Montreal tried to make
the game's sounds as annoying as possible. Beggars will follow you
relentlessly begging for money, you will hear the same person over and
over again asking for help, and you'll hear the same person preaching
to a crowd about the effects of the Crusades and how it is taxing
everybody and how bad Richard the Lionheart is. It just takes so much
away from what little, imaginative gameplay Assassin's Creed clings on
to.
Aside from completing the main storyline and saving citizens,
there are also dozens of flags hidden throughout the three different
cities and its outside kingdom. But, just like in every game ever made,
collecting things is just boring and pointless (unless you're an
achievement junkie). A good mix Assassin's Creed does show with
collecting things is the lives of 60 different Templars scattered
around the kingdom. Rather than just searching for a flag and then
running over it to collect it, you can also search for these different
Templars and then kill them to obtain your reward. Templars are often
overpowered and, if you fight fairly, a challenging target to beat, but
these fights are always rewarding and it makes Altaïr not feel like a
superhuman, killing-machine. Templar fights are, dare I say it? Fair?
Overall, Assassin's Creed is a fun action adventure game for the
first few hours, but quickly becomes boring and repetitive as the game
drags on. It seems that Ubisoft Montreal knew that the game was going
to feel repetitive as you assassinated more targets, so they just put a
lot of emphasis on the unrealistic fighting by making guards more aware
and wanting to kill you for simply running. It's a shame too, because
Assassin's Creed was a game with so much promise and appeal, but
Ubisoft Montreal just ended up failing with the execution of the
formula.
