Assassin's Creed

Save the Holy Land, and yourself, by assassinating its enemies

Release: November 13, 2007 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

                April 8, 2008 (PC)

By Ian Coppock

I was scrolling through my reviews the other day and brought myself back to Assassin's Creed III, which I believe is the first review I ever did. I then realized that I haven't reviewed the four games leading up to that one, and thought it would be a good idea to bring you all up to speed.

Long before the adventures of Connor, the Mohawk assassin, the series began in another time and with another protagonist. Assassin's Creed takes us to the Middle East, and not because we're playing Call of Duty and have been dropped in to shoot the brown people. Rather, the game is a historical fiction narrative. My friend Bret introduced me to this series a few years ago. It's not perfect, but it's more than worthy of a review and our time.

The Story

Assassin's Creed operates on a pair of interlocked storylines. The first takes place in 2012 and follows Desmond Miles, a bartender. Desmond has been kidnapped by the shadowy Abstergo corporation for reasons he can only guess at, until Warren Vidic, a cruel scientist and his captor, reveals that human DNA contains the memories of our ancestors.

Desmond is locked into a machine, the Animus, that can scan those memories and render them as a virtual simulation. He doesn't know what Vidic or the scientist's colleague Lucy are looking for, but it's locked in his head somewhere.

Abstergo makes Disney look innocent. Desmond is a captive guest of the company and treated harshly by Warren, but he finds friendship of a sort in the other Abstergo scientist, Lucy Stillman, who is empathetic to his imprisonment.

In the Animus, Desmond follows the story of his ancestor, Altair Ibn-La Ahad, a Syrian assassin who was active during the Crusades in the late 1100's. The story begins as Altair and two fellow assassins enter the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Aloof and overconfident, Altair breaks the assassins' tenets left and right in order to be more "efficient", killing an innocent man and exposing his position to enemies.

His arrogance costs the group dearly when they encounter Christian knights exploring the Dome. He barely escapes with his life, and not the treasure he'd been sent to get. He returns to his clan's fortress empty-handed, infuriating the assassins' master, Al Mualim. To make matters worse, the knights follow Altair to the fortress and lay siege, killing many innocents.

Altair's hubris endangers all of the assassins. He's good at what he does, but his arrogance earns him contempt from the assassins and their master, Al Mualim (pictured right).

Though the knights are fought off and Altair's friends return with the treasure, he is berated in front of his brothers and demoted from master to novice. Al Mualim offers him a path to redemption: kill nine men who threaten the peace of the Holy Land. He begrudgingly takes the assignment and departs the fortress.

From there, Altair must kill nine targets dispersed across the cities of Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre (pronounced Ah-kah). The game does a good job of portraying Altair's changing character, as he becomes less aloof and more willing to follow the tenets of the Assassin's Creed. As he travels between cities and makes his kills, Altair begins to suspect that the nine men are working in concert, despite being on opposite sides of the war.

Altair's journey takes him across the ancient Middle East. As he goes, he begins to think there's more to his kills than just working back up to the top.

Oh boy, here come the inklings of conspiracy.

Altair begins to change his perception among his peers and to himself with his journey. He explores the themes of murder and humanity. Though the assassin order's work is dark, they encourage themselves to stick to the guilt that comes with taking a life, as it makes them human. He is also guided in his quest by the gentle mentoring of Al Mualim, who still sees potential in his fallen pupil.

In the modern-day, Desmond is given breaks between memory sessions and attempts to escape from Abstergo. Though he initially believes Altair's conspiracy to be only in the past, connections start to get drawn between his ancestor's targets and the company now holding him hostage. Desmond begins sneaking into places he shouldn't go, and discovers the company's sinister scheme for world domination. All of it, it seems, is linked to whatever Altair discovered at the end of that journey centuries ago.

Desmond has no choice but to play ball with his captors. You spend much of the game looking for a way out. 

Assassin's Creed is an open-world game, in which Altair can roam freely in massive, gorgeously detailed ancient cities. He can ride horses through the desert to reach his destination, and can explore dozens of city blocks, open-air markets, mosques, churches and synagogues.

The game does a good job of portraying the Christian-Muslim warhole that was the Crusades from a neutral standpoint, even going so far as to state that the game was developed by a multicultural team. Altair encounters citizens and soldiers from both groups, each hawking their idea of a peaceful Middle East.

Altair explores Damascus looking for clues as to his target's whereabouts. The game lets you roam the cities freely. Each one is sizeable.

The game is played from a third-person viewpoint. Altair's gameplay mechanics are built around stealth and hiding in plain sight. Though he has a sword for getting out of hairy situations, Altair can assassinate enemies with a retractable hidden blade on his right hand. You must manually push past people, hide, and look inconspicuous in order to succeed.

Altair also has options if the guards have the jump on him. Players can elude local law enforcement by breaking the enemy's line of sight, but must then sit on benches or hide in groups of people until the danger passes. Altair can also take shelter at the local assassins HQ, but only if he's not being hounded by a pack of snarly guards.

Altair is an expert swordsman, but you can only fight so many swarms of guards. The game rewards discretion.

The game's health mechanic is really interesting; it's portrayed as synchronization with the actual events of the memory. For example, if you, the player, kill an innocent civilian, you lose health because Altair didn't actually do that. Similarly, you lose synch if you get beat up in a swordfight because the real Altair is obviously way more badass then you are. You regain synch by completing a memory or by hiding from danger.

The actual assassinations require planning and skill. Altair must gather clues on each target through investigations across the cities. These include pickpocketing intel from unsuspecting guards, eavesdropping on conversations, or just beating info out of an enemy. You only need so much info in order to start the assassination, but the more you have, the better prepared you'll be.

Being a good assassin is all about detective work.

Now that we've got all the cool stuff out of the way, I have to do my job and tell you what's wrong with Assassin's Creed. The game is very repetitive. All nine assassination segments begin, operate and end in the exact same way. Go to city, gather info, kill target, go home for a pat on the head, do it all again the next day. Not once does the game deviate from this formula, and by kill five or six I was getting rather sick of it.

The game's controls are silky smooth, but they have a few problems. By holding down the run button, Altair can seamlessly parkour over obstacles, run along walls, and perform other acrobatic feats. The problem is that the jump and run buttons are the same; I lost count of how many times I ran near a parkour-able object and did a feat on it, not meaning to do so. This can make chase sequences extremely frustrating.

NO! I only wanted to go for a morning jog, not ballet-hop across the rafters!!

The combat is fun but most fights can end immediately if you counter-attack. When an enemy swings in with his sword, Altair can usually just shank the dude when he gets too close, ending the fight in mere seconds.

Perhaps the most annoying feature of this game is the beggars. Not in that I hate poor people, but in that they ask for money, and there is no money mechanic in the game. As my friend Bret and I have discussed numerous times, it's not that I don't want to give you money, lady, it's that I literally CAN'T give you money.

Altair doesn't carry cash, and you get dogged mercilessly by beggars throughout most of the game. Assassin's Creed has no economy, else I'd be paying beggars left and right.

These features weren't a deal-breaker for me, but I won't judge you if they are for you.

The Art

Assassin Creed's environments are wonderfully designed and beautiful. Each city is painstakingly detailed down to the orange vines on the merchant's villa. As in other AC games, commoners and soldiers go about their business. This doesn't just give Altair plenty of hiding spots; it makes the environments very convincing.

Altair's outfit is purposefully designed to make him resemble a reclusive monk, but that won't stop you from getting preached to by priests and imams, and it won't stop awesomely bearded carpet merchants from insisting that their prices are the best in the Holy Land. There's a big, beautiful desert environment linking the cities together called the Kingdom. It has no missions or objectives in it, which makes me wonder why it exists, but it's still beautiful and fun to explore.

The Kingdom connecting the three cities is amazingly pretty.

Assassin's Creed has decent character animations but  nothing special, especially by 2013 standards. The voice acting is convincing, but I hate that they hired an American to voice Altair, especially when all of his compatriots have, as one might expect, Syrian accents. A lot of fans love that feature but I find it kind of ridiculous. It certainly has a tendency to break immersion.

The music of the game is beautifully done as well, incorporating traditional western music with middle eastern drums and chants. Brazen horns sound when you arrive to each city, which made me feel like a goddamn sultan, and the combat music is especially notable for hastening me to run the hell faster.

The environments in this game are great. The music fits the game well. Insert more end-of-article euphamisms here.

Should I get it?

Like a baby learning to crawl, this first chapter in the Assassin's Creed series is not without some struggles and speed bumps, but it's a good start to a great series. I can't vouch for your feelings on the issues up top, but I can vouch for the game's decent narrative and immersive environments. This game sells for $10-15 on Amazon if you're interested.

Alright, have a good weekend everyone! Next week we're kicking things off with an indie game that hearkens to old-school rail shooters and brings the best of those games to the table. GET STOKED FOR IT :D