.:middle eastern ninjas are cool:.
system: xbox 360
one sentence description: mix one part hitman with two parts prince of persia, a large portion of high-concept cinematic story and some serious parkour, and you have assassin’s creed.
graphics: 10 - unbelieveable. the attention to details of the main character (altair…pronounced al-tie-air) and the cityscapes are completely unmatched in my opinion. the animations are beautiful, right down to the way he turns while walking. it’s all very fluid.
sound: 8.5 - the sounds design is great…clanging of swords, the hustle and bustle of the crowds, ambient noises. the only thing i don’t like is the fact that a lot of the miscellaneous dialogue is repeated over and over again. it becomes very annoying after the 3rd or 4th time you hear it.
challenge: 9 - while there isn’t as much of a stealth mechanic as i thought there might be, the overall balance of actions and the learning curve for each one makes up for it. for example, once you figure the basics of combat, you quickly find yourself becoming interested in learning how to utilize the city surfaces to move around. and once you have the basics of that figured out, you find that you’ve gained another combat ability that you have to learn how to use. or learn another part of the city. or figure out once of the little side challenges that each of your ‘information gathering’ missions present. all of it ramps up gradually and all of it makes you think about how you’ll utilize each of those learnings and incorporate it into your gameplay.
value: 8 - i feel like it’s safe to say that once you finish up the game, you probably won’t want to play it again, as there isn’t any multiplayer invovled. you may want to go back and try to do some of the long winded ‘gathering’ side missions (i.e. find 100 flags scattered through the city, kill 60 templars, etc.), but that appears to be it. i’ve read that the game spans about 15-20 hours, which isn’t bad at all. i’ve spent about 8, and feel like i’m about half way through.
bias: 9 - assasin games with swordplay and knives and acrobatics and all of that stuff is awesome, so you could say i’m a little biased.
total 9 - definitely worth the money if you like these types of action games. for those of you that get frustrated by the whole stealth thing, you don’t have to worry about that much here, as it plays less of a role than just plain overall action. the controls take some getting used to. it’s contextual-based, so depending on the situation and the type of ’stance’ you are in (high profile/low profile), you’ll do different things. in combat, this makes it more about timing rather than fancy button combos. when moving, it’s makes things a lot simpler, as it doesn’t rely so much on timing as it does making sure you’re aimed at where you want to go and you have a general sense of altair’s jumping abilities.
my only complaint: the camera. this is a fairly typical flaw with third person games. sometimes the camera glitches out and ends up behind a tree at crucial moments. for example, when you’re in combat with a dozen different guys and you manage to pull off a good counter, the last thing you want to have glitch is the camera. when you come out of that counter, it makes it difficult to anticipate who’s going to attack next.
rare is it that a game actually makes me think a lot about playing it. even more rare is it that a game makes you think about your own life and why you are here. yeah, that’s pretty deep for a video game.
taking a step back, you are introduced to the idea that you actually aren’t the main character altair; rather, you are a character in the present day named desmond who has been abducted by a pharma company. the company has developed a machine which allows access to viewing ‘gene memory’. not only does it allow access, but it allows control of the memory, resulting in the connection between desmond and altair. altair is desmond’s ancestor, thus desmond is able to live altair’s memories.
pretty bizarre, eh? i’m not very deep into the game at this point…probably about 50% in…and i’m sure that i’ll uncover more about this connection. however, the singular idea of gene memory is pretty intriguing, and actually something that i could buy. think about who you are and what makes you tick. you are made up of millions of years of evolution, millions of years of mixed genes and DNA passed down from ancestor to ancestor. wouldn’t it make sense that some of that ‘code’ would equate into the possibility of residual memories? if it makes sense that your genes make you predisposed to act/perform in a certain way, then you could feasibly draw the conclusion that your body could also house the memories of what led to those competencies.
from a practical point of view, you could make several comparisons. one would be the idea of deja vu. another would be dreaming, specifically lucid dreaming, where you become aware that you are dreaming and you control of what is going on. of course, we are told dreams are made of things you’ve experienced already…but what’s to say that some elements of your dreams are those residual memories of your ancestors? finally, there is simple human instinct. why do you do some of the things you do? was it a learned response to a situation that happened on a consistent basis in your family tree?
all of this from a game. who says that video games are pointless?
