Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Ubisoft Year of Release: 2007, 2008 Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 You know a games going to be good when it puts a warning label before the...

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Year of Release: 2007, 2008
Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360

You know a games going to be good when it puts a warning label before the main menu when its booted up. Assassin’s Creed has a nice disclaimer mentioning the game is made by a multicultural team of different faiths. Translated it says “We can be as racist or stereotypical as we want because we are only insulting ourselves, so suck it.”

Assassin’s Creed premise is pretty crazy. The story is all about a bartender called Desmond in the future who may or may not be an Assassin and has also been kidnapped. But at the same time its all about his ancestor Altair, an assassin in the times of the Third Crusade who goes round stabbing anyone who he is told to by his Assassin master like every GTA protagonist ever. This mismash is explained away by a machine called the Animus allows someone to experience their ancestors memories due to storing them in the DNA. As the story progresses, you see both Desmond starting to find a way to escape due to his assassin powers and Altair regain his rank that he lost by being stupid in the opening cutscene. This translates to an “abilitease” at the start with you being able to cut through guys like paper, while later missions will reward you with new equipment and abilities. Its a nice idea that I think work pretty well

However you don’t play Assassin’s Creed for its story. You play instead for its great free running. Assassin’s Creed has the best acrobatics system I have ever seen in any game ever. Instead of having to hammer the jump button like a caffeine addict, you instead hold down a button to switch to high profile (aka acrobatic) mode. This then tells the game to automatically jump, roll, dive or swing depending on the obstacle. Although it seems lazy, it makes many of the chases both look good and play well which prevents some of the anger usually associated with jumping around. As you might guess from the title, the main crux of the game is focused around the assassinations. However before you can waltz in and the stab the guy, you must first gather your intel. This is done by doing tasks for brother Assassins such as assassinating troublesome guards or running obstacle courses, pick pocketing your target’s associates and eavesdropping on conversations to gleam details. You don’t actually need all of them, but additional ones present various advantages. It’s a nice idea, but when its the same task for every kill  it gets a bit repetitive. The PC version does include a few extra missions above the original console version but they are basically more of the same.

That said though the actual killings and the fights that often follow are great fun. Planning it out from a vantage point, you wait for the perfect moment, jump onto the target, sit through a short essay on morals from the target as he bleeds out before running off chased by a butt load of templars. The combat isn’t the most elegant of control schemes and seems to rely mainly on guesswork and black  magic (or careful timing) to use the counter attacks that are the foundation of all the combat. You do have three different weapons to use (throwing knives, dagger and sword) which all have their own special animations. The dagger is probably the coolest looking due mainly to a move when you stab a guy in the foot before bring it up to stab in the face. All the combat looks great and really fluid making it a joy to watch. However it does become slightly annoying when you realise the best way to win is simply block and perform counter moves rather than going on the offensive

Its obvious that Ubisoft has put a lot of work into the game engine behind AC. The game looks beautiful and allows some spectacular views over the three cities when you climb up the various steeples and spires. Each of the three major cities have their own feel to them. For example, the recently conquered Acre has just been besieged and so is dark and ash covered, with an effect reminding me of the film Kingdom of Heaven. These effects and visuals give it a blockbuster style effect, which carries over into the audio. I don’t know what it exactly is, but the game sounds exceptionally good. I’m not a fan of the voice cast and their performances but the incidental sound effects really make the world. However, it doesn’t feel like the living worlds of other games.

However, there are some problems. As said before it is very repetitive in almost every aspect. Its also very punishing if you don’t use all the tools available to you and simply blunder into fights. Even worse is the state the PC version was released in. It requires an insanely powerful PC to look its best and is also picky about the hardware it is running on. The list of programs or configurations it has issues with is really, really long. Another flaw is the fact its an obvious console port. The number of clicks and loading screens required to get out of the game, a normally fairly trivial task, is so many that the makers actually recommend using Alt-F4 to exit the game. As well as this there are other signs of consoleification, such as the game only displaying in 16:9 leaving most gamers with letterboxing, somewhat ruining the cinematic effect.

All these faults aside, Assassin’s Creed is a game everyone should play, either on console or PC. It has so many smart ideas, and shows them in such a stylish presentation that it is enjoyable, though it does become repetitive after a while. Most of these flaws were luckily fixed in the sequel.