Assassin's Creed

Nine lives in exchange of one; a price that you have to pay, but are you be willing to pay it? Do they really deserve to meet their death just to save your own? It is a morale that stands with no answer. A fiction work made by various men with more variety in faith and beliefs, Ubisoft have put some thought into this title, and the pay off seems in its favour. However, the scales can't be all balanced when it comes to games; there isn't anything perfect in the world and games won't be an exception.
 
If you are one of the Hitman series fans I would advise you to read this review thoroughly. In fact I will come clean and tell you straight, BUY this game. However, if you are one of those that despise such genre, then taking more consideration with this review would be a great deed.
 
Abstergo, a pharmaceutical company that is the creator of almost every technological device in the past decade (year of now is 2012), At least so claims Dr. Warden, a Doctor who specialises in human genes and its relations with memory. He, along with his lovely assistant Miss Lucy, are the researchers assigned to the Animus, a device used to hologram a person's memories. Desmond Milles is the abducted subject on which they both test the machine on. Altair Ibn La A’had English Translation: The bird (or flying one) son of no one is his great ancestor assassin. Now that we have broken the ice and everyone knows each other…
 
Dr. Warden has been given a mission to find a secret which only Altair knows. Through Mr. Milles heintends to find out this secret by using the Animus. But who is Altair? Well he was one of the ranks in the Assassin's Creed; a creed that was present in the time where Europe has launched its Third Crusade on the Middle East. Altair is the one saving the day as the expression goes though with a really odd method of doing it.
 
With the personification of Altair you are given the chance to end the rule of the Crusaders upon the Holy Land, or so you would believe. Rising up the ranks of the Creed's chain of command you are given various targets to eliminate, who reside in 3 main cities: Acre, Jerusalem, and Damascus. Targets vary in nationality between English, French and Arab.
 
The system is quite simple. You are given the location of a Bureau in one of the main cities. Once you arrive there you are given the mission once more, this time with a request to gather information on your target. To find that information you climb up to one of the View Points scattered around the city. The View Points are one of the tallest buildings, be they church bell towers or Mosque Minarets or just... tall buildings.

The information manifests itself into a mini mission you need to do for some of the Creed members. These are one of four types: eliminate a number of targets (be it archers or just swordsman guards), protect a creed member; deliver something to another member, or the last to fetch misplaced flags. Once you gather (accomplish enough missions) information you are allowed to proceed to the Bureau to get a "leaf to go"; a form of permission to start your assassination mission.
 
The assassination mission starts with a conversation between the target and one of his accomplices. Once the scene is over you are to eliminate your target by any means you see fit. The assassination completes with an alarm of bells towering the city to alert of your presence. Killing your target, or anyone in the game for that matter, you are allowed to use one of 3 weapons, which you gain simultaneously after finishing each mission.
The first and most silent weapon is the Hidden Blade. A blade fixed to your left arm replacing your second middle finger. You can use it to put your targets to rest easily by stabbing them in the back, stomach, or neck. The second is the sword. It is the most vicious of the three, and acts like any other sword needless to say. The third is the knives. You have both a dagger (a “Short Blade” as they call it) and a throwing knife. The throwing knives are good to get rid of distant enemies, while the dagger is excellent for disposing group of enemies fast.

Not only that but you are also a master climber. Since this is an Ubisoft title, they needed to implement a more powerful system of wall climbing/running. And as they stated, you can climb any surface in The Kingdom (the cities and Masyaf your headquarters).
 
As you can see already, the game feels quite systematic. Climb a View Point, do a mini mission, then go to Bureau and afterwards kill your target. Of course the sense of early boredom doesn't escape such process. One other notable thing, however the kills you do. No matter how discreet you are in assassinating your target, you are always deemed to raise the alarm bells, and you need to have a little "escape hype" after each assassination, which still gives you a feeling of repetitive nonsense.
 
On the other side of things, all scenes in the game are somewhat "playable", for you can move around while the scenes continue. You can also change the camera view angle in the scenes, which Ubisoft calls Glitch Escapes. I found this ability a good feature, since you can immerse yourself more in the game atmosphere.
 
The game doesn’t only revolve around Altair though. Occasionally, and after you are done with an Animus session, you are controlling Desmond. Now you switch to a more modern environment; while you are trapped inside the lab. You are trying to gather as much information about Abstergo and how you could escape. You are trying to unravel the mystery behind Altair, Templers and the Assassins as much as you are trying to solve the mystery of the abducted man.
 
As what we would expect from Ubisoft, the game graphics are astounding. Matching only that of next generation games, they have worked hard and can claim to have built 3 entire cities without any loss of their original areas or notable places. This gives us the second most environmentally intense game since Far Cry. True words spoken I have to say. Throughout my journey I found two famous monuments in those areas. The Aqsaa Mosque a notable place for Muslims, and The Church of Judgment Day for Christians. Both are detailed specifically and with incredible magnificence. However, I thought it was a shame not to be able to visit indoors.
 
The in game music and sounds serve nothing but to enrich the atmosphere you are put in. The music changes to a more rapid theme when you are chased by guards, but still maintain its oriental essence. This is with some occasional Christian or Muslim generic speech thrown in the back ground.  The voice acting is excellent as well, but it was obvious though that most actors are not Arabs but Indians.
 
As with all new games, the plague of errors, glitches and the sense of incompletion still haunt this game as well. With two patches already released, solving some of the problems people encountered wasn't really enough. Apparently the major issue was of a pirated version of the retail game. The problem unravels once you try to enter the city of Jerusalem, and I would be really careful in dealing with this. Those who buy should be advised that you should probably buy the director's cut edition, but there is no guarantee though that the problem doesn't persistince Ubisoft hasn't yet released any fix for it, not even to the Director's Cut Version.
 
I am Egyptian; and I can only look upon the game in awe. Many of those places and parts of history I have never seen or known till I laid my hands on this game. Ubisoft should be praised to be the first for making a really sensational stealth assassination game. This title is a must have as I would say to everyone, but careful because it tends to get somewhat addictive. You will know when you have played too much Assassin's Creed when you sit on a bench 5 meters away from two talking people, and trying to use your eavesdrop ability.