Assassin's Creed (PS3) Review

 Assassin’s Creed (PS3) 5/10

“Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted”

Hello and welcome to another game review. Today, let’s take a look at the beginning of a legendary franchise. A franchise that many of us today feel like is dead in the water. Assassin’s Creed first launched back on November 13, 2007 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, with the game being developed and published by Ubisoft. Despite how forgotten this game is compared to later entries, I feel that it needs some much needed love. The game has obvious issues that hold it back from true greatness, but I still enjoyed it more than I would like to admit. Let’s jump right into it.

Our story follows Desmond Miles, a bartender during modern day. He gets kidnapped by Abstergo Industries and forced into a machine called an Animus. The Animus rejects this and forces Desmond back to a previous memory of his ancestor. A little background info. So in this universe, our minds, our brains and DNA harbor not only our memories, but the memories of our ancestors as well. Using the Animus, a machine created by Abstergo Industries, a person can revisit the life of their ancestors. Abstergo is a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company with shady corporate business practices. Desmond is an Assassin, an in-the-shadows organization that fights for the greater good of mankind against another secret, Illuminati-like organization. As you can probably piece it together, Abstergo is this secret organization. Abstergo kidnapped Desmond in hopes that one of his ancestors would know the location of an object called a Piece of Eden, an all powerful artifact from ages past. Enter Altair Ibn-La’Ahad, Desmond’s ancestor from the 3rd Crusade. Altair is an arrogant, full of himself Assassin that was sent on a mission to recover an artifact from underneath Solomon’s Temple. After completely disregarding the three main rules of the Creed, Altair fails his mission and retreats back to his home of Masyaf. When he returns, his master Al Mualim starts ripping him a new one for failing to retrieve the artifact. One of Altair’s brothers, Malik, returns severely wounded with the artifact. After a lesson on what the Assassin’s Creed is, Al Mualim sends Altair to kill nine Templars that reside in the Holy Land. Thus begins Altair’s Hunt for the Nine. Altair will journey through the Holy Land to Damascus, Acre, and Jerusalem and investigate each target and assassinate them, slowly cleansing the Holy Land of such corrupt individuals. As Altair assassinates his targets, he’ll come to understand the true meaning of his Creed and unravel a conspiracy to drag on the Crusade for much longer. Desmond has to work through Altair’s story in order to get to what Abstergo wants from him.

I love this game’s story. It’s a very solid foundation for the rest of the series. I loved seeing Desmond slowly piece together what exactly he has gotten himself into. I loved seeing Altair’s character growth from an arrogant asshole to a respectful warrior. I loved how Altair’s story slowly opens up to him as he assassinates his targets. The way information is revealed to the player was done very well and seeing Altair piece together this massive conspiracy was very entertaining to see.

I love the characters. We barely got to see Desmond, but from what we saw, he seems like a decent protagonist. I liked Warren, the doctor that kidnapped Desmond. His arrogance and belief that he can change the world was very charismatic. I would love to see more of him in the future. Lucy, Warren’s assistant, was a great supporting character for Desmond to understand what was going on. I would also like to see more of her as well. Altair is the best character in the game. His whole redemption arc throughout the game was phenomenal. Honestly Altair’s story of redemption has become a personal favorite. I love his interactions with Al Mualim, the Rafiiks in each city, and even his conversations with his targets. Altair is a very underrated character within the franchise and I wish Ubisoft did a little bit more with him.

Assassin’s Creed is a 3D open world action/stealth game. You’ll have 5 areas you can explore: Masyaf, Damascus, Acre, Jerusalem, and Kingdom. Kingdom is the large, open area between the four settlements. Within each settlement, you have three targets, totaling up to the nine targets Al Mualim wants you to kill. Each target resides in one of the districts: Rich, Middle, or Poor. You can only tackle one target at a time, according to the memory that Altair experienced it in. To begin your investigation into your target, you must first see the Bureau leader of that settlement. From there, they’ll give you directions on where to begin your investigation. To investigate, Altair must Eavesdrop, Pickpocket, Intimidate, and help Informants in order to get info on his target. After you complete 2-3 of the investigations, the game will allow you to begin your assassination. HOWEVER, I HIGHLY recommend you do all the investigations you can before you attempt the assassination so that you can be best prepared for what’s coming for you. I don’t mind these investigations as they’re basic, critical pieces for gathering info. I will say that some of the Informant missions were really annoying. So Informants will give you either Flag Collection or Minor Assassination targets to go after. Flag Collection is basically just running around a set area collecting flags before the timer runs out. WIth the other, you have to kill a certain amount of specific guards before the timer runs out. These assassinations were really annoying in the late game as you’re trying to avoid all the guards (I’ll get into this in a little bit.) The actual main assassination for that district is one of the highlights for the game. Take target number 3, Talal in Jerusalem. Talal is a slave trader and gathering the info for his assassination was the same as the other targets. For his assassination, you walk into his compound and have a short discussion with him. After that, he sicks his guards on you. After you defeat his guards and you start going after him, he’ll try to gain some distance between you so that he can hit you with his bow. There’s steps to these assassinations and I love it. I don’t recall this being tackled again until AC Unity, which is 7 games later. I may be wrong on that assumption though. After you kill your target, you have to get back to the Bureau anonymously. My favorite assassinations have to be Talal and William. 

Sound design is great. All the swords clashing and people chattering sound good. I like the voices for all the main characters. Desmond, Lucy, Warren, Altair, Al Mualim, Malik, and a couple of the targets. There’s also a very unique voice for one of the heralds preaching for Salah Ad Din’s victory and I love his rough, deep, scratchy voice.

The music is absolutely amazing. Assassin’s Creed has a very underrated soundtrack and it needs more love. My favorite songs from the score are “Flight Through Jerusalem”, “Acre Underworld”, and “Access The Animus”. Too bad you only get to hear the same 20 minutes of music throughout your playthrough. The music either cuts out or constantly repeats itself, so you never get to hear the full soundtrack, which is a crying shame because I love Jesper Kyd’s work.

Okay, now time for me to rip on the game. This game has A LOT of technical issues. Thankfully, it never crashed, but the game has a lot of problems. The audio lags whenever you first start up the game and it doesn’t sync back up with the game until 10-20 minutes after starting up the game. You’ll constantly hear the same voice clips over and over again “Praise be Salah Ad Din!”, “No you don’t understand! I am poor, sick, and hungry!”, “Just a few coins, please.” “Watch where you’re going!”. This isn’t a technical issue, more like it needs more variety. In the game, to help make things more difficult, the game will slowly introduce you to new obstacles. These obstacles are more guards, beggars, mentally disabled people, and drunk people. The beggars are the most annoying because they run into your movement and beg for money. You can easily push them to the side, but they are persistent. The drunk people and mentally disabled people are equally annoying. If you get too close to them, they’ll shove you, sometimes into a guard, forcing a conflict to happen. These guys were surprisingly not as bad to deal with, but still annoying. Back to the technical issues. When you first arrive into a city, like let’s say Acre. You’re not even in the city yet. Sometimes, the game will spawn a bunch of people walking to/from the city. Sometimes these people are literally just guards, no civilians. One wrong step on your horse and you'll trigger a conflict. Again, nothing you can’t handle, but really annoying. Parkour is clunky as well. It’s very difficult for you to do precise free running, which is one of the main selling points for the game. Sometimes Altair just won't listen to you. In the game, there are “restricted areas”. Restricted areas aren't necessarily a thing yet as this game mechanic isn’t introduced until the next game. Because there is no indication that you are in a restricted area besides your witness counter, you won’t know if you’re in a restricted area until it’s too late, causing a conflict. Like I'll literally be walking around a Mosque, minding my own business, and then a conflict starts. Like what the fuck? Another thing are the glitches. Thankfully I didn’t experience too many of these, but they did affect my gameplay. So in the game, like with every Ubisoft game, there are collectables to get. In Assassin’s Creed, there’s flags to collect in each city and in Kingdom. There’s a set amount of flags in each city/district (depending on where you are). I had no problem with these except in Kingdom. I followed a guide to help me collect everything, but I missed 10 flags in Kingdom because they glitched out. Same thing with Templar Agents scattered throughout the world. There’s 60 Templar Agents to kill. I didn’t get them all mainly because I got lazy/frustrated with the game in the later half. There were a couple of Agents that just glitched out of existence, so I couldn’t kill them all. Another thing is the populace. These cities are sprawling with people, so it’s expected to be heavily populated. My main problem is that in the later areas of the city, there’s WAY too many people. Too many people = restricted movement. If you’re being chased, you can easily football charge through people, but if you’re not careful, a guard will stop you in your tracks. I know the game is supposed to get more difficult as you continue the story, but it’s not regulated. How do you expect me to play the game if you’re literally throwing too much at me to the point that I can’t play the game properly. Another thing is the combat. The combat itself, I’m fine with. Sometimes the game won’t read my commands, thus me getting hurt. Another thing I hate is that there are no subtitles. For a game that is predominantly in a foreign country with a lot of foreign names, locations, and foreign accents, subtitles are a must here and Ubisoft couldn’t spare that? WTF bro. There’s a couple of other minor things about the game, but I’ll leave it at this. The main problem is that it feels like you’re constantly fighting against the game itself.

Like I said, the game has a lot of issues, but thankfully the story is not one. If you are curious about the game, be wary of its problems. I can only recommend this to those that are looking for a good story to get into, but the gameplay and technical issues truly hold the game back. I really hope Ubisoft does a remaster (or full on remake) of the game because it’s a decent game, but there’s just too many damn problems. I’ve said what I needed to say.

Thanks for reading and may peace be with you.

This is Zorgak, signing off.