![]() ![]() Hearing "You dirty thief, I'll have your hand for that!" in a series of different accents and inflections feels charming these days, rather than weirdly cheap and immersion-breaking, as it did when Assassin's Creed was being hyped to death as the next big open-world extravaganza. It's easier to forgive these things in hindsight, however, especially with nostalgia in the mix. We can only assume development pressures prevented them writing and recording different dialogue, but it still feels like a strange limitation. Curiously, Ubisoft often had them say the same lines in different accents depending on where you were. Stalking your targets involved performing the exact same information-gathering tasks again and again in new locations, while the numerous people occupying the world offered little utility and were guilty of saying the same things wherever you went. While the cities themselves were gorgeous and painstakingly assembled, once you scratched the surface there wasn't much variety. That wasn't the only thing critics complained about, either. Eventually the assassination target steps forward for this treatment, and the game then goes into a cutscene conversation between you and your dying victim, even if there are still numerous henchmen standing in the immediate vicinity. Suddenly you would be thrust into combat mode, where Altair stands with sword and blade drawn, surrounded by enemies, who cautiously approach him one by one to be parried and executed. Most of the time it was impossible to make it all the way to the target without being discovered, and once alerted, the whole thing descended into farce. ![]() Of course, one of the reasons Assassin's Creed received mixed reviews at the time - and it's easy to forget that it was a much bigger commercial success than it was critically, at least to begin with - is that the centerpiece assassinations rarely played out that way. Eliminating him with an aerial takedown, without being identified beforehand, is amazing. The one that always sticks in the memory for us is a castle backing onto the ocean, which must be penetrated by careful mountaineering across its exterior, using battlements and every ounce of stealth available to remain undetected until you can make it to within striking distance of your foe. Once you've gained enough insight into their location and routine, you're sent to kill them, and some of these takedowns have fantastic potential. To do this, you must first travel to each target's general location, spread across the Middle East, then gather intelligence on them by eavesdropping on conversations, pickpocketing couriers and meeting informants. Having disgraced yourself in the eyes of the Assassin order and been mock-executed by its leader Al Mualim, you are sent out on a humbling (and murderous) journey of rediscovery, tasked with assassinating nine different Templar kingpins to regain your master's favor and learn the tenets of the order anew. The original Assassin's Creed was a much simpler game than its successors. These were all things this game invented, and after an insanely convoluted succession of sequels that grew so dense with 2015's Syndicate that even Ubisoft needed a year off to recover, there's something almost romantic about revisiting them. Waking up in Abstergo's comfy prison as Desmond Miles for the first time, climbing into the Animus under duress and shaking genetic hands with Altair, beginning our adventures in the Middle East by taking in gorgeous skylines like the rooftops of Damascus, and performing sacred acts like climbing viewpoint towers, diving into haystacks, and plunging the hidden blade into someone's neck. There are all sorts of reasons for that, but obviously nostalgia is a big part. ![]() If anything, we like it more today than we did back in 2007. Perhaps equally surprising is that the original Assassin's Creed is still really good fun to play. This series is only 10 years old? We feel like we've been playing it forever. Most of them time when we're writing retrospectives, we find ourselves horrified by the mounting age of the games we grew up playing, but looking back on the original Assassin's Creed provokes the opposite reaction. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |