I have to hand it to Ubisoft. The people they've got in their PR department are marketing geniuses. They could sell refrigerators to people living on an iceberg, or a stack of Bibles to a group of atheists. Look at Assassin's Creed. The smooth operators behind the ad campaign have taken what is essentially a tech demo propped up by a rudimentary mission structure and parlayed it into one of the most anticipated titles of the season. My hat is off to them; the work they do is without equal. However, the developers in Ubisoft's Montreal studio who actually created the game still have a way to go.
The epitome of "high concept," Assassin's Creed is split between two worlds. The first closely resembles modern times, just a short hop into the near future. In this setting of minimalist furnishings and sterile surfaces, two scientists use a supercomputing analytical device to extract "genetic memories" from a kidnapped bartender named Desmond. The information the machine mines from his DNA makes up the second world, and is the setting for the action in Assassin's Creed.
When reliving the "memories" conjured from Desmond's biological data, the player assumes the role of Altair, an unorthodox and incredibly acrobatic assassin whose life took place centuries in the past. After being disgraced by his own poor judgment, he's tasked with eliminating nine targets described as slavers, warmongers, and people corrupt with power. By removing those who stand in the way of peace, he hopes to regain his status and place within the assassin order.
Although bits and pieces of this "past/future" twist had leaked long before the game's release to cast doubts about the true storyline, I have to say that the dichotomy works beautifully. (And no, none of this is a spoiler... it's all revealed within the first five minutes.) I occasionally wondered whether or not the "future" portions should have been held back for a dramatic twist once players had gotten further in, but that's not a complaint. The whole thing is handled rather cleverly, actually.
As much as I can appreciate the concept, that's not the same as appreciating the game—which I don't. Although it looks stunning in demos and short clips, I became bored and disinterested with Assassin's Creed long before it was over. I would never have guessed that one of the titles I had been most looking forward to would end up being one of the most tedious slogs I've forced myself to sit through all year.
There are so many areas where the game goes awry that it's hard to know where to begin, but I'll start by saying that for a game about assassins, there's precious little assassination going on. I'm no expert on the subject, but it seems logical to expect subterfuge, hiding in the shadows, and slipping into a villain's lair unseen before silently delivering death's kiss on the deserving ne'er-do-well. Instead, Assassin's Creed completely bungles the concept by taking stealth and cleverness out of the equation, instead relying on cumbersome swordplay and tediously scripted scenes.
For example, at several assassinations I saw my subject in the process of murdering a helpless townsperson or some other similar act. Preparing the hidden blade concealed on Altair's left hand, I constantly tried to make my way through the masses in order to strike. I was always allowed to draw close enough to prevent the townsperson from being cruelly murdered, but consistently prevented from taking action until the scene played out. (In itself, a huge missed opportunity). Immediately following, my target would usually "see" me, my silent assassination becoming a clumsy, artless brawl and the complete opposite of my intentions.
Really, nearly every mission follows much the same pattern; rather than striking unseen from a vantage point earned by stealth or careful observation to escape anonymously, Ubisoft Montreal made the bizarre decision to craft the majority of these situations around chasing someone down busy streets or struggling through tiresome melees after expository cut-scenes. These choices don't make any sense until the "free-running" aspect of Assassin's Creed is taken into account.
Rather than making the player work for pixel-perfect jumps or split-second timing while navigating the rooftops and detailed architecture of the game's three environments, all that's required is to simply press a direction and let Altair find his own way. Although this system was originally seen in Toby Gard's Galleon on Xbox, the way Altair moves and adapts to the environment is a major technological achievement and the developers should be proud. However, just because the system is an impressive success doesn't mean that it's substantial enough to keep players engaged over the course of the game, because it's not.
Within an hour or so of venturing through Creed's Middle Eastern-themed cities, the novelty of Altair's Spider-Man act wore off and I started to wonder where the rest of the game was. This adaptive movement system should only be the means to an end, not the end in itself. Unfortunately, the developers seem to not understand this. Instead, they force the player to travel as much as possible, climb incessantly, and base everything in the game around this function. My guess is that they spent far too much time and energy creating the climbing aspect to the detriment of all else. I can see no other reason behind the nonsensical, so-called "assassinations" and the overuse of an incredibly dull combat system.
Adding insult to injury, the game's story burns as hot as a soggy matchbook, never fulfilling the promise of the ingenious DNA contrivance mentioned at the review's beginning. The too-frequent unskippable cut-scenes are enough to beat anyone into a vegetative state of bored submission, each one saying extremely little and taking an intolerable amount of time to do it. As if those weren't bad enough, every "boss" target drowns Altair with the sort of insipid deathbed filibustering that makes Metal Gear Solid's famed talkiness seem positively tight-lipped. If three quarters of the game is climbing, the last quarter is staring at the screen while characters spew endless amounts of emotionally empty dialogue.
Lapsing into formulaic predictability just moments past the title screen, Ubisoft Montreal makes players repeat the same tasks from start to finish while crisscrossing its beautifully-rendered cities an absurd amount of times, wrongly hoping that the impressive means of navigation would be enough to fool people into believing there's any sort of interesting, engaging gameplay to be found. The sad truth is, Assassin's Creed is a prime example of basing a project on a single mechanic rather than creating the appropriate mechanic to support a project. Everything except Altair's athletics feels underdeveloped and painfully shallow, making the end result an overhyped attempt to recoup the development costs for something that's little more than an extended tech demo.
Disclaimer: This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of the game.
AC is such a shame. It could
AC is such a shame. It could and should have been incredible from start to finish. The developers lost focus somewhere by not giving the player interesting things to do in every location. The game is just too repetitive too fast. Not only that, but the game has some horrible technical issues that clearly needed to be worked out before shipping. All we can do is hope that a sequel takes in all of the complaints and puts us in an explorable world which offers unique and diverse gameplay throughout the adventure. Oh, and skippable cutscenes or at least interactable cutscenes. And am I the only person getting real tired of horrible cliffhanger endings to video games?