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Assassin's Creed

Ubisoft

Aaah, Assassin's Creed, a game which has been expected for quite a long time from the producer Ubisoft just came out last week on the PC. That was darn long awaited, as it had appeared on the next-gen consoles for quite some time (november 13th). Now it is time to see if the extra time was well deserved to be waited for.

About the game

An action game to the heart, along the names of Prince of Persia or those like it, yet it features a lot of stuff other action games lack completely. I doubt any decent action game features free roam, total freedom and huge cities to climb upon. Well this one does, and puts it all together with a bit of salty stealth and cinematic chase scenes. You get tons of stuff to do, and you will never have a dull moment, but more to that later. What is really intriguing about this game in particular is not that you get all this action and features packed in a fiery pocket rocket, but the fact that the story is completely different than what you would actually think. And that is, of course alright, because everyone likes plot twists. But, aside of plot twists, the story of the game takes on a Matrix-esque representation of the future together with this medieval time placed in the time of the crusades. Although the time theoretically takes you around the Middle East of the 11th century along 3 major cities, namely Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem, you are technically still sitting on the same high tech table in the same old laboratory. It's a bit ironic, as you do basically the same thing sitting in front of the computer. The main character of the story is Altair, an Assassin employed by the Hashashin Bureau located in Masyaf. As he does some evil deeds, he gets downranked by the chief and is told to kill a few targets from the three major cities. The frame of this story is located in the near future (perhaps) in a sci-fi lab, in which the main character is Desmond, a runaway assassin who makes his living out of serving drinks. Why the two main characters are in the same game is just a question of blood, as Desmond is told that Altair is his ancestor. Meet Desmond! Hello, I'm Desmond and I'm an assassin!(hi Desmond!) Seeing as the Professor from the lab tells you that memory is stored genetically, you've just set a basis on playing your ancestor. It is when placing yourself on the Animus, a machine which feels like an evoluated Matrix jack-in chair, that you get to playing the main game. You also see here the awesome loading screen, which features a fully controllable Altair in a blue empty medium.

Starting out

You start the game as Altair, apparently being in a bit of a surreal hazy world, which is explained as being rejected memories of the ancestor. You get pushed and punched around and you can do whatever until you get jacked out in fear of dying a horrible death. It is then when you meet Desmond for the first time. Nice guy, wearing jeans and a nice white hoodie, which is not strangely a nice alternative to the white hood Altair uses to conceal his face. You get put through a little tutorial about the Animus, how to use it and stuff like that, and then you are instructed to enter the first accessible memory, yet you get to see a small tutorial first. The tutorial is straightforward and very understandable, yet the real game has yet to begin, even after the tutorial and the discovery of some trasure under Jerusalem, as the memory you access.

Getting into it

As you get more and more involved into the game, you will start noticing the fact that people will look at you with the hand on the swords more, being more suspicious of your presence, and late in the game even leering at one will lead any guard to start swinging cold steel at you. You get more and more equipment, ranging from the neat hidden blade, to the melee mainstay of the sword, to the quick short blade and even throwing knives (the trailer had a onehanded crossbow instead of the blade and knives and we don't have it... too bad). You get to assassinate important people, and everything will seem right in it's place aside of some downright weird stuff... You might wonder a bit where the drug hashish was really from. As wikipedia states it, some bureaus like the one at Masyaf used hashish to drug people into submission to their plans. This might be the reason why the memories of Altair are so unclear and weird sometimes, but we will never know. You will get to kill people in boats, ride around on your horse in the kingdom map, gather flags, killing guards, templars, escaping Most Wanted style, and so on. I can't really state here all the things you can do in the game, but you can guess from the looks of it, that the game is massive and you have a damn lot to do in it.

Graphics - Oh look, pretty colours!

What is most attractive to a game like this, aside of all the stuff you can do and running around on rooftops, is the graphics. The graphics in this game are in one word, next-gen. You have everything beautifully detailed and the light really seems to have an effect on your environment. You get beautiful shaders, even better if you own a DirectX10 enabled card, incredible specular lighting, a practically unlimited wiew range, and beautiful shadowing all around you. That, and the nifty little glitches of the animus, and all those animated little protein chemistry figures. The characters have an incredible degree of animation, Altair having smooth movements all the time, never having a moment in which he looks like he's walking awkward or anything like it. He scales buildings as if natural, making use of the building's geometry, his movements give out the impression of his bodies weight, despite being very athletic. It just looks plainly and truly realistic. Some small things tend to get in your eyes, like monks starting to move as soon as you see them, people fighting with the guards in the same location for hours on end, and some other stuff like that, but other than that, it just looks and feels as it should. You feel free and ready to do whatever you wish. The atmosphere is peppered with an exact amount of color bloom, and it differs from town to town. Damascus for example, as a typical arabian city, is yellow and sandy, and is coloured as such. You almost feel the heat. Acre however, is very european in nature and style, and the rock buildings give away a feeling of sleight coldness and familiar european feel. The cities look breathtaking, as you can escalate tall towers located around it and look around, and you can see each and every rooftop around you. They also feel alive, filled with people going about their business, whether it is carrying jars upon their heads (and losing them as you bump into the carriers), walking around making comments about you running around or doing other stuff they don't usually do, getting beaten by guards, or just listening to preachers. The cinematic scenes are awesome and cannot be skipped, and that can either be a good part, or a bad part, because most people might not want to see the same cutscene again in another playthrough. On the plus side, you can still move when at that, so you can get a nicer angle, as well as press any button when a little glitch appears so you can see the scene from a more dramatic angle. The acting is dramatic, and there isn't anything kiddy about the game. It is mature intended, afterall. There is no gore, just some puffs of red blood smoke around when you hit and the occasional ragdolls when you hit characters off buildings (which is always fun).

Gameplay - Or how to hack templars

Combat is simple yet breathtaking, both in how it looks like, but also in the fact that it's very engaging. If in the start you can't do much else than just hack and slash, in the endgame you will be playing a totally different game, as you learn to make useful counter moves, counter kills, you get the ability to tackle people, grab ledges and stuff like that, all of which makes combat more tactical as the game wears on. A good reason to be happy about that is that it makes the game more than hack and slash, and that will prove useful when you start fighting throngs of enemies in the endgame. You get in close without arousing attention, stealth assassinate one soldier with a quick hidden blade to the liver, throw a knife in the nearest other soldier and engage the others in battle while going up on rooftops. If not wishing to fight by the sword, then you can run away in a police chase lookalike, and everything is nicely detailed on your way. You can jump on thin ledges and see the soldiers fighting to keep their balance, ultimately falling over, you will see them scrambling to reach you, bump into the people on the way, getting stopped by vigilantes you saved, and so on, so that ultimately you would hide in one of the multiple kinds of hiding places, like haybales, benches (oddly), roof gardens, or joining praying walking monks.

Controls - And what to press to hack Templars

The controls are easy to learn and very intuitive, because, as the game states it, is based on puppeteering the certain part of the body to do high profile or low profile things. The profile is changed by simply clicking and holding the right mouse buttons, and although it would certainly feel better on a gamepad, using the keyboard and mouse is not at all that bad. The right hand is controlled by the left mouse button, running around and blending as well as climbing is controlled by the space bar, using the off hand is as simple as pressing "f", and "e" is reserved for looking around and using Altair's special sixth sense (which he uses to perceive the intentions of people).

Sounds and atmosphere - Sounds atmospheric

Another intriguing fact of the game is the fact that it's very atmospheric. If not for the choice of graphics, it's definetly for the sounds and music on the background. The music is dynamic, if at all, and appears when is expected, it shows your alertness state and the fact that the city is now against you. Yet the sounds are marvelous. If not for their quality, then for their ambiental appearance. You will constantly feel something about the city if you listen closely. If not for the bustling town, then a little bird, a cricket, a little clash, whining, breezes, will be heard. That is indeed nice, but what is nicer is that it's never too much, and it's just right, just like most of the game.

Jumping on the rooftop of Conclusions

Assassin's Creed is not perfect, not in the least of things, but it set the stage for games that could become marvels. It is a marvel in itself, but it's far from being bug-free of problem-free. It seems many people experience some bugs, and the system requirementes of the game are not really all that true. Being such a graphic and processor intensive game, you will need a hog of a rig to power this baby. If not, the game is still worth trying, but you should note that you need a dual core processor just to run it. Another problem of the game is the fact that it tends to get repetitive, if not for the first few hours, but the main story weighing 20 hours will have you investigate with the same old mini-game missions for quite a large number of targets. Although it's nice for a starting point, it really gets old after a while. You can always spice it up with something different though, as you have quite a few things to do. Completing investigations and doing optional stuff like climbing viewpoints will give you more point to you syncronization bar (health bar). Certain optional quests, like killing templars and gathering flags will gain you optional memories, and you will certainly appreciate the variety of this 60 dollar game.

In conclusion, no matter who you are or what games you like, you will like this game. Just JUMP INTO IT! That is, you have a rig capable of fully running it. I don't, my game ran at 3-4fps when taking the screenshots.

Score?

The mark is 9!