Assassin's Creed

[Kassidy]

This Game is fucking amazing and I WANT IT

September 19, 2007 - Forget what you think you know about Assassin's Creed.

Sure, that's an extremely strong statement to make, particularly if you've been following the game as closely as we have. The upcoming action title, which features an assassin named Altair during the Third Crusade, has been a heavily anticipated action title ever since it made its first debut two years ago. Even the latest demo that we were shown at this year's E3 generated greater buzz, as players tracked down and killed a slave trader. But as we found when we checked out the latest build of the title, Assassin's Creed is much more than killing influential people, climbing buildings and making stealthy escapes into crowds. In fact, Assassin's Creed is designed to be much more of a sandbox-like experience, giving you the freedom to explore and complete missions whenever and however you want. We went to Montreal to check out the latest build, which was going to be shown on the floor at TGS, and found out just how malleable our explorations as an assassin would be.

In the two months since E3 2007, the design team at Ubisoft Montreal has finished the entire game, polishing many more visual details and tightening up the presentation of the title. That might be a bit hard to believe for some, considering how impressive the demo was at E3, but Patrice Desilets, Creative Director on Assassin's Creed, pointed out that the team had included new sound and visual effects, vocal work and additional story details to help flesh out the gameplay. We actually experienced part of this, as we were shown a mission that took place midway through the game where Altair was tasked with assassinating Monfferat, Richard the Lionheart's governor in the rich district of Acre.

As Altair moved through a town square towards a city wall, the game took over and started playing an in-game cinematic. It was still possible to move your way through the assorted crowd members so you could get closer and overhear the heated conversation between the governor and the monarch, but there was another way to experience the scene. Every now and then, the screen would "glitch," displaying a burst of hydrocarbon rings and other chemical model details. By hitting a button during these "glitches," players could switch their camera angles, getting a new perspective on the scene they were watching. We found this could also be applied during the cutscene that followed an assassination, as we watched Monfferat explain his actions to Altair in some striking dissolves and camera transitions as he lay dying.

Elements like this are much more than simply visual tricks or impressive storytelling conceits; a large amount of Assassin's Creed missions will revolve around four separate game phases. The first one will be the acquiring of the initial target, which will involve going to an Assassin's Guild, getting the initial details of who you are tasked with killing and why this person needs to be "pacified." The second phase involves investigation, where players will go around the various districts that they happen to be in, gathering details that they can use to aid them in their goal. The third phase, of course, is the infiltration of a specific location and assassination of your target by whatever means you feel are necessary. Finally, the fourth phase is the escape from the scene of the crime and return to safety at the Assassin's Guild, which allows you to progress further in the game.

We were somewhat surprised that there would be an investigatory phase to the game; up to now, we'd only really been shown accepting the mission, tracking down and killing a target and running for our life. However, this is where the majority of the game's exploration elements take place, and where we found we had to forget what we thought we knew about Assassin's Creed. Part of this was discovering that players have the flexibility to complete missions in any order that they wish, even "abandoning" the current task that they're in the middle of to take on another assassination. Players can even leave a location and travel from Jerusalem to Acre or Damascus, completing those tasks first and returning to earlier missions to eliminate opponents with newer equipment or abilities. You can even travel from one large district of these cities to another, placing the jobs in one area on virtual "pause" until you return and pick back up where you left off. This gives the player a large amount of leeway to define how they'll make their way through the ancient world.

What's more, there will be at least half a dozen tasks that players can take on, all of which will provide some kind of advantage to the assassin over the course of the game. It's rather obvious that the above scene between Monfferat and Richard provided Altair with key information that he could eavesdrop on and use during his mission. But apart from snooping on soldiers and targets, Altair will be able to pick pockets of certain people, gathering vital intel on his targets. Altair will also be able to perform one of two different kinds of "freeing" missions, where you're tasked with saving people being assaulted by common thugs. If you go after the scholars or monks that are being harassed, you'll be able to blend in with them, traveling incognito without any guards paying attention to your actions. On the other hand, if you save some of the damsels that are in distress, they'll call their friends or brothers out of the surrounding areas. These vigilantes are extremely useful, because they'll remain in a specific area, stopping and even grabbing guards that are chasing you. Not only will this give you a chance to perform a free strike on these ensnared enemies, you can plan your escape route through these locations, guaranteeing your success.

Of course, saving these people will involve a hefty dose of combat. Much more refined than the build at E3, the combat system revolves around many more counters and attacks that ever before. Now, players will need to weigh their attack and defensive stances, and pull off quick or powerful strikes against their opponents. Depending on how you string together these moves, you'll create combos that can slash through any defense. Obviously, this helps when it comes to eliminating guards, but there's a side benefit - players will be able to completely demoralize guards if you can pull off a series of combos on surrounding opponents. What's more, if you kill off helmeted or more armored guards (who are more skilled at battle), weaker opponents will sheath their swords and flee in terror of your blade.

In some ways, they should, because the combat has become much more brutal in the two months that we saw it at E3. Not only can players perform leaps onto unsuspecting guards in the midst of battle, quickly eliminating them, but they can also perform backstabs and impaling moves. We also found one of the most brutal moves, as Altair shattered a guard's kneecap. By countering his strong attack and performing a combo, we weakened him long enough to hit the attack button in a quick sequence, allowing our assassin to destroy the joint and leave the guard in a huddled mass. This was frequently enough to make most enemies run. That is, with the exception of the Knights Templar, one of the other side quests. These warriors were the most hated enemy of the Assassins, and after dispatching one in a fierce battle, we noticed that we'd killed 1 of 60. Looks like Altair will be hunting for Templar along with completing his missions…

There will even be smaller, yet more addictive quests that can be accomplished. The one that was surprisingly addictive was the collection of flags that were scattered around the city of Acre. Whenever Altair was nearby, the flag would flash, giving him an indication that he could quickly run over there to collect the item. While we weren't able to collect every one, we were told that acquiring all of them would be extremely beneficial. But what was amusing was finding just how enjoyable this distraction would be. In the middle of scaling a building, you might see a flag and quickly adjust your path to acquire the item. As far as the climbing of buildings was concerned, players have seen some of the incredible views that Assassin's Creed will provide of these ancient cities, but much more than eye candy, these high points will give Altair a much larger sense of the district that he's in, adding to his map and giving him more information on the location of guards and innocent bystanders.

We'll have more on Assassin's Creed shortly, but for now, check out these new screens of the title.

http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/814/814446/assassins-creed-20070822012023346.jpg
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/814/814446/assassins-creed-20070822012020518.jpg

 

[the dark knight]

this is exactly why i dont review games/movies. no one's gonna read it or reply to it

as for the game, :g:, im not sure whether's its RPG or not, but it seems to be. and the only 2 RPG games that i liked were suikoden and harvest moon. so i guess im not lookin forward to it...

 

[Kassidy]

this is not a rpg

 

[Kassidy]

Assassin's Creed In-Depth Hands-on
We sync up with Ubisoft Montréal for a deadly romp through the Holy Land.
by Ryan Geddes

October 11, 2007 - The madman Majd Addin is dead, but his murder has been a clumsy affair. What was supposed to be a lightning-fast kill has turned into a pitched battle in the streets of Jerusalem, and now every guard in the city is hunting for an Assassin.

Clearly, the balance of things has been upset, and the game world of Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft's highly anticipated action title, reflects the chaos. Warning bells are clanging all over town and guards are spreading out to track down the white-cloaked intruder who so brazenly jumped from a wall to strike down Addin, one of Jerusalem's most powerful men.

A more experienced Assassin probably would have been more cautious, but we were in a hurry and had a taste for blood.

We've come to Ubisoft's Montreal studio to spend some serious time playing Assassin's Creed, and the game's cruel developers have dropped us into the exact middle of the game, sans tutorial, for a go at the enigmatically-named Memory Block 4 section of the story. And no, that's not a reference to a game system's storage architecture. The game unfolds over a series of these blocks, which begin empty and are gradually filled in as Altair (pronounced ALL-TAY-EAR) completes objectives. Those include assassinating targets and reaching the game's many vertiginous View Points, scalable towers and spires spread throughout the kingdom.

The Memory Block we played had three targets, two of which we eliminated in the time we were allowed to play. The rest of the time we spent spying, roughing people up, climbing on cathedrals, killing innocent civilians (yes, you can do it, but not without penalty), antagonizing the smug Knights Templar and generally terrorizing the population of the Holy Land atop our rearing steed. We also collected flags - a lot of flags. They're spread out over every district of every city, and gathering them quickly became a sub-mission obsession.

If you were expecting, like we were, that Ubi's most recent round of Assassin's Creed previews would officially clear up the mystery surrounding the game's sci-fi backstory, prepare to be disappointed. The development team is still tight-lipped about what the game is actually about. We did, however, uncover some tantalizing clues in the few hours we played the game, but we'll unabashedly speculate about that a bit later.

Assassin's Creed is an ambitious project that tries its bladed hand at an impressive collection of things - organic design, freedom and openness of gameplay, crowd behavior, social realism - set within a massive and lovingly-detailed ancient world.

And from our fleeting time with Assassin's Creed, we came away with the impression that the game rewards equilibrium, encouraging you to maintaining it when necessary, upset it when it suits your needs and generally work toward an overall goal of creating balance in a tumultuous Holy Land. Achieving that balance takes patience, quick thinking and, quite often, a leap of faith.

Much of what drives Assassin's Creed is the investigation process, a free-roaming, self-directed approach that encourages the player to slink around town and dig up dirt on the intended target. You can gather intel on the soon-to-be-dead by eavesdropping (sitting on an occupied bench and listening in on a relevant conversation), interrogation (pummeling the living pulp out of a guy until he gives up the goods) and pickpocketing (lifting a map or document from the pouch of an unsuspecting messenger). Altair also has another resource at his disposal - informants. Some are surly brutes who hate your guts, and others are deathly afraid of you. All the ones we saw operated strictly on a quid pro quo basis, though, so be prepared to do their dirty work before they do yours.

One of the ways Assassin's Creed differs from other action/adventure games we've seen is that the investigations are mostly non-linear. In order to finally get the go-ahead to eliminate your target, you have to complete a certain number of investigatory objectives. After you fulfill that minimum requirement, your regional bureau leader will present you with a white feather. Effectively a death sentence, the feather is to be smeared with the blood of your dying target and returned to the leader as proof that the deed is done.

If you wish, you can stop with a minimum amount of research and rush into the fray headlong. But if you want to take the conservative route, you can continue exploring the district around your target, eavesdropping, pickpocketing and interrogating to your black heart's content. We found taking the time to pick up all the game's investigatory breadcrumbs made our assassination attempts both smoother and more satisfying.

Having your bloodstained thumb on the pulse of the street gives you access to invaluable info like escape routes, enemy vulnerabilities and even support from strangers. The back alleys of the Holy Land's major cities are dangerous places, and you'll frequently find monks and helpless women being accosted by unscrupulous men. Step in to help the innocent, and they'll reward you with assistance when you need it most.

The key to getting the most out of the street is to climb high above it. Reach one of the game's many View Points (notable by the soaring eagles that circle them), and previously fogged sections of your map will become clear, often pointing out the locations of possible interrogations, eavesdropping opportunities, etc. Getting a birds-eye view is where Altair's so-called free-running function comes in and, as we've reported before, it's not quite like anything we've ever done in a game before.

It took us a few tries to master, but once we got the hang of it, Altair was not only pulling himself onto buildings but also sprinting and leaping between them as well. Game design director Max Beland describes Assassin's Creed's free-running system as similar to a racing game - hold one button down for Altair's acceleration and hold another down for his turbo. The result is a madcap scramble up walls, over beams and across rooftops.

Here, we ran into what we've come to think of as the Assassin's Bane - archers. Scattered seemingly everywhere on the roofs of the ancient cities we visited, archers hate you and love nothing more than feathering your back with arrows. The best ways to deal with them are to stay out of their line of sight or sneak up on them for the stealthy kill.

"There's no way for me to be socially accepted by an archer on a rooftop," said creative director Patrice Desilets, as he led Altair up a wall during a brief demo and drove the Assassin's hidden blade into one of the bow-bearers' chins.

Another way to dispatch pesky archers is to flick your deadly throwing daggers at them from afar. You have a limited number of them, and you'll be reminded of that fact as you watch your character on-screen. As you throw your daggers, you'll see them disappear from Altair's knife belt one-by-one

But most of the combat in Assassin's Creed is more close-up than ranged. During our time with the game, we fought a number of battles with guards, thugs, soldiers and Templars. While the combat system is simple on paper, it's tougher in person, and it took us a few tries to get the hang of things. As we've reported before, the overall control scheme works like this: The controller's face buttons represent Altair's head, feet, weapon hand and free hand - and their functions change in different contexts. Your free-hand button will grab ledges in free-fall and can be used to grab opponents by the collar in battles. The foot button runs in free-running mode and can be used to dodge or stomp on an opponent's leg in battle.

Scrapping with enemies felt solid and responsive, and the overall combat experience was challenging without being frustrating and addictive enough to keep us coming back for more even if fighting could be avoided.

They take a bit of time to master, but combos are where the real damage lives. Swing your sword or daggers with just the right timing and you'll drive your opponent backward, dispatch him and make his fellows quiver in their boots. Some will even cut and run if your attacks are sufficiently devastating and impressive. As you progress in the game, you'll open up new weapons, including (at the end of the game) one you'll surely begin to covet the more you follow the game's story.

As Altair moves up in the world (there are a total of nine character levels), he'll receive additional abilities, too, which are incrementally restored to him by the Assassins as he does their bidding. While playing, we unlocked a new set of gloves, which gave us the ability to grab ledges as we fell, a useful tactic when running from angry guards.

The scene where our Assassin master bequeathed us our power gloves had the feel of a detective movie where the disgraced cop finally redeems himself and gets his badge and gun back. In fact, much of what we saw of Assassin's Creed feels like a dark crime drama - there are confidential informants, investigations, interrogations and an overarching mystery that needs solving.

As we made our way through the world of Assassin's Creed, we heard much talk on the streets of Acre and Jerusalem (and on the lips of our dying targets) of a "master" who is up to something nefarious in the Holy Land. While visiting the Assassins' mountain redoubt of Masayaf (which includes a garden full of beautiful women), we also found out who the group suspects is behind the recent evildoings in The Kingdom, but we don't want to spoil the game's plot, so we'll keep that to ourselves.

On the subject of spoilers, we were able to uncover precious little about Assassin's Creed's underlying plot, but we'll share what we learned. We've previously heard that the game has a DNA/sci-fi/memory-recovery bent, and our time with the title this week re-enforced that understanding. For example, when Altair is defeated or takes too nasty a fall, he doesn't die - he "desynchronizes." And when he comes back, he doesn't respawn, he "resynchronizes at an earlier memory." Even his time atop the Holy Land's View Points is spent "synchronizing" with his surroundings. The game's Memory Blocks resemble the helix structure of DNA molecules, and the load screen at one point informs us that it is accessing "ribonucleic memory."

Ubisoft confirmed for us that the story, in part, is about recapturing an entire series of memories and completing a sequence of DNA (wiping blood on a feather would be an effective way of doing so, it seems), and that the player will be introduced to this side of the story 30 seconds into the game.

Characters in Assassin's Creed speak a mix of Italian, French, German and English, true to how these cities would have sounded during the Third Crusade. But Altair's voice is noticeably, even jarringly, different that the rest. He sounds, well, modern - like a 21st-century American. We're assuming this is a deliberate choice and ties in with the game's shadowy time-warping storyline somehow. For a game so ostensibly based on justification and realism, such an oversight would be quite surprising.

According to the Ubisoft developers we spoke to, the game is essentially finished and is now in its debugging phase. And from what we saw, there are a few left to squash. Our play session crashed here and there, and we had a couple of problems with Altair disappearing through surfaces. But we also saw a small army of bug testers working in the Montreal office, and we were assured they are up to the task.

For a game that has so many systems running simultaneously and offers such a vast area to not only explore but also climb on, jump from and hide in, we came away impressed that everything ran as smoothly as it did. We saw zero slowdown during gameplay, even when multiple enemies and NPCs were on-screen. What few load screens we sat through were made more tolerable than in most games by the fact that the player retains a modicum of control over Altair's movements during the process.

Desilets emphasizes that Assassin's Creed tries to tell a story without pushing the player along a predestined route. Targets can be struck in any order, and trails you tire of can be revisited later.

"There are no paths in Assassin's Creed," he says.

Desilets' other mantra is justification. Would a character really behave this way in a given situation, he asks? Would this action really make sense?

We thought about that as we galloped on our horse through the Kingdom, heading to another ancient city for yet another kill. As we reined in to pull up near the edge of a sheer cliff face we accidentally whacked a man and a woman with the rump of our trusty steed and listened to their desperate screams as they plummeted over the edge to their deaths.

Oops.

 

[Reinvented]

All I know is that the Girl that made this is game is hot......That is why I'm getting the game.....

Is Cryme Tyme in the game????

 

[Kassidy]

^^ you are a annoying piece of shit and i hope you die, this game is fucking amazing and hell no cryme tyme aint in it, and she didnt make it she is a part of the team that did and her name is jade Raymond.

 

[This Guy]

I've played it

 

[Kassidy]

^^ yea so did my supervisor and i hate you all lol lucky bastard

 

[youthought]

This is one of the 3 games I am getting for my PS3 when I get it. The others are Haze and PES 2008

 

[AJ styles fan01]

the leap of faith thing looks really good(and fun) to do in this game and that mini shoot out dagger thing is cool also the graphics look amazing

 

[ROHisWrestling]

Looks awsome, I'll get it for my 360

 

[Superfluous Idealist]

All I know is that the Girl that made this is game is hot......That is why I'm getting the game.....

Yes she is, now lets pay tribute to her and her total hotness!

....and if that isn't enough they even created a site of just her. Blame the nerds I say!
Jade Raymond.com

 

[Kassidy]

You and the other guy are very sad and stop posting it has nothing to do with the game

 

[Superfluous Idealist]

Technically if she has nothing to do with the game, then the game wouldn't exist. I use to be excited for the game, reviewers and fans were all excited, the game was truly next gen even revolutionary at times. Then the demo at E3 came, filled with bugs and glitches, the game lost some luster and appeal. To make matters worse, Assassins Creed is being released in possible the most crowded season for the 360 and in November where huge competition is everywhere. Games like Smackdown vs. Raw 08, Call of Duty 4 and Mass Effect to name a few have made Assassins Creed lose all steam it once had. Perhaps that is why no one cares or is possibly just brushing this title away now. Don't worry it could become a sleeper hit with a cult following if its good enough.

...Im coming from the 360 standpoint but if your getting it for PS3, well then thats kinda the only game to get this month. Also if the game lives up to what it promised ill get it later when the price goes down.

Kassidy I hope you have fun and love Assassins Creed, if it doesn't have all the bugs, glitches and actually lives up to what it promised. Let me know and I might get it in the future.

 

[This Guy]

bump, bump.

I got assassins creed today....going to go play it when I'm done reading new posts. Let everyone know how pretty it is