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Assassin's Creed
Author: Andy FairPublished: 27th November 2007
Take my breath away
The first thing you notice when you fire up the game is the graphics: to say that they're stunning doesn't really do them justice. There is an amazing amount of detail in the game world, and at no point does it feel like you're running around Blocksville, Legoland – there's a wide variety of building types, and each city you visit has its own feel. Muslim cities have mosques and minarets, Christian cities have churches and cathedrals.Even the lands you travel through between the cities are worthy of your attention and are lavished with detail.
The draw distances are spectacular, possibly some of the highest I've ever seen in a game. As you look across a city from a high-up viewpoint - and some of the viewpoints are high, the feeling of height and vertigo is very realistic – you can see from one side of a city to another. In fact, you can see beyond to the seas or mountains surrounding that city. The city is not just a hazy blob, either – it's easy to make out major landmarks miles away.
The character animations are also of a high quality, as you’d expect from the team which re-introduced gamers to the Prince of Persia franchise. The normal denizens of the world look as though they're actually walking and not, as in most games, as though they're all fiercely clenching their sphincters.
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Fighting is the one area where the animations excel, and there’s variety of gruesome and bloody ways in which Altaïr can dispatch his foes through some beautifully animated attacks and gloriously detailed counters.
The realism of the character interactions extends even further though. The citizens of the city go about their lives, and do their best to get in Altaïr’s way when he's trying to escape from angry guards.
Passers-by react when you bump into them, and make sarcastic comments about why you're trying to climb a building instead of just going inside and using the stairs, which helps gives the game a nicely comic feel at times. However, the problem here is that there are only a few stock phrases that people use around the city, and they inevitably become annoying after an hour or two.
Control is the key!
But, as we all know, graphics don't necessarily make a game. What matters at the end of the day is how a well a game plays and the control system in Assassin’s Creed is touted by Ubisoft as being "revolutionary". Hmm.In theory, each of the four face buttons controls a specific part of Altaïr's body: so the triangle button (Y on Xbox) controls Altaïr's head, the square button controls his sword arm and so on. Actions can also be modified by pressing the shoulder button, which places Altaïr into "high profile" mode.
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In practice though, this never really works all that well because you never really stop to think what part of Altaïr you're controlling because the actions are always displayed in the top right of the screen. This ruins the sense of immersion this control layout it supposed to create and reduces the control methods to just another third person game control scheme.
The control system for the game is actually too simple, which I admit seems like an odd complaint. Let me explain.
When you're climbing buildings, Altaïr almost does everything for you. All the player has to do is push a direction – there's no sense of control, no sense that you may fall off if you press the wrong button.
Actually, it's virtually impossible to fall off the building that you're climbing or the ledge you're standing on, so the sense of excitement is dulled somewhat. Free-running across rooftops is simply a case of pressing the right button and pushing the stick in the direction in which you want to move: Altaïr does all of the jumping automatically.
Supposedly the thrill of free-running lies in trying to judge where you might land, just as in real life. However, assessing whether or not you can make a particular leap over and over and over really is exactly as boring as it sounds.
There are flags scattered around the city, a la Crackdown, but, as far as I can see, they serve no purpose other than being something to collect when you get bored of doing missions. Gee. Whizz.
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