From Ubisoft Entertainment, the team that brought Prince of Persia back into the modern gaming world with the critically acclaimed "Sands of Time" series, comes one of the hottest games this holiday season: "Assassin's Creed."
"Assassin's Creed" is one of the best adventure games to date, boasting a truly open world and a number of novel gameplay systems, as well as a fairly original story with a meaning deeper than your typical "save the princess, save the world" drivel.
The game utilizes a unique "social stealth" system - that is, as long as the protagonist Altair doesn't do anything unusual or socially unacceptable, the guards won't even give him a second look. A perfect example is embodied in one of the game's hiding places: a bench. If on the run from the city garrison, simply get out of their sight and sit down on a bench between two strangers.
Social stealth is just the beginning of the game's innovations. Most noteworthy is the epic parkour/free-running system - players can climb almost anything in the game. Climbing is easily controlled, yet looks amazing. The game engine does a flawless job of putting Altair's hands where there actually appear to be handholds in his environment.
Running from rooftop to rooftop, climbing towers to gain a better view of the game's four cities and jumping from wall to pole to ground are among the many things the free running system enables the player to do. If Ubisoft were to create a competitive free-running racing game using the "Creed" engine, they'd certainly have a best seller.
The racing aspect is so fun it could almost stand on its own. But being an assassin entails, of course, assassinations, and here "Creed" again delivers the goods.
With nine major targets and plenty of unsuspecting archers, thugs and ruffians, there is no shortage of combat in this game. Early on, fights are quite difficult, but after improving skills by completing objectives, the player has enough health to not worry about getting hit once or twice.
Altair's signature attack is with his "hidden blade" - a switchblade dagger that shoots out of his left gauntlet. The player can use this throughout the game to take people out silently in back alleys, or to spring upon unsuspecting prey. Ubisoft nailed this key element and the assassination action is satisfying ad infinitum.
The only major flaw in the game is that the enemies are too easy. The only challenging foes in the game are the 60 Knights Templar scattered throughout the Holy Land, and the nine bosses which the player is sent to kill.
Most of the bosses don't wind up being very difficult either, but the deathtraps into which Altair wanders get more and more dangerous as the game progresses. A difficulty slider which could increase enemy intelligence, hit points and/or damage would go far in ramping up the level of combat in the game.
Despite the ease with which the player can dispatch endless companies of guards, however, the combat never grows old. This is a testament to how well done Altair's combat animations look; there are so many different animations for killing enemies that one loses count somewhere after seven, and moreover, doesn't care just because it looks so cool.
The back of the box demands that the player "Master the Art of the Kill," and truly, that is not marketing hyperbole. Ubisoft Entertainment has supremely captured and communicated the idea, the essence of being an assassin during the Third Crusade.
No matter how many good games have come out in November - and there have been plenty - "Assassin's Creed" is definitely not one to miss.
