Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed History: The game that formed was Assassin's Creed. Polygon had an interesting post regarding the history of how it came about. They wanted to take advantage of the improved processing power to render larger spaces and crowds. They also wanted to add secret societies that would lead to the Assassin's Guild, borrowing heavy from the novel Alamut. Now removing "the prince" from the equation, the marketing team suggested the name Assassin's Creed - "nothing is true; everything is permitted." Who knew they would continue to produce, where are we now, 12 games in the series. Are you telling me there are also 5 books that have come out and a movie? Why haven't I heard about these things? Well, I guess movies based on video games don't really perform too well, do they?
Where to start? Whenever you do a google search for "Assassin's Creed," you are going to have a hard time finding the original. You got games that are set in different time periods and a game with "origin" straight in the title. You also get certain ones on different platforms. That's why I decided to add the roman numeral. The game I'm talking about came out in 2007 on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows. To make you feel old, it came out before Windows 7 in October 22, 2009. Don't try to get it through Uplay. Their desktop client that was released in July 3, 2012 still charges you $19.99 for the game. You can try your hand at the Assassin's Creed: Heritage Collection, which contains the first five games for around $39.99 for the Xbox 360. The bad news is most of these will not include any downloadable content. The good news: The first game does not have any remasters or DLC.
Assassin's Creed I
Previous Experience: There was a brief time back in 2005 we moved from Oklahoma to Kentucky. Because my mind was swiss cheese from uprooting my past all of a sudden, my cousins let me borrow their games for the Xbox 360. One of them was Assassin's Creed. Now I might not have enjoyed my time as much as I did with Fable, but I do recall getting bored a few hours into the campaign. I remember hating this "master" in a black robe, climbing tower-after-tower, and being confused by the sheer number of objectives. Sadly, I don't remember anything past that. Yet things are different this time.
Adapting to an Old Game: I knew I would have problems with a game that came out before Borderlands in 2009, especially if it was on the PC. I highly suggest you play the game with a controller. The game will not recognize the controller from the beginning. It will only trigger after you select a certain profile. Even though the controls inside the settings did have an option for Xbox 360 controller, I still had to modify the incorrect color keybindings. The options never did recognize either trigger button. Although there was an option for "no blood," there wasn't a subtext option. One unusual problem I had was that the game would transition to another scene so fast that the computer lady's voice didn't have enough time to finish one of its combat tips. Exiting the game is no easy feat either. Seems like you have to exit the memory, exit the animus, exit your current game, access your profile, then choose to exit. I guess Alt + F4 comes in handy in these situations. No matter how hard I tried to find how many hours I played, I could not find a listing in the game. So I'm speculating I totaled 15 hours with about 25% worth of all the achievements.
Graphics: That introduction before the game starts still gets me excited. Although the graphics were as high as I could make them, there were still understandable polygon issues - hands not touching the bird when petting it, a cup rotating around a pillar and instantly placed in the center, people clipping into each other. Between the Village, Kingdom (travel zone), and the three cities - everything was still awesome to look at. I was astounded to see how well the game held up to modern standards. The connection between a person's mouth and their voice was passable. Cutscenes were more fluid about this while simple npcs through the side-missions seemed to be more generic. The people were all well-drawn. The view of the landscape might have edged towards being blindly repetitive if the developers skimped out in distinguishing the districts. Fortunately, the game offers you a wide-range of surprises behind every alleyway.
Combat: This is where things get a little rough. The combat isn't really fluid. I've been spoiled on Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Then again, they were released in 2009 & 2011 respectively. Maybe Ubisoft does a better job in future installments. For now, it is really hard to make any sort of connection with your attacks. I never did fully grasp how to create double combo strikes and deflecting blows. Targeting enemies are difficult and disengaging them is clunky. The game sometimes forces you to fight when all you want to run. You have to switch your weapon out from a sword even though a hidden blade would make sense out of detection. You can't throw knives when within melee range. Your "upgrades" past unlocking throwing knives and counter are very trivial. I vaguely remember the game mentioning some sort of horse combat, but I never had a chance to utilize it. One thing I really wished the game would do was drop my character down the entire ladder when pressing the "drop" button. Oh yeah, he can't swim either (though I guess I never had a problem with it in my experience).
Where the game excels at is the matter of stealth. Increasing your speed to perform actions quicker builds up your "profile" and your risk in being chased. I had hoped the game would have provided me with some sort of "throw rock" ability to distract your enemies. Instead, they sort of just make it so that you aren't detected until you are physically in front of their faces. This causes fun encounters where you can climb down giant roofs and long ladders without your target ever being aware of your presence. The game loves to add increasing amount of obstacles as you progress through the missions. You will loathe drunkards, mental patients, and the beggar women that scream "Please sir, do you have any money? No, you don't understand; I'm poor and sick and hungry! No, please don't leave!" The fun part? You can kill civilians with barely any consequences. The guards will come stand by your victim and simply ask "What happened here?" The platforming in general is very well done. It really makes you feel like Aladdin running through the streets of Agrabah.
Gameplay: I have to come out and say that I really appreciate the inclusion of the tutorials. I learned so much every time they added another feature. The first three missions are joyfully easy. You ride around through the mountain area with a horse, visiting each of the three cities. You get to the top of the tower and "sync" to unlock the objectives and area on your map. I was surprised when the process wasn't automatic, but I only forgot to press the button once in the whole game. No need to press a button to move about. You can climb up towers and get on horses simply by pressing the right direction. Making the "jump" button separate from the "quick" button made me burst into tears. You are given the option to pick any 1 of the 3 primary objectives (although it might benefit you to do all of them for additional information on the target). Once a mission is over, you are given the option to automatically port back.
Although the game reuses the same three cities, you are able to automatically port directly to the bureau within the designated city once you received your upgrade from the master (bypassing the need to travel via horse through The Kingdom). The cities are also cleverly divided to provide you with a clear distinction of where you must venture forth. The rest of the 6 missions get progressively harder as you must acquire 3 of the 6 available primary objectives. There will be more guards with better armor, smarter attacks, and quicker movement. You will have to face more archers on rooftops (use those throwing knives) and climb higher towers. I urge anyone to pay close attention to the vital information regarding your target. The game is full of surprises when it comes to this.
The thing I don't really understand: why are there so many side-missions? You start to get tired of climbing up your 30th tower and saving your 20th civilian. I never got tired of finding a flag around the next corner, but did they have to include over 200 of them? Sure, you do build up your maximum health every time you complete a set number of objectives. I just sort of wished there was more than simply obtaining an online achievement. Give us some artwork or something!
Story: I must say that I actually enjoyed the theological discussions the characters posed in the game. The dialogue is so cut-and-dry on a serious level that you can easily miss a subtle insult or a posing retort. I recalled a certain statement from the master (that I pulled from Assassin's Creed: The Complete Collection book) "The question will be answered when you no longer need to ask it" - exorbitant double-talk that has no meaning other than to distract you from getting an answer. I also had a huge chuckle when you admitted "I am a fool" and your informant responds "Normally I would agree, but this time..." I also had a thoughtful moment when you ceased a man's life for burning knowledge and he responds "am I not like those precious books you seek to save - a source of knowledge?" I only wished I could have digested the banter a little better. It sometimes moved a little to fast for me to process what happened.
I never did use a walk-through, but I did glance at mission tactics after-the-fact. There were times my encounters ran so smoothly. I slipped through the hospital to kill Garnier de Naplouse (boss 2), I managed to climb up and surprise fat Abu'l Nuqoud (boss 4), and my trek across the water couldn't be any cleaner against Master Sibrand the Boat Lord (boss 8). Tamir the brute (boss 1), Talal the archer (boss 3), Majd Addin the executioner (boss 6), and Robert (boss 9) were all direct combat.
Things got a little messy with William of Montferrat the captain (boss 5) and Jubair al Hakim the book-burner (boss 7). See, I tried to perform this cool maneuver where I would jump on top of them with my hidden blade sticking out. I tried this three separate times on both bosses, but the game just didn't like me locking onto my target and jumping down at the same time. Nope, I had to manually climb down the ladder and casually walk up behind them like a moron. The captain abruptly ended his 3-minute speech to see the dead archer I threw off the cliff and dismissed his soldiers. Then he went to his little map table and stood perfectly still next to the ladder. Nearly the exact same thing happened with my other target.
Ending: Did someone say there was an ending, because I certainly didn't find one. Once you've accomplished your 9 missions, you get sent to this wild goose chase to assassinate the guy that started this all. Because of the urgency of such a quest, you are sent through literal squadrons of soldiers. You can't use stealth, utilize buildings, or run away. They set up invisible walls in a tight space to prevent you from fleeing. I guess they really wanted to test your new long health bar or something. Since the combat was terrible to begin with, I found two cheap tactics. You can grab someone, throw them into a corner, and then use your hidden blade to finish job. Or you can back away slowly and counter the first person who dares charge their blade at you. Then something mysterious happens, things happen outside the machine, and the people holding you against your will walk away. I still have no idea what this "22:13" means or why nothing else is explained. You can't even skip the credits! If I wasn't directly going into the sequel, I would probably be angry.
Game Review: For an outdated game with a short campaign, Assassin's Creed still managed to entertain you with compelling challenges and smooth platforming. The combat is rough around the edges and the obstacles may prove more daunting to less patient players. However, the variety of missions, surprises, and objectives will keep you wanting more. I would definitely recommend playing this game if you can still find yourself a cheap copy.
5-7-2020