Assassin’s Creed

The life of an assassin is full of danger and excitement. And a lot of running, apparently.

Assassin’s Creed takes you back in time to the Holy Land, and the the Crusades to reclaim them in the name of Christianity. It’s a telling sign of the game’s maturity that it opens with a statement that the developers and creators of the game come from many countries and many faiths, and that this game is not to be taken as any kind of political commentary.

That maturity is there at almost every level of the game. The story is, well, we don’t want to give too much away about that, but rest assured it’s a suitably complex morality tale that sees you take on the roll of an assassin a mysterious order of Middle Eastern killers, and not necessarily for hire.

Look at it this way. Any game that has “Nothing is true; everything is permitted” as part of its dialogue is something to be taken seriously.

And if that doesn’t get you, the gameplay, once you get used to it, will have you hooked.

Assassin’s Creed does away with many of the conventions of the third person action genre. No longer are you running along perilous ledges trying to time your jumps juuust right, or fall to your doom; rather, jumping, and many other of the game’s actions, are state-dependent. Run at a ledge, with the jump key held and you automatically leap gracefully into the air, grabbing the nearest ledge or simply taking the drop in stride. Keep that key held on firm ground and you sprint; sprint at a wall with any kind of rough surface or handhold, and you can free-run all over the rooftops, window ledges and church spires of any of three gorgeously rendered Crusader cities.

There’s bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to this, and the camera movements, your dexterity ramps up and the claustrophobic city streets seem like expansive highways to Arabian adventure.

The joy of this is the fact that the game stops, to an extent, being about twitch reflexes and constant saves and reloads, and becomes a far more cerebral exercise where what you decide to do, and how you want to do it, is more important than how quickly you can mash the appropriate button. Combat follows this doctrine as well, and the simple controls, like any good game, quickly reveal a subtle and deep complexity.

As good as the game plays, it would be a waste if the world you were leaping about didn’t look worth exploring. Thankfully, the Kingdom looks stunning, and Ubisoft Montreal has done an exceptional job recreating the period. Each city is a bustling metropolis populated by priests, scholars, knights, merchants and more. The sounds of the street are wonderfully atmospheric, and the decision to have accents from all over Europe and the Middle East adds oodles to the sense of historical immersion.

Each city is built up of Lego-like building blocks, which might lead to some visual repetition; in practice, however, you’re moving too fast, or are simply too high up to really notice. Trust me, climb every tower you see – not only is there a good gameplay reason to, but from the highest buildings you’ll have a view that almost rivals the real thing.

There’s a rumour that one of the devs found the best travel routes, and the most convenient tactics, to finish the game in eight hours. That’s kinda neat (and must be great to watch), but we really recommend you take your time with Assassin’s Creed. It’s worth it, and, after all – that’s what a good assassin should do.