Assassin Creed (PC) – Review

Review Date: April 22, 2008
Game Rating: 7.8 (Very Good)
Award: Technical, Artistic, Innovation

Basic game informations:
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release Date: April 8, 2008
Other platforms: Xbox 360, PS3
ESRB Rating: Mature
Genre: Action
Difficulty: Normal
Number of players: 1 Player

Good Points: Great graphics, great use of audio, good engine, innovative NPCs interaction, interesting plot, fun combat system, and innovative controls.

Bad points: Repetitive missions, much better to use a gamepad than a keyboard, break of immersion, and unclear ending.

Assassin Creed was one of the most popular games on its launch, and it is still very popular. This is largely because of how well they have generated prior market-interests, how remarkably they have set the atmosphere of the game, and how well they have executed the technical and artistic side of the game. Ubisoft has done a great job in creating a historical action game environment, which is very fluid and realistic, worthy of applause.

One of the game’s strongest points is the innovative interaction with the surrounding and the realistic environment. As you play as Altair, who has to do missions for his assassin master, you can run freely from rooftop to rooftop and climb almost any building based on the buildings’ constructions. The crowd control mechanics allows soft or hard interactions with the surrounding based on Altair’s body, where four action buttons are given that correspond to each side of Altair’s body—head, left hand, right hand, and feet.

For some, it might stay to be entertaining to look at the richly detailed artistic environment, unfortunately, the similarities of the buildings and the barren land does become repetitive after the fourth city. Slowly climbing the twentieth or thirtieth view point just gets monotonous and does not hold the appeal that was there when climbing the first view point. Each time we go up there, and ‘synchronize’, the camera span around out of our control to show us how similar the barren areas are. Even the entertaining action dubbed ‘leap of faith’, where we jump from a high place to land in a soft pile of grain hay doesn’t cover this flaw enough.

In our missions, we will interact with the NPCs by pushing them aside gently, tackling them, pushing them hard, or by blending in. This is especially useful when we are found out by the authority—We can escape by sprinting out of sight then blending in with certain NPCs or hiding in any of the scattered hide spots. As we rescue citizen, more and more of them will come to our aid in the general area—while if we destroy their belongings, more and more of them will start attracting attention to us by blocking our way.

It is true that this aspect could be improved upon, however, as they began to get dull after I have done the same mission over and over again. Saving my twentieth citizen the same way, who will then say the exact same thing as the others I have saved, made me realize how repetitive most actions in the game are. The fact that the citizen that I have bothered in the past now come back with vengeance and stays around forever, also get exasperating pretty quickly.

The missions for example usually only revolve around assassinating a target or several targets, following someone to beat on him in a quiet place, running to a different location within certain time limit, sitting on a bench to listen to two person talking, and running around to collect flags. In the end, it feels that there are only a dozen of small missions in the game that we have to keep repeating until the end of the game.

The game’s simple but effective fight mechanic is quite enjoyable, and serves very well in making the gameplay more immersive and less tedious. There aren’t many bad points to the fight system, even if it feels like they didn’t spend so much time on it, judged by the limited amount of movements and actions that the player could do. There are two parts of the fight mechanic, which are the normal fight and the silent kill system.

One part of the Silent Kill system that I have enjoyed the most, is the ability to sneak behind an archer on rooftop to stab him with my hidden blade. The well-done close up camera, slowed down time, and sound effect makes it a gratifying experience. It only slowly gets old after I have done the same thing to my 30th or 40th archer.

The counter attack and guard break system, that the game’s basic fight mechanic revolves around, are quite simple, yet engaging and well done. There are only several actions you would generally do in a fight, which are guarding, attacking, countering, stepping in to destroy their guard, grabbing the enemy, and throwing them. Each of them changes between several variety of the action, making the fight more fluid and engaging rather than repetitive as they could have been.

The game artistic and immersion value is quite high, with the very realistic world where arts, AI, music, innovative interaction with the surrounding and sound effect combining together into a very immersive environment. Almost every NPC moves about in the cities their daily life to create a living and breathing atmosphere. The sound inconspicuously set the tone for the game, with the voice acting for all the characters and sound effects wrapping the package, although the repeated voice-acting of the NPCs have to be noted. The graphic is quite well done, detailed, and abundant as well.

The immersive world is so well constructed that it feels like a crime when the game keep throwing me to the future, breaking my immersion. While it might be useful to do the linear story-telling, which is abundant in linear medium, it doesn’t excuse breaking the immersive value of the game and giving nothing to do in the future. We just listens, walk about in the same two rooms, and sleep. I’ve not finished the game yet, even though I’m half way through the game, so don’t quote me on this but I have also heard that the ending doesn’t clarify the game’s story line and quite a failure.

From purely the artistic and technical stand point, Assassin Creed is very impressive, however I believe it fail to deliver as a great game. The recurring dozen of missions is a big no-no in proper game design, although there are some interesting distractions and production value that manage to give the game some appealing values. The game is worth trying, if just for the unique approach of free-running, story-line and the innovative interaction with the surrounding.

If you can forgive the repetitive nature of the actions, the game becomes a much better game. Just make sure to try it first before spending too much money on it, and make sure your system can handle it. I’ve also heard that the Console versions are more repetitive and inferior, so you may want to choose the PC version if possible.

Gameplay: 7
The missions are repetitive and lack depth, but these flaws are partially pardoned by the well-done fight mechanics and immersive world. The context-sensitive character controls are simple, but innovative.

Graphics: 8.5
Great graphics, especially on good computers, although its’ not so special anymore by the current graphic standard in computer gaming. However, the similar nature of the buildings and the environment makes it looks a little bland, ruining the perfect graphic score the game could have.

Audio: 7.5
Everyone have voice-overs, the background sound and music set the tone of the game imperceptibly, and the sound effects are pretty much everything that could be asked for. However, the repetition of sound clips hurts the game some.

Longevity: 6
Repetitive missions get dull pretty quickly and the linear story can only be experienced once, but the game can at least last one or two dozens of hours.

Innovation: 9
Innovative free running and interaction with the surrounding are done very well, although two or three innovative ideas aren’t enough to give the game a score of 10 in innovation.

Overall: 7.8
Assassin Creed is a very good game with unique artistic values and innovations, but it falls just short of being a great game.

note: Check out Hi-Res screenshots of Assassin Creed (PC) at http://www.windowsvistamagazin.de/?article_id=637552.