Since I don’t post nearly enough on this site, I thought I might discuss my opinions on Assassin’s Creed, which I’ve been playing for the last week or so. The game came out on Xbox 360 and PS3 last year, but just came out for PC.

Being a PC gamer (not primarily but still regularly) I was at first surprised to see no options for resolution (least that I could find); as I’m using a 1920×1200 LCD and the game ran with a slight letterbox at 1920×1080, this isn’t a big deal. The other strange thing is that I was unable to set anti-aliasing options despite my rig being more than capable of handling such options — it was there, just greyed out.  Admittedly I only played the DirectX 10 version so DirectX 9 may support this; I didn’t even think til now to check!

But onto the story: Set during in the first crusade (12th century), and simultaneously in a future but undisclosed time, you play a character who has been “sent” back in time to relive the life of an Assassin using a device called an ‘Animus’, similar to the plug-in chairs in the Matrix series of movies. But that part of the story is wasted on me — though clearly one of a multi-part series, it’s useless in at least the first game. That’s not really important. What’s important in the game’s context is that you’re there to perform nine assassinations on major targets (loosely based on real-life figures at the time).

And now onto the game: Before you perform each assassination, you must gather intelligence on the person’s whereabouts, situation and a likely strike point. The setup is similar to a Need For Speed game: you perform a number of small tasks (in Need For Speed they are race types — drag racing, drifting, point-to-point, etc; in Assassin’s Creed they are obviously different — eavesdropping, pickpocketing, assassinating guards, destroying merchant stalls) and then move on to the major target.

A lot has been spoken of the repetitive nature of the investigations you perform, and I agree: they do become repetitive. Especially the less-interesting ones such as eavesdropping or pickpocketing. Because the game allows you to roam anywhere (except for a daft decision which puts large walls in parts of the city to stop you entering ahead of time) you can make of it what you will. Some of the most enjoyable experiences were when things went wrong.

For example, I was tasked to kill 3 guards without being found out. I killed the first two and as I hunted for the third ran around a corner hastily and bumped into another guard; instantly the guard gave chase. Soon after I had more than a dozen guards chasing me over the town’s rooftops. I stopped on the sloping roof of a church to fight, but was quickly surrounded — the fighting is simple, but can be quite fun (and luckily the guards only attack one at a time); I killed off a few but decided to run. I grabbed a guard, shoved him into a couple which fell off the roof as I bolted in the other direction with only a few left.

It’s the moments like these that really make the game. When it works, it’s as exciting as all hell. When you complete an assassination you still have to escape, but all the guards are on alert. My favourite assassination had me chasing the target through the city streets and when I finally caught up to him I jumped on his back and managed to complete my mission in front of a number of guards (and large crowd of people) who instantly gave chase. Brilliant.

Because it’s an open sandbox, you can tackle things however you wish. I had to escape a city — and when they’re finally unlocked, the cities are big, you can run for ages without hitting the walls; the viewing distance when up high is also amazing, you can see the whole city as well as the massive crowds of people therein — in one of the later missions, but the city entrance was guarded. From a safe point on a roof I assassinated a guard which drew the attention of the other guards. Jumping to a building closer to the exit I then jumped across the beams above the unaware guards before dropping to the ground, stealing a horse and making my escape. If I’d wanted I could have instead joined a group of monks and used them as cover to pass the guards unnoticed.

Sure there are a ton of faults — falling in water is instant death, and there’s a level set in docklands which requires you to jump from ship-to-ship to find a target; the guards are as good as climbing or jumping from roof-to-roof as you; the guards forget what you looked like even though they were chasing you two seconds ago; having to ride a horse between towns is uninteresting and time consuming — but the stuff that’s done right was most certainly enough to keep my interest and to be honest I wish there were to the game (or at least optional sidequests that aren’t “kill templars” or “find flags” — boring) because I wanted to continue playing when the credits rolled.

I usually hate stealth games (or stealth sections in games) with a passion, mostly because they are “instant fail”. That is, if you get found out you have to start again. Assassin’s Creed however, works because you can stuff up and it lets you get out of it. That said, trying some missions over and over is a bit silly. As is the fact that to perform most of the assassinations you have to be out in the open in front of dozens of people or guards. So, even though I despise stealth games I found myself wanting more stealth options in this one.

There are almost as many faults in the game as there are great moments that it’s easy to see why people were divided on it’s initial release. There’s an incredible, amazing, enjoyable, exciting game in there and it’s let down by some dumb or lazy decisions. I’ll certainly be interested to see when the second one is released.

I know this was long, and many of you don’t care, but that’s what blogs are for, right?