Old game, old review.
Or, rather, old game, slightly more recent review.
The last time I had anything to say about this game, it was all glory and praise at how amazing it was. Now that I go back and play it again, I can suddenly see where Assassin's Creed 2 had me hook, line and sinker.
And before anybody asks, this is not an uberbashing of a good game; rather, it's a more matured, even-headed review. And I say even-headed with the thought that my neck broke one of two ways when I first played this game, and it was towards my favorite shoulder, so that must have meant the game was good, right?
It is, it's just not amazing.
Here goes; hope to god Altair doesn't slay me whilst I sleep.
So, to start, let's just say that the whole Abstergo thing in this game was a complete pain in the (pardon my English) arse. I came here to kill stuff, not walk around in a mopey manner while you plan to take over and/or destroy the world behind my back. God forbid you actually use any other form of defense aside from cameras and auto-locked doors, that would be TOO OVERKILL.
Honestly, I could've jumped out the window and screwed over their entire operation if the game would have included that kind of mobility, but NOOOOOOOO.
Might I also add, I really hated Lucy in this game. Not because of how she acted, nor because of how they animated her (in game 2, she looks like she took a kick to the face and got fat lips from it), but because she was basically there as EYE CANDY. I've expressed my displeasure of women being used in this way before, and I feel nostalgic at having to do so again.
By the way, if Ezio didn't have to cut off his finger in game 2, why did SHE? If you play through to the end (notice the IF there, that's IF you make it through the Abstergo stuff), you get this little camera glitch (I think) where it shows off her obviously-joint-vacated ring finger stub. BIG GIVEAWAY, OH SHNAP.
WOAH, I LOVE THE CAPS BUTTON TONIGHT.
Anyhow, let's get to the actual FUN parts!
After the incredibly boring (and mostly-faceless){I say mostly-faceless because you're the only guy with a face in the whole thing} tutorial, you get to see more boring cutscenes of Altair killing a guy, then screwing up the mission. Sure, you can control him during this part, but you are not once told how to fight. Basically, the game says "Jump across these beams, climb this ladder, kill this guy, watch this cutscene, go down these ladders, look at Robert, press X."
And Altair fails it like I fail so many quick-time events. How sad. {No, really. That hurts my ego.}
So now I have to run all the way to the exit as if I'm playing Mirror's Edge. (I'm saving that for a later review, by the way.) And what do I get for it? A tutorial on barely being able to run up a wall, another tutorial for climbing another wall with convenient handholds (In fact, pretty much any building can be climbed), and then an almost beautiful view of Jerusalem from a hole in Solomon's Temple. That I don't get to see because the Animus boots me out.
It took me an hour to get to the part where I actually get to travel to new places. And unfortunately, since this isn't Assassin's Creed 2, where once you find a travel post in the city, you can just teleport to the city itself, I had to go by horseback.
Let's just say, the Kingdom is a very vast place. In fact, I'd classify it as its own city, except there's nothing to DO out there. Maybe get attacked by a few Templars here and there, but that's to be expected, Templars are jerks. Especially the ones who immediately alert to your presence and take forever to kill. (I expended all my throwing knives trying to kill one. They all hit. And he just kept running.) You'll know those guys by their oh-so-conveniently obvious helmets and uniforms. And they enjoy hanging out alone.
By the time I got to Damascus from Masayaf, I was so used to staring at a horse's butt that it was almost a sexual fetish growing in my gut. I said almost there, because the sheer fact that I was playing pretty princess from Masayaf to Damascus was enough to make just want to get to the next city for my next assassination.
The assassinations themselves aren't all that difficult; I'd say the most challenging one is the Robert de Sable fight, where first, you fight a phony flanked by a million archers, several Templar knights, and an tightly-packed graveyard. Then you go to Arsuf, which is currently under war (And the coolest place in Assassin's Creed), and you take on the real Robert de Sable, after taking down like, twenty Templar knights beforehand. Then the actual assassination is a matter of making him slip up. But aside from that one, every other assassination is pretty pathetic in terms of challenge. I mean, yeah, they were all different, but it was pretty simple to sneak onto Sibrand's ship in Acre and take him out when he isn't looking, as paranoid as he is, and it's not in the slightest way difficult to sneak up on Tamir while he's ranting about the poor quality of the goods he's black marketing from Jerusalem.
By the way, these city names are lol. I've heard of all of them, save for Masayaf and Arsuf, and I find it ironic that I get to kill people while the war between King Richard the Lionheart and Sala Al Din is raging on in the background. That's a pretty important event you're shafting there, Assassin's Creed, thank god Altair got caught up in at least SOME of it before the end of the game. What also sucks is that the cities are so limited in their travel. In Assassin's Creed 2, instead of only allowing travel in one rather small section of the area, the whole city eventually unlocks as the game progresses. Well, save for the southern half of Florence, but I guess nothing really happened there in Ezio's life. Unlike Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed simply says "You're only allowed to go here because that's where your target is. We'll only open up more once you kill all the people here." And then they throw up a big ol' wall that blocks you off while civilians are all like, "Noobs don't know 'bout my wall-crossing skillz."
In Assasin's Creed 2, you can walk through that barrier - at the cost of your own life.
Now, I mentioned Templars, yes? In Assassin's Creed, just looking at them wrong sends them on a tangent of blood lust. God help you if you come across a red-helmet Templar, he spawns if you get within fifty feet of him, you don't even have to be doing anything wrong for him to jump at you. What's worse is that he usually has friends that spawn when he runs near them, so you never just fight the lone guy unless you get really lucky. And the last assassination outside of Masayaf has you pitted against like, twenty of these guys, and THEN Robert de Sable.
Not to mention that you don't even get to enjoy the fact that you killed him, since he immediately says while dying, "Oh, by the way, your boss is a jerk and put us up to this so he could have {Artifact of power here} to himself."
Great. So now I get to kill the equivalent of what Liquid Snake is to Solid Snake: An arse with a lot of power on his hands.
And it's not like you just fight the one guy; oh no, that would be too simple. No, instead, Al Mualim decides to possess the city so that all the guards attack you when you get near what is considered Capital Hill in Assassin's Creed (Raffik and some friendly assassins save you, though - not like you need it, if you're good with counter kill, but...), and then he makes it so that all the residents of the city block your path to the Assassin Temple, and I usually just go on a killing spree here, since I don't get desynchronized for murdering people that are too brainwashed to care, and then when you get out to the final boss fight, he revives everybody you've killed so far and pits them against you, so now you have the added benefit of KILLING THEM AGAIN, and this time, they go down like non-commanding-status guards of AC2. Hilariously enough, I killed them in the same order as I did during the actual assassinations.
Then? Then you fight seven (yes, seven) Al Mualims, who aren't very hard to beat, despite his claims that he's dropped thousands of men with his sword. It's just a matter of getting at the actual Al Mualim and knocking him out, which takes out the clones with him.
And here's the really fun part: At the last bit, he decides to take away all of your health and make it so that you have to track him down (The garden is HUGE, guys) and knock him around to regain your health. Usually after like, two hits, he does it again. By the third time he does that, it's usually his last, because he can barely stand up straight.
You know what real satisfaction feels like?
Kill Al Mualim, that's answer enough to that question.
The whole story of the game is pretty wonky by itself. If not for the sci-fi factor, I'd think somebody made a really bad rip-off of historical events and tried to pass it off as proven facts. And the many recurring themes in Assassin's Creed - The hidden blade, the Pieces of Eden, eagles, jumping off of tall buildings into haystacks (and surviving!), fights with guards where, instead of actually fighting like humans, they stand around and take turns dying, then wonder how you killed that last guy - definitely can grind on people's nerves after a while. I thought I was here to kill people, why, all of a sudden, am I solving a puzzle about Marie Antoinette just so I can see that a small bulge in her dress was actually where she was hiding a Piece of Eden?
And possibly my favorite flaw of the game - walking up the stairs. Yeah, that's realistic stair-climbing. For sure.
Overall, I'd give this game a deserving 8/10. Amazing graphics, awesome attention to detail, superb physics, but the story, combat, and recurring themes that pop up every twenty seconds are kind of a downer. That, and Altair's obviously American voice actor.
