Assassin’s Creed
Reviewed on: Xbox 360 Also on: PS3, PC
History Lesson
Assassin’s Creed is like a well-intentioned, meticulously prepared, enthusiastic college essay gone slightly awry. If the topic of the essay is the Crusades, the students are Ubisoft Montreal. This team’s latest effort has been handed in right before deadline and any history professor will come to the conclusion that the essay is rushed, lacks a strong focused direction, has a few glaring spelling and grammatical errors and is rather repetitive in parts. However, a prof’s intuition would twig that a great deal of preparation, effort and interest in the subject matter has gone into the essay and marks the paper up proportionately. A B+ for the usual A grade student.
Ubisoft Montreal appears to have spent the majority of their efforts on preparation and come deadline time they didn’t have enough invested in the actual content.
History Repeating
The Assassin’s Creed team has admirably created a startling well-realized depiction of the Holy Lands circa 1191, the time of the Third Crusade. The three cities of Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem along with the surrounding Kingdom are a joy to behold and it’s quite obvious that the games artists and designers went to great lengths to immerse the player in their surroundings.
While the ground level is populated by believable crowded city scenes, the rooftops and beyond provide stunning views of the sprawling cities below. One of the greatest thrills of the game is to climb to the very top of a mammoth cathedral to get an eagle eye view of the city and surrounding countryside. Rather than slowly climbing down again you can thankfully take death defying leaps of faith into bundles of straw below you. These viewpoints are cleverly placed into the game as the player needs to climb the majority of them to find the points of interest.
Assassin’s Creed suffers however from a case of style over substance. While the game world’s surroundings are truly exceptional and standard setting for the industry, the game play content is underwhelming at times. While it is fun to climb around the cities at first it gets a bit repetitive by the tail end of the game and you find yourself rushing from one viewpoint to the other to get it over and done with.
What’s worse is the collection of information on your nine assassination targets, which is pretty much the same process for all of them. These missions range from pick-pocketing, listening in on conversations, to doing favours for fellow assassins. Most of the information they give you never seems to genuinely benefit you in your assassination attempt and leaves you with the impression that you’re doing these tasks because the game forces you to rather than for a narrative advancement. A choice in being able to construct your own assassination strategy would have been infinitely more rewarding. It’s these aspects of the game that give the strongest impression that most of the development time was spent creating the game’s world while the gameplay mechanics were hurriedly put into place as time ran out.
Shakin’ That Ass-assin
Once you successfully take out your target you face the wrath of the city guards. You can either choose to fight or flee across the city from them.
Choosing to fight brings up the game’s combat sequences which are fairly basic and you’ll soon get the hang of them. The combat is fairly average and pales in comparison to games such as Nintendo’s Zelda series. Locking on to your enemies is not without its problems and a tendency to button mash can see you through to victory.
If you decide to run then the guards will vehemently chase you on ground and on rooftops. The A.I. can prove bemusing in these instances as guards can spot you from ground level metres away running across rooftops, yet they can’t seem to figure out that you may be hiding in the curtain veiled huts conveniently placed around the cities’ rooftops. They will amusingly jump to their deaths from high in an attempt to apprehend you, while they are oblivious to your presence when in disguise with the scholars.
Other issues with A.I. crop up with glitches causing some civilians to continuously walk into walls, while I’ve even fought guards hovering in mid-air!
Kid's got potential
This review might seem overly critical of a generally well received game, yet it is due more to the disappointment in what clearly could have been a tighter and more accomplished experience, than it being a poor game. It didn’t live up to its full potential, yet there is still much to admire. The sound design employed is top class. The music perfectly complements the Middle Eastern setting and dynamically shifts through the various cut scenes and set pieces within the game. The sound effects are spot on in creating the atmosphere of the countryside and cities, while the voice acting is generally of a very high standard.
The setting and storyline exceeds the usual videogame presentations and I for one enjoyed the Crusade and futuristic settings. The plot has a Dan Brown secret societies slant to it and it serves the setting well.
To recall that disappointing history essay, what begins as a great read soon loses focus and ends up being repetitive and underdeveloped. Strictly speaking for the game, there’s enough in place to keep you going to the end and give you faith in the potential of an inevitable sequel that will smooth over the flaws and entertain more evolved gameplay. Despite the games underachievement, it is still heartily recommended as a must play experience and a startling showcase of next gen technology.
Cian.
P.S. Isn't Jade lovely.
