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QJ.NET reviews Assassin's Creed

Posted Nov 15, 2007 at 10:29PM by Nicolo S. Listed in: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Tags: Ubisoft, hitman, hitmen, Ubisoft Montreal, Kristen Bell

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We've been hearing a lot of good things since Ubisoft Montreal unveiled Assassin's Creed (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3). Back in E3 2006, before we even learned that Altair is the "bird of prey," the game ran laps around the competition and wiped the floor with multiple awards from major gaming publications.

We can't blame the hype solely on PR talk and exposure, because all eyes were on Assassin's Creed's spectacular visuals and exciting premise prior to Jade Raymond and other developers' series of videos to fuel the excitement. Now that it's on shelves, does Assassin's Creed live up to what we were led to believe it would be?

The answer relies on your personal taste. If you're expecting Metal Gear Solid-caliber stealth action or Hitman-style open-ended assassination missions, turn back. You won't find mister Game of the Year here; what's waiting is a fun, high-budget action game that defies the first-person shooter trend of triple A titles and offers a fresh experience.

Ubisoft Montreal was very secretive about certain plot elements, but the first five minutes of the game reveal what all the buzz was all about. Even if we mention something that hints at the sudden revelation, it probably won't have much of a dramatic effect. Let's just say they tried to pull a Raiden (think Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty) on everyone, but it didn't work out.

To put it simply, the game's introduction just lays the foundation for the next step you'll take, which ultimately leads to 1191 AD when the Crusade was causing trouble in the Holy Land. Players take the shoes of Altair, a master assassin who's got all the moves to outshine tomb raiders, and the instincts to make hired hitmen look like babysitters. Or at least, Altair was that cool of a guy before messing up that earned him a demotion back to the lowest "uninitiated" rank.

Altair was on a mission to take down Templar Knights Grand Master Robert de Sable, but careless decisions led to failure. Assassin head honcho Sinan strips our guy of his position, and assigns him to eliminate nine targets to get back to where he was. It's interesting to note how these nine are historical figures who either died or disappeared in that era.

The game's sandbox world opens up early after intensive tutorials. As promised, Ubisoft was able to faithfully recreate Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Your eyes will enjoy the visual treat right off the bat. Assassin's Creed looks great, from the detailed clusters of houses to realistic and dynamic shadows cast upon the ground. However, graphics don't automatically make a game as fun as it is breathtaking.

Assassin's Creed gives a pretty good first impression, but not one that lasts in a way we hoped it to be. For the first hour or two, it's a blast trying to familiarize with what the game has to offer. Beyond the initial encounter, it spirals down due to repetitiveness and glaring flaws.

Some may remember how Ubisoft Montreal kept on stressing out how innovative their game's controls are. One button handles the head, there's a button each for left and right hands, and another is for the feet. While this sounds good and potentially intuitive on paper, execution falls flat. Altair moves in low profile by default, and he can go into high profile by holding a trigger. Both modes are layered with a variety of contextual controls, but that isn't saying much.

Assassins do a lot of jumping and climbing, and Altair makes it easy. Moving from one pillar to another or conquering a tall tower requires less work than you would've imagined - just push the analog stick all the way and the game will do it for you. The idea of having full control over your character suddenly becomes forgotten, because you don't even need to press a button to move your arms or legs to do impressive stunts. On the good side, Altair climbs convincingly real. He can only gain latitude if there's a rock or ledge to hang onto.

Don't get any wrong ideas; streamlined controls in Assassin's Creed is a blessing. It's a bit disappointing to find out that the flexibility and freedom we were promised with aren't there, but all that can be overlooked when you're already in intense chases in which simplified movement is godsent. Your eyes will be on Altair and his rich repertoire of fluid actions that cater to all situations. Devs said they had to make 12,000 animations for Altair alone, and it shows.

Speaking of chases, turning your back on provoked enemies is bound to happen often. They labeled Assassin's Creed as a "stealth action" game, and you should've expected as much. An icon on the left of your pseudo-health bar shows how much attention you're getting from the guards. Worry not if it's red all the time, because laying low can be tedious in a hide-and-seek game with too much focus on action.

Altair's on the wanted list for attempting to kill the Templar Leader. This is what justifies why guards are often hot on your tail even without doing attention-grabbing acts like climbing walls and punching people. To avoid tight encounters, you can "blend" into the crowd or simply sneak away from guards' line of sight. However, doing so is not exactly rewarding.

They said Altair could "blend" into a group of walking monks, but we never heard about blending with open space to shake pursuers loose. Blending is also a matter of Altair putting his hands together and lowering his head, which doesn't exactly suffice as a disguise.

When all else fails, you can of course, enter combat. Altair regains his sword and hidden blade early on, while throwing knives are available later. So you've got three weapons and your fists to work with, sweet. No need to fret, because these are enough to dispatch all kinds of threats. Swordplay is all where it's at, though the one-hit kill solution knives from afar is also convenient.

Altair may have the skills of an assassin, but fending enemies off is still no easy feat. Sword fights are very realistic, and you're no god of war who can overpower other guys with a large swing. Unless you enjoy getting sucker-punched a lot, plenty of parrying ensue and barely any space for button mashing is left. Armed close-quarters combat in this game is all about timing your attacks carefully, or setting up for that crucial counter.

You will be guarding and counter-attacking a wee bit too often, because adversaries can take almost every straightforward attack you dish out using the sword and turn them back at you. Assassin's Creed's fighting mechanic rewards precise strikes over mindless combos, and you'll be anticipating blows more often than be on the offensive. Looking at the bright side, the sword performs pleasing kills when you can get around the enemy's defenses

The hidden blade, on the other hand, is packed with very satisfying fatal moves given you can get close enough to use it. In most cases, you'll be relying on it to score stealthy kills. Throwing knives are relatively safe to use, and it's a shoot-and-forget affair if no other enemy is close.

You can do all fun stuff early in the game, and you're told how to do them. Since our former assassin now has to regain respect, he needs to go back through the basics. Before taking out any of the nine major targets, you're taught how to get information through interrogating, eavesdropping, and pickpocketing.

Soon enough, if you're done playing around by annoying guards and punching civilians, you'll embark on a journey to reach the two other cities Damascus and Acre. Finally, you get closer to the real deal. Thing is, there's not much else outside what you've learned in Jerusalem.

All is fine and dandy in early parts of the game, and if you don't mind visual glitches, you'd probably be immersing yourself in a world teeming with life. People in different social classes do their thing, and you can even help some of them. Traveling, either by horse or by foot, can be linear, but the sights along the way will make you thankful gaming has come so far in terms of graphics.

In between the lengthy trips, or when you're just chilling out trying to find something fun to do, there are collectible flags scattered everywhere that makes searching every nook and cranny slightly worthwhile. There are also viewpoints located in high places where you can get a bird's eye view of the immediate surroundings. When gathering info about targets, viewpoints are also helpful since they reveal spots on the map where important people are.

Unfortunately, Assassin's Creed doesn't have that lasting appeal. Unless it's among the first games you've ever played, it's easy to notice how more development time could've given Ubisoft Montreal the chance to bring us the true mind-blowing and revolutionary experience devs talked about. Instead of an epic adventure, we're offered an action game with glaring flaws littered around.

Yes, we intentionally omitted the stealth part. Going low profile in Assassin's Creed is often unnecessary aside from having to sit on benches to eavesdrop or stalking someone to interrogate. In fact, for the most part, you're almost encouraged to draw your sword when what you're doing counts.

To successfully assassinate your target, it's a process of interrogating, eavesdropping, and pickpocketing for more details on the target's location. That's it? Pretty much, yes. Once you meet with the bad guy, you'll know he's a bad guy because he'll tell you things that justify your kill attempt.

After that, said target will run and you'll have to give chase and encounter the obligatory bodyguards. It's possible to take the stealthy approach, but more often than not, it will be pointless. The later parts of the game even throw enemies at you, completely eliminating any chances to hide.

The only reason stealth may actually sound appealing is the game's faulty artificial intelligence. Unlike what devs said before, the locales don't really react realistically. Wave your sword around and they'll watch you in awe. Even when you're running away from pursuers, many of the NPCs seem to completely ignore and just keep on their daily lives. They do run away when there's a ruckus, but they do awkwardly so.

Hostile forces aren't any smarter. Alerted enemies throw rocks at you when you climb walls, they hop around and try to reach wherever you are, but that's the best they can do. We can't really blame city guards when they try to follow their own patrol routes, but when they continue to do so while a highly dangerous assassin is on the run, it's a bit disheartening.

Your throwing knife does wonders not because it can kill instantly, but because the dead bodies are often left unnoticed in obscure areas unless the kill happens inches away from another NPC. Still got caught with your alert icon bright red? Don't worry, because the AI can only do so much. Run away, break the line of sight for a few seconds, hide in a pile of hay, wait for the heat to go down then call it a day.

Music in the game doesn't really help increase the tension significantly when it should. Orchestra pieces are great particularly when you're hooked up to an expensive home theater, but the tracks are nothing memorable. Though easily repetitive, cities are brought to life with random chatter, barking dogs, and other things you want to hear in a game set in 1191. The only downside is Altair's voice actor, who did a sub-par job with an accent that simply doesn't fit in the Third Crusade era.

All the negatives aren't enough to render Assassin's Creed unplayable, mind you. The game is not without merit. It's arguably among the best looking games on today's consoles, cutscenes are delivered with cinematic flare (you can often move while cutscenes play out), the story is intriguing albeit the linear narrative and underwhelming ending that screams for a sequel, and it's just fun to jump around and discover what other things Altair can do.

If there's gonna be Assassin's Creed 2, it better add variety to the missions and expand the world to make it worth exploring.

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21 Comments

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by Nevers - 2007-11-15

» haven't gotten far

... but my review of the swag you get in the Limited Edition is Junk+.
***BUY THE REGULAR EDITION*** (...if you want it at all after that review)
Wasn't expecting Altair figure to be like a badly painted (larger) "hero clix"-like figurine (2 1/2 inches). Thought i remember reading somewhere that it gonna be larger and actually articulated. The comic book is more like a leaflet. DVD had some interesting tid-bits kinda-sorta but i'll never watch it again. The tin is really really cool... on the under-side. What genius put the cool picture of Altair on the bottom? And that's about it... no demo's, gamerpics, themes.. nuttin' honey. Kinda disappointing but ya git what ya git fer $10. Oh well... now to find the time to play the game...

by hush404 - 2007-11-15

» QJ

You have just lost my respect.

by Constantinecy - 2007-11-15

» Three questions to the author Nicolo S.

1st: Which console did you played the game on?

2nd: If you played it in both versions which one in your opinion is better? I dont wont to start a flame war, its just that I keep reading staff that the ps3 version has sharper visuals while the 360 one has better framerate...

3rd: Most importantly, is it worth spending 40 pounds on it?

ohh by the way try implementing a number based review score with specific assessment categories eg. graphics, gameplay, sound etc, it will make it easier and will look better...

Re: Nicolo S. (QJ. NET Staff) - 2007-11-15

» :)

The PS3 version suffers from framerate drops here and there, but it shouldn't affect your experience much. If Assassin's Creed, despite its shortcomings, is your cup of tea, more frequent and noticeable pop-ins won't factor in to prevent you from enjoying.

It's indeed a worthy addition to anyone's library, but a rent is always the safe bet. Play it for a few hours - if you can overlook repetitiveness, the simplistic combat suits your style, and the AI doesn't stop you from having fun, that sounds like an obvious buy. :)

Personally, I believe scores can be misleading. We can give AC high marks for production value alone, but its good qualities are often not enough to satisfy those who can't fully immerse themselves in the beautifully created world because of the limited things they can do, and the poor AI that makes everything less believable.

Re: hush404 - 2007-11-16

» RE NICOLO

Funny. I hear from "professional" reviews that the PS3 version has a smoother frame rate - while the 360 ver has deeper contrast in lighting.

by Constantinecy - 2007-11-15

» Thanks!!

Much appreciated!

Ok things are very clear about this game AI is mediocre, repetitiveness is the game's middle name, add the ever more important factor of gameplay drive of these types of games...the combat engine...then surely this game is worth only as a rent...

I hate simplistic games, they add nothing to your experience as a gamer...especially coming from serious titles like this one. However, rachet and clank as simple as it is, the fun factor and the replay value of such less serious titles are sky high!(but the again you know what to expect from the start...)

What can you say, bad choises bad timing... Bless the sequels...

by Shatterdome - 2007-11-15

» Constantinecy

All the reviews I have read (IGN and Gamespot) say that the visuals are exactlly the same, but that PS3 has much worse pop-in and framerate problems that become so bad that the last third of the game is almost unplayable....

But even the 360 version they said loses frames here and there.....so maybe Ubi should have kept this game on the burner for a few more months.....but probably didn't want to miss the holiday rush..

by FABLE - 2007-11-15

» About the accent

I thought his accent was supposed to sound like a modern American accent because of the story...

The voice acting is horrible either way though. Its ironic that the main character has the worst voice acting.

by Advertising -

by kingx11 - 2007-11-15

» spot on

this review does'nt surprise me at all

from the 1st real-time video of the game i knew it's gonna be one big floptastic game

i agree the visuals & cinmatics are amazing , but i could'nt help but noticing the slow jumps and sliced frames in those videos , not to mention the company comments on the game mechanics :P

by Orlyeh - 2007-11-15

» graphics

I don't know what people are saying when they mention framerate drops. I've got a 360, so maybe it's system-dependant, but I've yet to see drops in framerate at all. Yeah, there's pop-in when traversing the kingdom on horseback, but you have to pay attention to it to notice. As for repetitiveness, sure, if you run up to every single guy and kill him the same way, it'll get repetive.

Grab guys and push them into things. Jump down and surprise guards attacking a civilian.

There are plenty of ways to do the same action which really spice things up. QJ, IGN, and a few others are the only ones giving this game a mediocre score.

Re: Nicolo S. (QJ. NET Staff) - 2007-11-15

» :)

You're really lucky if you haven't encountered frequent pop-ins as if the place is just unwrapping or spawning in front of you.

For some people, missions are too similar to each other for comfort. It's not about how you kill someone, but more on how the game leads you to that kill. We appreciate the appeal of having different options to take someone down, but the act of killing easily grows old.

We don't base our opinions on other reviews, but if you really look into it, you'll find out that only a handful give Assassin's Creed stellar scores. Reviews that put AC in a good light have some merit, but it's hard not to chop off a point or two from scores when a game has obvious flaws that can take the fun away.

Oh, and we don't give scores. :)

Re: shabghai360 - 2007-11-16

» not true

the french are very nationalistic and as this is from a french speaking branch of ubisoft they were ramping up the hype. However now with its release many are now realising that great graphics and a few brilliant ideas are not enough to keep the ever hungry gaming community sated.

by Quixand - 2007-11-15

» it's ok for me

it's been dalayed here in Australia till next week... i'm getting the game cause these are the sort of games that i like (yes more so than games getting all the praise like COD4 which i know i wouldn't be able to enjoy as much as this game even if infact COD4 is better in it's entirety as a game, shooters has no appeal to me)...

i'm getting assassins creed to hold me over until drake comes out... i should be finish with it, played it twice maybe, by the time i move on to drake...

can't wait to get it this coming wednesday.

by Damanisjon - 2007-11-16

» glad!

Damn, I'm glad its not just me then! I rented the game for the 360 and the game has more framerate issues than michael jackson has issues with children!.. I thought it was my 360... i was trying to clear out my chache.. ventilate the 360 better.. lol im such a n00b but im glad its the game not my console!
My sound has even cuts sometimes..

by Captain_King - 2007-11-16

» Heh.

Laughing at the fanboys who can't seem to take a hint that their Jade Raymond game actually falls flat. I have to give it to Ubisoft for the clever *****tease with Jade, though.

Ass is Red.

by shabghai360 - 2007-11-16

» My review

In fairness to others my favourite games of this year have been Gears of War Halo Bioshock and Call of Duty 4. I state this as this will definately influence my opinion of Assassins Creed.

I don't care what platform it is played upon but Assassins Creed ultimately fails due to boring repetition albeit slightly more difficult as it progresses.
The graphics are just way out beautiful in many scenes.
Control of the character i liked.
The story itself is ok
but the irritating running around for meaningless clues just ruins what could have been the game to which all games should aspire. CoD4 has a storyline so simple it should make you laugh but the dynamics and speed of the game are just brilliant.
Altair in Assassins Creed is for me beautiful but boring. It is just soooo sloooooow. City to City to obtain items that just get repetitive. Many of the ideas used in this game are simply great but used too often and turns them from something special into something where you think "not again" this is for me a disaster as it really breaks the flow and irritates me to the point of swearing as I want to move onto the next area.
Those playing will get my drift cause if I write too much then there will be spoilers.
Many will like this game but for gamers that like speed tactics and an overall feeling that you get somewhere quick like MoH CoD or HALO then this one will probably disappoint you.
As for glitches and screen interference I had none other than what is deliberate and often a signal to hit the buttons quick for different camera angles or extra info and cut scenes after an assassination. Some slight graphic errors but not too many to spoil the game.
As this is a franchise i will admit looking forward to part 2 as I am sure that Ubisoft will experience both positive and negative reviews from gamers.
The bottom line for me is that after so many excellent ideas and innovative interactions the game which is brilliant for the first 2 hours finally crumbles into boredom

by na2rul - 2007-11-16

» damn from this point ive been put off from this game

was going to buy saturday 2moro. May hav to be COD4 since several i kno already say its kickass.

Re: Advertising -

Re: shabghai360 - 2007-11-16

» rent

I would rent this game if your unsure but CoD4 if you like action is a great game. Games do not always have to be fast paced to be fun but AC is just slow and repeats many items over and over.
In a couple of Days Mass Effect will also be released so check out what your friends are playing as 60 Bucks a shot is still a high price for a game

by Constantinecy - 2007-11-16

» Shatterdome

Sorry for replying all the way down here..I cant seem to reply to any comment...

Anyway, I agree with you on Ubi rushing the game out due to the holiday rush.

We should all stop trying to find the differences between multi-platform games...there is no point anymore...The fact is that no developer will risk making a game look better (overall) on one system even if they could, that would result in serious issues with the company who got the bad port...(ok there are SOME exceptions I'll admit it...)

So exclusives are the only way to see what your system is capable of! All the rest is just waist of time...

If you like a multi plat game buy it or rent it, on the console you own and forget anything else...if you own or have access to all like me... then good luck!

by Captain_King - 2007-11-17

» Re: hush404

If by "professional" you mean PAID by UbiSoft to give Ass is Red a good review, then those sights are probably spot on.

by Ryan C. (QJ. NET Staff) - 1 day ago

» :D

FIRST!

Wait...darn it! D:

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QJ.NET reviews Assassin's Creed

21 Comments

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