Assassins Creed
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6/10
Ben Hughes @potatoes351 |
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Once upon a time there was a new IP, a new IP that was actually rather unique. A game about playing as an assassin in the Third Crusade, wherein you scout out your significant targets and hunt them down. That time was 2007, before Ubisoft churned out a new entry every year and practically ran the series into the god damn ground. Assassins Creed has truly become one of gaming's most iconic, influential and popular new franchises by not only dominating sales charts with each new entry, but also by spilling over into spin-offs, books and even a film adaptation in the works. So lets take a look at where it all began, in the 12th century with Altair Ibn-La'Ahad.
Bartender Desmond Miles awakes to find he has been kidnapped by a scientific corporation known as Abstergo Industries. He is required to be placed inside a VR device known as the Animus in order to relive his ancestor Altair's memories in the hope that Abstergo will find something they need. Altair is a high ranking assassin in the order, though he has begun to disobey the creed and through his own foolishness allows a high profile target to escape with a treasure. As punishment he is stripped of his rank and must regain his status in the order by assassinating nine individuals in three cities; Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem. However as he progresses though this task he begins to question what connects these men and why he has been ordered to kill them, leading to some rather unexpected answers.
Assassins Creed's plot is one of the most intriguing plots I have encountered in recent years. This is mainly because of its reliance on historical facts. Creating works of fiction that are historically accurate can be tough but Assassins Creed does a brilliant job of creating a story that is both entertaining and mostly historically accurate. My praise for the story does end there however, as it is not the games strongest point. You see the characters are bland and have little to no backstory. You know what you need to and nothing else, your brotherhood leader Al Mualim has no character development whatsoever and is there for the sole purpose of telling you who to kill and where they are. Yes by all means search the guy on Google and find out about his history but I don't want to do that, I want to be told in the game about it. Altair is much the same, he is a blank slate, boring and a cardboard cut-out of a protagonist. When his assertiveness and inquisitive side shows he is at his best but those moments are few and far between. Each target is also never delved into, they are just an objective and nothing more unless you decide to surf the web and find out about them outside of the game. This may be in part due to the lack of cutscenes the game uses. All story development is told in gameplay, never wrestling control away from the player, just restricting them to how far they can move from the story going on around them. I feel that with a more cinematic approach, the story could have been elaborated on a lot more. Desmond's sections are 100% story focussed, giving us a good idea of what's happening in the modern day, but the information you are given is so drip fed to keep the player guessing that you may as well have no story at all at times.
Bartender Desmond Miles awakes to find he has been kidnapped by a scientific corporation known as Abstergo Industries. He is required to be placed inside a VR device known as the Animus in order to relive his ancestor Altair's memories in the hope that Abstergo will find something they need. Altair is a high ranking assassin in the order, though he has begun to disobey the creed and through his own foolishness allows a high profile target to escape with a treasure. As punishment he is stripped of his rank and must regain his status in the order by assassinating nine individuals in three cities; Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem. However as he progresses though this task he begins to question what connects these men and why he has been ordered to kill them, leading to some rather unexpected answers.
Assassins Creed's plot is one of the most intriguing plots I have encountered in recent years. This is mainly because of its reliance on historical facts. Creating works of fiction that are historically accurate can be tough but Assassins Creed does a brilliant job of creating a story that is both entertaining and mostly historically accurate. My praise for the story does end there however, as it is not the games strongest point. You see the characters are bland and have little to no backstory. You know what you need to and nothing else, your brotherhood leader Al Mualim has no character development whatsoever and is there for the sole purpose of telling you who to kill and where they are. Yes by all means search the guy on Google and find out about his history but I don't want to do that, I want to be told in the game about it. Altair is much the same, he is a blank slate, boring and a cardboard cut-out of a protagonist. When his assertiveness and inquisitive side shows he is at his best but those moments are few and far between. Each target is also never delved into, they are just an objective and nothing more unless you decide to surf the web and find out about them outside of the game. This may be in part due to the lack of cutscenes the game uses. All story development is told in gameplay, never wrestling control away from the player, just restricting them to how far they can move from the story going on around them. I feel that with a more cinematic approach, the story could have been elaborated on a lot more. Desmond's sections are 100% story focussed, giving us a good idea of what's happening in the modern day, but the information you are given is so drip fed to keep the player guessing that you may as well have no story at all at times.
Assassins Creed is famous for its iconic free-running gameplay in the large, expansive and accurate recreations of real cities, free for you to roam as you please. Giving you the chance to explore five environments; Masyaf (Assassins headquarters), Acre, Damascus, Jerusalem and Kingdom (a large areas that connects the other four that is devoid of anything besides collectibles). Mission structure is broken down into three distinct phases, exploration, preparation and execution. When you enter a new area, you must explore the area by climbing tall towers and scouting out the city, perhaps even helping out some civilians and gaining you a few helping hands for escaping pursuing guards. Once you are satisfied enough with that you can begin taking part in gathering information on your target such as where to find them and what kind of level of security they are currently employing. After a handful of these you are ready to go ahead with your assassination, by finding your target and taking them down one way or another. Though this is a solid and very good way to structure the game, helping you identify what stage the current assassination is at; it quickly becomes repetitive and after just two or three targets becomes tiresome; this must be done nine times over the course of the game. The only things to do on the side of this is find collectibles in the form of flags, areas vary in the quantity of flags and its quite a task to find all of them. Plus there are also 100 heavily armoured Templars to take down if you fancy a break from flag collecting.
The majority of your time in Assassins Creed will be spent sprinting and climbing the environment, jumping between buildings and swinging from poles. Almost anything is climbable in the game world, if it has a reachable ledge it can be grabbed. Movement is fluid and after a few hours of getting to grips with exactly what Altair is capable of, traversing the cities becomes a smooth and exciting venture. However, there are often times where Altair will grab the wrong ledge, get stuck or do something you didn't tell him to do all because he clipped the environment wrong. Its a great system when it works, but far too often you'll get frustrated by it doing the wrong thing in the middle of a pursuit from guards. The AI is of a good quality in AC, with guards being smart yet not impossible to kill, all it takes is a few well timed counters and heavy attacks to see a group of them right. But pedestrian AI isn't graced with the same level of polish. Civilians do nothing but get in the way, hindering progress, plus the unique AI of the beggars and drunks become especially annoying...all of the god damn time. I have lost count of the times I have shouted out death threats to the developers because a drunk pushed me into some guards, causing them to chase me or when a beggar threw stones at me causing me to fall off a building. These little world building touches do nothing but hinder the overall experience, causing it to become regularly frustrating and at times not enjoyable to play.
The majority of your time in Assassins Creed will be spent sprinting and climbing the environment, jumping between buildings and swinging from poles. Almost anything is climbable in the game world, if it has a reachable ledge it can be grabbed. Movement is fluid and after a few hours of getting to grips with exactly what Altair is capable of, traversing the cities becomes a smooth and exciting venture. However, there are often times where Altair will grab the wrong ledge, get stuck or do something you didn't tell him to do all because he clipped the environment wrong. Its a great system when it works, but far too often you'll get frustrated by it doing the wrong thing in the middle of a pursuit from guards. The AI is of a good quality in AC, with guards being smart yet not impossible to kill, all it takes is a few well timed counters and heavy attacks to see a group of them right. But pedestrian AI isn't graced with the same level of polish. Civilians do nothing but get in the way, hindering progress, plus the unique AI of the beggars and drunks become especially annoying...all of the god damn time. I have lost count of the times I have shouted out death threats to the developers because a drunk pushed me into some guards, causing them to chase me or when a beggar threw stones at me causing me to fall off a building. These little world building touches do nothing but hinder the overall experience, causing it to become regularly frustrating and at times not enjoyable to play.
Graphically Assassins Creed is relatively good for its time. When standing atop a tall tower, the game looks great with a large, well detailed city with great lighting effects. However look in close to reveal muddy textures, simple repetitive character models, jaggy edges and identical buildings. Though at full speed, this stuff is almost unnoticeable, its when you stop and take a look around that this really kills the whole atmosphere the game builds. Taking you out of this realistic representation of the 12th century and making you realise that you're playing a game that's several years old and ageing fast. Frame rate also suffers regularly, as well as regular pop in a on the fly loading of crowds and non-climbable structures. The price to pay for large worlds on old technology, but something that looking back and playing now is one of the games biggest killers. Voice acting is a little flat, it has its moments such as the conversations between Altair and Al Mualim, but beyond this its either poorly written dialogue or flat out bad voice acting or poor sound work that kills it which is a real shame. The sound design is good though, with a great atmospheric soundtrack that hits all the right cues and some good effects here and there.
If you had asked me on release if Assassins Creed was a good game I would have said it was a genre leader, and the remnants of that still echo through even today. However the first entry to the mega-franchise has not aged well. The poor audio visual standard and odd gameplay quirks really make the game look older than it actually is, its surprising how far technology has come since 2007.
Though the story doesn't have a huge amount of depth, its entertaining and will most likely get you researching your historical figures of the Third Crusade. If you're a newcomer to the franchise, its probably a good idea to start at the beginning but for those who have already played Altair's adventure, its unlikely you'll veer return due to the significant steps forward the sequels made.
If you had asked me on release if Assassins Creed was a good game I would have said it was a genre leader, and the remnants of that still echo through even today. However the first entry to the mega-franchise has not aged well. The poor audio visual standard and odd gameplay quirks really make the game look older than it actually is, its surprising how far technology has come since 2007.
Though the story doesn't have a huge amount of depth, its entertaining and will most likely get you researching your historical figures of the Third Crusade. If you're a newcomer to the franchise, its probably a good idea to start at the beginning but for those who have already played Altair's adventure, its unlikely you'll veer return due to the significant steps forward the sequels made.
