VGM Fusion

Review: Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360)

This fall seems to be full of games that have been hyped for 2-odd years – Rock Band, Crysis, Mass Effect, Mario Galaxy… and of course, Assassin’s Creed; the bet the farm game for UbiSoft. They’ve never spent so much money on a game as far as development and media for it. Also, besides Nintendo, no one’s ever been as secretive about a game before. Few if any of us media folks had ever gotten a chance to lay a hand on the game save for last night. That’s not to say we didn’t experience it, we just never were allowed to touch the controller (yeah, I know).

The game has been hyped to kingdom come (heh, kinda pun’ish there) and has also captured the bloggers’ and gamer-geeks’ attention by way of one of their producers, Jade Raymond (her image being run almost as much of that as Altaïr’s). But when you first get into the game and start to see the “secret” story you were never told that fuses future with distant past, you’ll see why UbiSoft really thought they had a winner on their hands.

The game itself is mesmerizing in many ways. The beauty of the environments, the wondrous melodies of the orchestral score, the fluidity of Altaïr’s movements… they all blend together and meld into a fantastic experience that sucks you in (even if you are doing a lot of the same things repeatedly).

So basically, you’re an Assassin (in the past) and you have to kill 9 (debatably) evil men to satisfy your master, and to promote the betterment of mankind. In the future… well, I’ll let you discover what’s going on there.

You’ve all seen the videos and the developer diaries that show off the great movement and combat systems, and they work just as well as they were designed to, and after a slight learning curve are completely natural.

There was quite a large amount of work that went into this game as far as NPC’s goes, and the 3 major cities (the holy land of Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre) that you skulk through are bristling with thousands of them, waiting to get in your way, ask for your help and money, frustrate you, praise you, help you, and just plain create some of the best ambiance in any game so far (though I hear The Witcher does quite a good job at this as well).

The cities too are wonderfully designed to allow Altaïr to leap effortlessly around the rooftops and streets without ever feeling like they were designed to do just that. Just excellent level design.

Getting back to how the game actually works – you generally have to survey an area first to figure out how to go about your kill. You do this by pick pocketing, eavesdropping, or interrogating. In order to first acquire these tasks though, you must get the lay of the land by climbing atop large structures to get a bird’s eye view. My only real complaint with the game is that you must do each of these tasks so repeatedly that they do get somewhat monotonous. I wish that the developers had come up with a few more ways to get your information… what about breaking and entering to steal some documents? What about turning into a liaison with one of the suspects and infiltrating their ranks? Watch any spy movie and you’ll see hundreds of ideas. Alas, you’re stuck with only a few options.

If you are the proud owner of a PS3 or an Xbox 360 though, and if you haven’t already blown your budget on some of the other great games for the holiday season, Assassin’s Creed is an experience you have to, um, experience. Very few games have combined parkour, stealth, combat and espionage in such an elegant way before, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t at least borrow a friend’s copy or rent it. Definitely recommended.

Game Details:
Available: November 15, 2007
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Action/Adventure
ESRB: Mature 17+
VGM Rating: 4/5