| |
|
"This work of fiction was designed, developed and produced by a multicultural team with varied religious faiths and beliefs."
Certainly the most interesting and unusual disclaimer to prominently pop up onscreen before a game. Assassin's Creed is a stealth-based action game set in 1191AD, during the Third Crusade. After capturing the city of Acre, Richard the Third has his eye set on Jerusalem to reclaim it for Christianity. Muslim armies are amassing and intending to stop the Crusaders from reaching Jerusalem. In the chaos of war the rest of the Holy Land is being governed and exploited by nine corrupt men, who have been marked for death by a league of assassins. The player takes the role of Altair, an assassin sent to murder the nine targets (Ubisoft apparently claims that the targets are all real historical figures who died or disappeared in 1191).
Except that's not what it's about. The game is actually set in 2012, and you play Desmond, a bartender in an unnamed city who is the descendant of 12th-century Altair. Kidnapped by a scientific organization and kept captive, Desmond is forced to spend his days in a machine that allows the scientists to delve into his "genetic memory" and relive Altair's actions, so they can attain information about something of apparently great value buried in the past (I haven't finished the game yet so I don't know what it is).
The sci-fi plot is, I'm assuming, an elaborate way to justify the onscreen displays, map screens, health bars, etc, but the mashing of the two hugely different settings feels really awkward and disruptive - I'm used to seeing statistics and meters on game screens, I don't need a fancy sci-fi reason for them being there. Every time I feel immersed in the 12th century, I'm yanked back into 2012 and have to spend 10 minutes in the science lab yakking with the pretty assistant (Kristen Bell). There's a plotline developing there too, about the scientists having sinister intentions and poor Ms Bell being forced to comply, but it's not particularly compelling. I'd have far far preferred that the entirety of the game be set in 1191 and remain immersed in that setting.
The gameplay is also sort of frustrating. While playing as Altair you have two states - high profile and low profile, accessible by holding down or releasing a particular button while you perform actions. High profile moves include sprinting, leaping, climbing, etc, which attract the attention of people in the city (particularly guards). Low profile moves are stealthy and require blending into crowds or the environment. However the two states don't seem to be implemented properly - at times the most innocent of actions can alert the guards to your presence and conversely, you can hide from them in the most preposterous ways (merely sitting on a bench can apparently render you invisible to 10 pursuers). Combat also lacks finesse, performed by either mashing buttons gracelessly or waiting in a defensive stance until someone takes a swing at you, at which point you press one button and kill them with a single blow. It's really unsatisfying and more of an annoying chore you have to accomplish.
Where Assassin's Creed does truly excel, however, is atmosphere. Each of the cities in the Holy Land is vast, and fully realized (again, Ubisoft claims it is all historically accurate). The streets are packed with people, all moving around independently and interacting with one another in very convincing fashion. The crowds react to your actions, if you go charging through a dense crowd you'll topple some of them over while the rest yell in outrage, if you scale a wall they'll point and look and chatter in disbelief, if you kill someone they will scream and scatter for cover (a favourite of mine is to kill a guard on a rooftop, then throw the body to the street below and wait for the screams of horror - it never gets old). Traveling through the city is largely accomplished by climbing up to the top of a building and then doing parkour, running and leaping with extraordinary agility across rooftops, which can be exhilarating, especially when being pursued by guards. The expanse of the city is really quite impressive.
It's a truly stunning-looking game with fantastic atmosphere and gameplay that seems like it should have been given a few more months of development to work out the kinks. I don't quite know what to make of the story just yet (I think I'm less than halfway through the game) but hopefully the sci-fi aspect will come together in a satisfying way by the end.
Anyone else play this? What do you think? |
|
|
