Reviews
Assassins Creed is a title that has been highly anticipated by the gaming community as a whole, and rightly so. It promised great things and the media circus it generated has placed great expectation on Ubisoft Montreal to ensure that the game lived up to the hype. The problem with the hype machine is that the very best a game can do is simply live up to the hype and anything less than that can be perceived as a failing and may result in a disproportionate public flogging for both the game and developer. Now that Assassins Creed has hit the shelves, does it live up to the hype or is too much expected of it?
Assassins Creed is based in the Middle East during the 3rd Crusade between the 11th and 13th centuries. You play the role of Altair, a member of a secret group of assassins that carry out hits on high profile political targets in an effort to shape the political map of the region. Early on in the game you meet the leader of the group of assassins who presents you with the task of assassinating 9 people which constitutes the entire single player campaign. The interesting thing about all this is that these 9 people did actually exist, and did disappear in strange circumstances between the 11th and 13th centuries. To further compound the historical aspect to the game, the towns and cities in Assassins Creed are faithful replicas of their ancient Middle Eastern counterparts. It is clear that a lot of time, effort and money have been spent in painstakingly recreating these environments, and authenticity seems to be what Ubisoft Montreal were after.
To add an extra dimension to the game is the parallel story of Desmond, a barman in the present day who, through the use of an Animus VR machine, is able to access the memories of his ancestors as their experiences and memories are stamped on his DNA. Climb into the Animus chamber and you can select a memory block to run through, which translates to level selection. The game menu is presented on the inside of the Animus lid and you have to turn your head left to right to see it all. This is a really innovative way of interacting with standard game features and it works really well. Even the tutorial is pitched as a means to synchronise the Animus to the memories stamped on your DNA. Perform the tasks in the tutorial and your synchronisation rate increases until it becomes full. When it is full, you get the option to use Eagle View which allows you to enter the view mode but you will see characters glow a certain colour, red for enemies, yellow for assassination targets, white for people with useful information and blue for allies. Eagle vision is only available when you are fully synchronised. Take some damage and you lose a unit of synchronisation. If your synchronisation falls to zero, your memory stream ends and you must restart from the last checkpoint. This innovative approach to the game coupled with the historical authenticity gives the game a solid base to work from. It’s futuristic and a tad far fetched, but is still believable.
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