Finally started playing Assassin’s Creed again tonight — yes, the first one, and yes, I know the later ones are much better, but I want to know the story from the beginning.
Assassin’s Creed is a story whose premise intrigued me immensely as soon as the details of its now well known “meta plot” leaked out. I mean, sure, simply leaping around various cities and stabbing people in the neck is fun, but having a context for your actions that went beyond just Altaïr’s story was a cool idea — and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with the upcoming Revelations.
Assassin’s Creed the first has its problems, sure, mostly relating to the “investigation” segment of the game, which tends to get a bit repetitive. (Also, the sheer pointlessness of the flag-collecting, which needless to say I shan’t be bothering with.) But it does so many things right. It has a wonderful sense of scale and height. Freerunning across rooftops and nimbly hopping from beam to beam never gets old. And the combat system, though relatively simple, is cinematic and satisfying.
I’m not sure why I didn’t finish it first time around — I think something “higher priority” came around and I never got around to returning to it — but I’m looking forward to seeing how the series pans out. I know Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood are better, for example, but I don’t know how. Since I’ve managed to find super-cheap copies, I will shortly be finding out.
The thing that’s struck me the most from playing this first game though is how much you can forget that top-tier games can feel truly “alive”. When you spend all day reading the marketingspeak that publishers of said top-tier games spout in press releases (coupled with utterly meaningless quotes from their VP of Talking Nonsense In As Many Words As Possible) it’s easy to forget that these games are exciting creative works, and the teams who work on them treat them as such.
Assassin’s Creed, for example, is awash with gorgeous details in its graphics and sound. Its cities are satisfying to explore and climb all over, even if there’s not really any incentive to beyond “woo, look at that view!” But if all the information you had on the game came from Ubi press releases, you wouldn’t know it, because they describe it as a product to be sold, not a creative endeavour to be enjoyed. And that’s kind of sad — though somewhat inevitable given the times we live in.
I shall be romping through the Assassin’s Creed series alongside Xenoblade at present. Maybe I’ll finish all of them before Revelations comes out. Or perhaps if I take my time a bit I can finish them all by the time Revelations gets a bit cheaper!
Oh, and if you spoil anything about any of the series, I will kill you dead.
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!!!Spoiler Alert!!! – Vader is Altair’s father!!!! ;-P
NO! NO! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE
I get a bit of stick for saying it occasionally but Assassin’s Creed is my favourite series of games from this gen of consoles. It helps that I adore historical games (favouring WW2 shooters over modern day, too) but as you say the games feel alive. I will be keeping an eye on your blog posts as you approach 2 and Brotherhood as they take the ideas and mechanics to another level. I’m currently halfway through my play of Brotherhood, gearing up for Revelations. Can’t wait!
I can see why they’re your favourites — why should you get stick for that? (Apart from Ubi being douches with DRM, but that’s a cross most PC gamers have to bear at some point or another these days, sadly.) I’m very much looking forward to 2 and Brotherhood. I’ve managed to stay almost completely spoiler-free, so I’m very intrigued to see how much better they are! I have a copy of 2 on the way and I got Brotherhood for £1 on OnLive, so I’ll play that on there.