Lunatic Arrow Key Turners

Assassin’s Creed is the first game i got after getting my new computer. What propel me to get the game is the trailer and generally positive reviews it received.

The story of Assassin’s Creed is you play as Desmond Miles, who is a descendant of Altair, who is one of the best Assassin if not the best during the period of the Third Crusade. After failing a mission, Altair is stripped of his rank and is given a list of 9 men he must assassinate to regain his rank.

So how does Desmond relate to the story? It is revealed that a company call Abstergo Industries has created a machine call Animus, which can bring memories stored in one’s DNA and allow the host to experience the memory of their ancestor. Since Desmond is a descendant of Altair, who holds some information that Abstergo wants, he is kidnapped and brought in order to extract said information.

As Altair assassinate each of the nine men one by one, it is revealed they all belong to the Knights Templar, an order that seeks to bring peace and stability to the world through whatever means necessary. In a final twist, it is revealed the master of the Assassins Order is also a Templar, and he possesses an artifact called the Piece of Eden, which brainwashes people into believing whatever the wielder wants them to believe. After all of Altair’s memories are restored within Desmond, it is revealed the location of the Piece of Eden is the information Abstergo wishes to obtain.

Assassin’s Creed is a stealth based action game, there’s a witness indicator which shows how aware the soldiers in the city are of your presence. While you can avoid fighting through most of the game, near the end you will have some unavoidable battles where you’ll be surrounded by enemies. So it is advised you hone your fighting skills in early missions. The story of the game is pretty good, you learn more about the purpose of your nine assassination targets after each one dies and your place in the grand scheme of things. The ending left us with more questions than answers when we began, hopefully there is a sequel of some sorts.

Surprisingly, the controls for the PC in this game is pretty intuitive, i was quite comfortable with the default mouse/keyboard combination. Most Console to PC ports have bad keyboard/mouse support where i would just go and plug in a controller to deal with it, so being mouse/keyboard friendly is a plus. Graphics wise, since this is the first game i got since i upgraded from 6600GT to 8800GT, so everything looks nice. I’m not really a graphics person so as long as it looks good and no noticeable deformities its all good.

While the scenery is nice to look at, story is interesting to follow, the AI engaging enough to matter, the game play is repetitive to the point of where you would want to only do the minimum amount you are required in order to advance the story. In order to assassinate your target, you would have to gather some information about them in order to proceed. There is also some side quests like saving citizens being bully by soldiers and climbing view points. In the first mission, i gathered all six information about my target when only two is required, climbed all view points, and saved all citizens being harassed by soldiers. In the last mission, i collected the requisite information about my target and, climbed view points that were on the way, and turned a deaf ear to the citizens crying for help. While saving citizens can help, like spawning scholars so you can blend in to get past guard posts. But since pretty much all the buildings in game are scalable, you just have to found out where to go and how to get there. Assassin’s Creed is a pretty short game compare to others in its genre, therefore, the repetitive game play doesn’t feel as bad as it should.

Assassin’s Creed offers stunning visuals, along with good voice acting and a nice story. However, the game play does get tedious and it can have an effect on the enjoyment level. Maybe the game developers knew that and that’s why the game is relatively short. Replay value wise i don’t really see it, the flag collecting and templar slaying side quests are more meant for 360 achievements so it doesn’t have an effect for PC. Assassin’s Creed is a hit or miss title, if you can stand the game play, you’ll find the game to be enjoyable, if not, you’ll probably stopped playing after the second mission.

P.S. Altair might be able to jump from building to building, scale tall buildings, defeat numerous enemies, he still can’t swim.