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For all those hardcore gamers currently residing at
Electronic Theatre,
Assassin’s Creed will need no introduction. Having been in
development under the public-eye for over eighteen months, UBi
Soft’s big second-wave Current-Generation hope has finally arrived.
However, just as every screenshot, trailer and “in-depth” analysis
of the game has been reported again-and-again by the mainstream
videogames press, details on how the game actually plays have
been very, very thin-on-the-ground.
Two immediate comparisons spring to mind when given the
few details that have surfaced on the title, both the recent
editions of the
Prince Of
Persia series and Splinter Cell releases; both of which have been
great success stories for UBi Soft. Playing as Altair, an assassin
in 1191 A.D., players must reclaim their pride after failing an
important mission. However, this isn’t the end of the story, as
there’s a whole load of modern-day shenanigans thrown into the
bargain, which for some reason the developer saw as necessary.
Beginning the game sees the player enter a virtual
construct, within the virtual construct that is Assassin’s Creed.
Teaching the basics of High and Low Profiles – a system which
controls the available actions, based on those which may attract
more or less attention from those around respectively – as well as
movement, the player then embarks upon an opening Mission to
set-the-scene. Once the Tutorial is over, the player begins playing
the real game with their abilities stripped from them; much as that
seen in the
Metroid series; Assassin’s Creed let’s the
player run free with every basic ability with little consequence,
before bringing the player down-to-earth with a much-hampered
avatar.
The basic premise sees the player perusing nine people
targeted for assassination. The player must first locate the city
which the target resides in, before gathering enough information to
complete the assassination competently. The entire World Map is Free
Roaming – although many areas are sealed-off from the player until
later in the game – and features a HUB system with off-shot locales
and cities similar to that of the Nintendo64’s The Legend Of
Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. The Missions involved within the story
see you encountering a range of activities, from helping civilians
to eavesdropping on conversations, while attempting to complete your
surveillance of the proposed assassination, followed by the murder
itself. Yes, murder. Assassin’s Creed, however, unlike the
current videogame vanilla does not pose any moral dilemma; you are
an assassin, your job is to kill, the people you kill are – as the
story tells it – the bad guys.
The combat is quite basic - using preset animations on only a single
attack button - but then, combat is obviously only a last resort.
Assassin’s Creed is in many ways quite
derivative. Techniques such as the ability to use a special zoom
function during Cut-Scenes and the shadowing effect on the
first-person perspective are nice enough touches, but don’t aid the
player immersion and are far from innovative; merely repackaging
generation-old ideas under a Current-Generation skin. The, at first,
seemingly unnecessarily complicated Control System remains heavily
under the “hardcore gamer” banner as opposed to it’s most similar
relations, the recent instalments in the Prince Of Persia
series and, in-fact, the 3D iterations of the Grand Theft Auto
franchise, which opted for more easily adopted methods. The
cities are densely populated and brimming with life, while the HUB
world is often a ten-minute trudge through lonely wilderness, and
when many Character Models do appear on-screen it’s very common to
spot several identical Models in even the smallest of crowds.
Assassin’s Creed may well be one of the most backwards-thinking
high-profile releases in the Current-Generation, but it does it with
style. And that style is encouraging to a new adoptive of the
Current-Generation’s power. As with Grand Theft Auto III on
the PlayStation2 and Super Mario64, the sense of freedom in a
videogame – no matter how narrow the actual construct – brings with
it a sense of power, and Assassin’s Creed shines not in its’
established gameplay, but in it’s ability to make the player feel
powerful.
Where the newfound power of the Current-Generations has
been put to good use, however, is in good-old-fashioned raw grunt.
The Polygon Count on-screen is often ridiculous with minimal
slowdown, and each is detailed exquisitely. The scenery stretches
for miles with little fogging and the animation is fluid and
responsive, if a little awkward at times. While the title clearly
looks fantastic, there are
 some nagging issues which let it down.
Polygon Clipping, Texture Tearing and Polygon Pop-Up are all present
– the later of which far worse than in the also recently released
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War, a supposed “budget” release
– and all of which are even more disappointing, being tiny issues
that maybe another two months of development would of resolved.
Sonically, again, Assassin’s Creed takes a top-league
position. The occasional repeats of pedestrian commentary are
excusable when considering the great deal of dialogue and elegant
Score. However the lip-synching is often beyond hilarious.
UBi Soft have a hit on their hands; there’s no two ways
about that. But deservedly so? That’s a question with an answer
seeming more like conjecture than a straight-forward statement. But
then, as are most videogames. For every gamer that can’t argue the
beauty of the The Legend Of Zelda series, there’s another
eagerly awaiting the next instalment of
Dr. Kawashima’s own
brand of gaming. Assassin’s Creed is not the game that’s
going to bridge that gap, but it is the game to delight those
Xbox360 gamers bored of indulging on generic First-Person Shooters
and Racing titles between their real big-hitters, at least until
Grand Theft Auto IV arrives.
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