Assasin`s Creed: “the first pancake is always lumpy” |Review|

Assasins’s Creed is already more than 10 years old, and it is already one of the longest-running series of the 21st century. Just think, but it seems to me, because just yesterday I took a disc from a friend, with a game I had never seen or heard of before. A lot of time has passed since then, there have been ups and downs, good parts and not so good ones, and from a purely gaming focus the series has become a media franchise, but all this might not have happened.

I think now it won’t be news to anyone that the first part was originally planned not as the start of a new series, but as a spin-off to another – Prince of Persia, but I’ll still briefly mention it. After the release of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the development team was divided: one part continued to make a direct sequel, Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within, and the other made a spin-off, Prince of Persia: Assasins.

One of the key people in the studio was Patrice Désilets, creative director of The Sands of Time, who was the initiator of many decisions. For example, it was he who suggested telling not just another “oriental fairy tale”, but rather shifting the focus of the story from the prince to his bodyguards, mysterious assassins, who, according to the plot, forgive the tautology, were supposed to protect him. For information, he specifically turned to history books, and on this basis he formed his concept, naturally changing and supplementing the real facts somewhere. This increasingly alienated the new game from the “royal prince”, and ultimately, Ubisoft simply rejected the project, perhaps fearing the anger of fans, due to the fact that what came out under the trademark was not what they expected. However, the publisher decided to use all the developments of the studio for the game in a new IP (intellectual property), or in simple words, a game series. The game was released in November 2007 on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and six months later appeared on PC. By the way, there was a scandal: about a month later, under unknown circumstances, someone “leaked” the full version of the game, which outraged Ubisoft, as this significantly hit sales of the game.

T. S. Assasin`s Creed is one of my favorite games, in a sense it’s even difficult for me to talk about it objectively, but I’ll still try and avoid blind fanboyism, taking off my “rose-colored glasses” for this.

The game takes place in two eras, separated by a whole millennium. In the present, we play as Desmond Miles, an ordinary bartender caught by a certain Abstergo corporation. With his voluntary-compulsory help, they are trying to find out about a certain artifact, using the “Animus”, a machine that can literally “open” the genetic memory of their ancestors. However, for some reason, access to the desired area is not immediately provided, and Desmond needs to experience all the main moments in the life of his ancestor in order to gain complete synchronization, and, accordingly, access.

In the past, the https://gamblingsitesnotongamstop.co.uk/non-gamstop-betting-sites/ events take place during the Third Crusade, which you probably know about from school lessons, but if anyone has forgotten the premises, then I will briefly remind you. As a result of the Second, Jerusalem, the main stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine, fell and again found itself under the influence of the Saracens, led by Saladin. European monarchs and the Pope, wanting to return the Holy Sepulcher, quickly announce a new campaign, and Richard the Lionheart himself, King of England, becomes one of the commanders. In addition to the real historical sides of the conflict, in the person of the crusaders and Saracens, there is also a third one – the assassins, who try not to get involved in the confrontation between the Christian and Islamic worlds, but pursue exclusively their own goals.

The story is told from the perspective of Altair and begins in Solomon’s Temple. One group of assassins is tasked with stealing a certain artifact, but due to the excessive impudence and self-confidence of the protagonist, the task is only miraculously completed, and he, as the main culprit, is deprived of his title. Altair again needs to earn the trust of his teacher and brothers; he is assigned to kill nine people, governors, who, while Saladin and Richard are preparing for battle, are doing some of their own business behind their backs.

Questions arise from the very beginning. Who are these nine? What unites them? What’s the big deal? The plot is really intriguing, and with each murder of one from the list, the story begins to become clearer, and at some point, it becomes clear that this is not a matter of “redivision” of the Holy Land, but something larger; the intrigue really lasts until the very end.

As I noted above, the plot is really good, but its implementation and presentation is another matter. Despite the different game situations during the elimination of targets, on the way to receiving this quest, you will perform the same actions: eavesdrop, steal, interrogate, collect flags and accompany the informant to find out information, thanks that at least the dialogues change. And yes, Praise the Heavens, in order to get the main quest you need to complete only 3/6 of the secondary tasks, but believe me, by the middle of the game, you will be sick of such a gaming convention, and only interest in the story itself will force you to move on, if of course there is any.

Ok, we’ve sorted out the main activities, but what about the secondary ones, you ask, but not at all, I’ll answer. See for yourself, the game has a supposedly open world, or rather a pseudo-open one with three fairly large cities, one small village next to the castle and a vast territory between all of this. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it??

And on the one hand, yes, the Holy Land looks exactly as I imagined when reading both school history textbooks and fiction. Cities can really be considered as encyclopedic illustrations, although of course not everything is exactly observed, but nevertheless. There is also a separate mode that completely disables the entire interface, forcing, or rather not so, offering to live and navigate, listening to the speech of passers-by, noticing sights by their known signs, as if you were really there. By the way, in addition to the historical context, it is also necessary to touch upon the aesthetic side. Damascus and Jerusalem fully illustrate the beauty of the East, but Acre made a stronger impression on me. Acre, no matter how paradoxical and oxymoronic it may sound, clearly conveys the atmosphere of war. It can be seen that quite recently the city was under siege, and then there was a battle, a very bloody battle. One can see broken walls, still smoldering city buildings, corpses of local residents in narrow and not so narrow streets, in alleys that are already lying serenely under the pale sun. Everywhere there is only death, hunger, destruction. Just goosebumps.

And while traveling through the Holy Land, you will meet on your way ordinary people walking under the hot sun, perhaps pilgrims, armed detachments patrolling the territory, places where it looks like there has just been a skirmish, and of course military camps of the Saracens and Crusaders, where they are clearly gathering forces for the last (as they are sure) battle for the Holy Land.

But on the other hand, no, because there is simply nothing to do there; the game is frankly poor in side effects. What do the developers offer us?? Collecting flags, 60 Templar Knights in the area that need to be killed, visiting viewpoints, rescuing civilians and… and that’s it. Interesting? Well, I think the answer “for an amateur” would be the most fair. It’s a pity that the developers themselves are not very generous and don’t give anything special for completing these activities, except synchronization points, a la health points in other games. They seemed to promise a crossbow for the “flags”… or they didn’t promise it? Although, again, I wouldn’t dare to call synchronization points useless, they really help to survive, especially at the beginning, when Altair is “naked as a falcon” and has neither sensible equipment nor even skills (initially we have access to a sword and a hidden blade, but as we progress we will receive both better weapons and useful skills, for example, grabbing a ledge at the moment of “undershooting” after an unsuccessful jump). By the way, this is where our main skill helps us – stealth. Seriously, we have to hide in the hay, among monks, quite often, and we need this in simple situations, for example, getting into the city, and in more complex ones, too, to get close to our goal unnoticed.

Assasin`s Creed definitely provides a challenge, and develops not only Altair, controlled by you, but also you. You see, the fact is that even when, according to the plot, you return all the skills and equipment to Altair, the game will not become easy, perhaps only a little. In simple words, you won’t be able to simply call upon the same Templar knight (without using certain bugs in the AI ​​itself) – he will counter you, and very successfully. In general, somewhere after 1/3 of the game, you will roughly understand when it is worth organizing an epic battle “one against all, and all against one”, and when it is better to tactically run away along the roofs and hide there, for example in the garden; well, or still cut out all the pursuers, throwing them down.

Well, what’s the end result?? Assasin’s Creed, in my opinion, is like the first “pancake”, which often turns out lumpy for everyone. You see, it is possible to eat something, but something is not right yet. There is no feeling of integrity and completeness, there is a good plot, in my opinion, but its presentation methods are lame, there is a pseudo-open world, but in fact it is not interactive, and exists only in the form of a very beautiful one, but still only scenery, there are secondary tasks, but there are not enough of them and most importantly, they are not diverse. I understand that Assasin’s Creed is not an RPG, and moreover, it doesn’t need to be one, but the side quests should have been a little higher level. Patrice Désilets and other developers themselves admitted that the game is very relatable, but “not like FIFA” – quote, and they said that they didn’t manage to implement a lot of things to the end, and I readily believe them, especially since this was the first game for the studio with such a game design. Agree, making a linear platformer with slasher elements and making an action adventure in the open world are slightly different things, because?

In short, Assassin’s Creed is a good game that could have been better or claimed to be a masterpiece, but it didn’t happen, unfortunately. However, for Ubisoft Montreal and Patrice personally, it became just that “lump”, after which good pancakes began to come, and for some, even “a game for all times”. However, this is a completely different story… Which I will write about next time.