Consolation Prize

I’ve recently returned to some older titles that have been sat forlornly on the shelf gathering dust for the last year or so before they become a forgotten casualty of my impulsive spending habits. With that in mind I decided to start playing Assassin’s Creed for the Xbox 360, a game I bought upon release but only played for about an hour or so before putting it down and returning to whatever game I was in the midst of at the time – which I think was Mass Effect.

For the first few hours I was amazed and enthralled by Assassins Creed. Primarily based during the year 1191 at the time of the Third Crusade in the Holy Land, this point in history provides us with the opportunity to visit some diverse and interesting locations, and I believe anyone would be impressed by the detailed locations of Damascus, Acre, and Jerusalem. These vast areas feel impeccably designed and present the illusion of a living, breathing medieval cities; replete with peasants, roving guards, scholars, beggars, drunkards, and phenomenally beautiful architecture. It’s hard not to be dumbstruck upon first visiting each city, especially upon climbing to the highest point atop a church spire or a mosque’s minaret and surveying the surrounding cityscape.

However, Assassin’s Creed has a fatal flaw that relegates the game from being great, to plainly average, and quite possibly to the depths of just downright annoying - and that’s the repetitive nature of the information gathering missions. For each of your nine targets marked for elimination you are required to gather at least three (from six) bits of information about the mark so as to get the local blessing of the assassin’s guild, and to help plan your assassination attempt. But in each instance these missions never really vary throughout the entire game. I will either have to eavesdrop, pick someone’s pocket, interrogate an individual via fisticuffs, or complete a timed flag gathering or guard assassination mission for an informer. Initially they’re all relatively interesting, and perhaps one could perhaps forgive the odd reuse, but to use the same pattern over and over again is perhaps taking things too far.

The final assassination missions for each target in themselves (of the seven targets I’ve silenced thus far) are actually really interesting and well thought out; it’s the superfluous flotsam you have to deal with in order to get to that stage that is so galling. After a while they become a chore. The idea’s behind the tedium of tasking the player to perform intelligence gathering before tackling the main target, and the ways to undertake this, are sound; it’s the implementation that lacks vision and imagination. In some respects the same argument about a repetitive game structure could be levelled at last years critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto IV, and indeed if you distill the in-game missions then they do turn out to be repetitive, however, Rockstar North are masters at pulling the wool over our eyes and provide just enough variety to keep the player entertained.

There are some fantastic individual elements in Assassins Creed; the graphics and sound are phenomenal, the free running feels effortless, and the combat is fluid and cinematic, it’s just a shame that there’s a lack of cohesion binding each element together.

As a late comer to the 360, having been gifted a RRoD box just before Christmas 2008, I picked up Assasins Creed for a tine £8 as it was one of the games even those of us who had restricted themselves to PC land knew as ‘An XBOX Game’
Having only played through the first couple of locations so far I’ve yet to hit the same annoyances as you, however I can imagine that whole thing becoming rather tiresome. It’s definatly a game I plan to spend a fair bit more time with though, if I can cub my still new found excitment of having a few years worth of cracking games to cherry pick from and keep the credit card/paypal account in check.

£8 is a good price to pay for Assassin’s Creed! I think I bought it at full price and I’ve only just gotten around to playing it! There’s something to be said for waiting!

I think the first three or four times having to do the same information gathering missions is okay, after that they start to overstay there welcome. I’d be interested in hearing what you think about them when you’ve played it some more.

Have fun picking up all the great bargains I’m sure you’ll find for the Xbox - there are some quality older titles to pick up.