Assassin's Creed

In prepping to write a review of the sequel, much like Mass Effect I decided to take a look back at the original Assassin's Creed.

You play as Desmond, a normal guy with a somewhat checkered past who has been kidnapped and is being held captive in this starkly white, somewhat future looking complex. You get the main gist of what's going on from the mysterious Dr. Vidic and his assistant Lucy, who tell you that the reason you're there is because your DNA contains the memory of your ancestors, and one particular ancestor of yours knows something that the organization they work for needs to know. With the help of a machine known as the Animus, they can view those memories. Unfortunately for them, they can't just jump straight to the memory, they have to ease you into it and synchronize memories up until the final memory. Memory memory memory.

Your ancestor is Altair, a high ranking assassin during the crusades. You start having found the Ark of the Covenant in Templar hands, and instead of listening to your compatriots and being rational, you go in for a frontal assault against your main enemy the rest of the game, Robert de Sable. You fail, run, return to headquaters, get stabbed for your stupidity, and then miraculously survive. You are stripped of your rank and equipment, and spend the rest of the game trying to get it back. You do this by fulfilling your master's orders and tracking down and killing various important Templars in various cities like Jerusalem.

Meanwhile you're also given the opportunity after every major "memory block" is completed to leave the Animus and learn more about your captors and their motives. Dr. Vidic is gung-ho scientist, willing to go to any length to get what he wants, while Lucy is more sympathetic, and has an interesting story of her own to tell.

As Altair you follow a VERY predictable path. Every city/major kill requires you to track down info that will help in your mission in a couple different ways: eavesdropping, pickpocketing, beat-up/interrogation, and free-running speed trials. You can also scale marked tall buildings for a "viewpoint" that reveals things nearby on the map (and a fun sweeping 360 degree view of the area), and help citizens being picked on by guards for access to mercenaries who block anyone pursuing you or a group of monks that you can blend in with. After gaining all the necessary info, you go to the guild leader of the city, tell them the plan, and they give you the go-ahead for the assassination. Along with your knife, sword, hidden blade and throwing daggers comes the "Eagle Eye" ability, which flashes you into a kind of blue, blurry vision where friendly people are highlighted blue while enemies are highlighted in red.

Also, there are literally hundreds of flags and individual Templars scattered around each area that you can grab/kill. There is no reward for collecting all of them except achievements on the Xbox.

And that's about it. Every assassination has different ways of approaching it, but for the most part it's impossible to discern what you're actually supposed to do and often the easiest approach is just to head right on in and kill them. The enemies in this game are so easily tipped off to your presence in this game that if you so much as sneeze they'll attack you. The only way to avoid attention is to bow your head and walk slowly like a monk, which gets MIND NUMBINGLY BORING because the cities are pretty vast, and being forced to walk slowly everywhere you go is an extreme nuisance. And don't even think about running anywhere. If you start running, the nearest guard will immediately attack you.

The story and setting are where the game truly shines. The environments are beautiful and climbing from rooftop to rooftop is a joy, if a bit tricky sometimes since you drown upon touching water, and sometimes Altair simply doesn't jump in the direction you want him to.

For those who don't want spoilers, it all ends with a great big WTF twist that doesn't make much sense but leaves things wide open for a sequel.

Overall it's a great idea with an interesting story and good graphics, but the actual gameplay mechanics are so repetitive and uninteresting that you just wish the developers had put some more effort into it.

Assassin's Creed gets a 7/10.

And for those who don't care about spoilers and want a head's up on what happens in Assassin's Creed 2, read on.

**SPOILERS HERE ON OUT**

As the game progresses you realize that the plot you're embroiled in is much more complex than it seems. The Ark of the Covenant you saw at the beginning turns out to be a "Piece of Eden" which bestows great power on whoever holds it. As you finish off each of the Templars you realize their plan is to use the Piece of Eden to enslave the minds of everyone and thus bring about "peace". However, your fearless leader also turns more and more suspect as the later killings don't seem to be helping. Eventually you face Robert de Sable before Richard Lionheart to try and prove that the assassins don't want war, but with his dying breath de Sable reveals that your fearless leader is actually a Templar, and thanks to you there's now no one left to stop him from keeping the Piece of Eden for himself. You return to your home town to find the populace enslaved and against you, but you battle your way up to Al Mualim (the leader). Strangely you seem to be immune to its influence, but it can still paralyze you for short periods of time. Eventually Al Mualim summons all your previous assassination targets to fight you, and when you kill them, he attacks you with about 6 copies of himself (only one of which is real). You kill him, and when he dies the Piece of Eden rolls out of his hand and projects a holographic image of the world along with several pinpoints of light where other Pieces of Eden are located.

You are brought back to the real world where it's revealed that Abstergo, the company keeping you hostage, is a modern day Templar company. Lucy also turns out to be a modern day assassin being kept hostage much like you. The Templars plan to put a Piece of Eden into a satellite, launch it into orbit, and then control everyone in the world.

Also, the "eagle eye" ability of Altair has bled over into the real world, where it's revealed that tons of symbols and diagrams litter the room you've been kept in, and they're written in blood. Turns out the previous subject before you discovered some interesting things, but there's no way to make sense of any of it.

And that's where it leaves you. Ready for a sequel.

For those who look for a score at the end of my posts, once again:

Assassin's Creed gets a 7/10.