its player. But what is a narrative
without a world to tell it in? It’s crazy
to think that Ubisoft believed it could
get away with designing three major
cities, an assassin village and a
sizeable overworld connecting it all.
CITY SLICKER
And you know, Ubisoft didn’t get
away with it. Despite Jerusalem,
Damascus and Acre being very
different regions, each city feels
bereft of cultural signifiers besides
one or two notable landmarks, like
the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
or the port in Acre. Even worse,
each city was seemingly built by the
same architect, each building a basic
square or triangle as if shunted into
place like a Lego block rather than
naturally layered over the years.
This makes each place feel far too
similar to the last.
I wonder too how confident
Ubisoft was in its climbing tech at the
time, considering Altaïr gets tripped
by anything other than a 90-degree
angle. There’s nothing quite like
leaping over three support beams,
swinging through a merchant’s stand
with some impeccable animation,
and eagle-diving into some hay.
Consider me still very impressed
by the controls, where Ubisoft
assigned each side of your body to
your controller’s face buttons. It
forces you to be conscious of how
you’re using your body in the
moment, be it to shove a man out of
the way or sidle around his guard.
Nowadays, even Valhalla relies on a
fairly standard light and heavy attack
system that only considers your body
when it’s time to dual-wield shields.
Then there’s the overworld that
connects the cities, a large yet
surprisingly linear procession of huts
and military camps bookmarked only
by more towers to climb. It’s weird
because it shows the scope of
Ubisoft’s ambition years before it
would really nail it. I’d wager it was
meant to house much more to do,
but instead we just get some
innocuous horseback riding.
There’s also a number of NPCs
that haven’t aged well, including theUBISOFT ASSIGNED EACH SIDE
OF YOUR BODY TO YOUR
CONTROLLER’S FACE BUTTONS
homeless people exhibiting signs of
mental illness who violently shove
you, or the small army of beggars that
always happen to be women. To
Ubisoft’s credit, the cast is well-
rounded with (mostly male) actors
representative of each region.
I realise I’ve spent much of this
ragging on Assassin’s Creed, but it’s
easy to see why this franchise took
off the way it did, save for a few
resets. Hitman was already on the
scene as a sort of social stealth
experience, but Assassin’s Creed
was truly a next-gen horsepower
showcase, and it wasn’t afraid to
show that off. The camera is closer
to the player, more intimate, and not
so much the typical third person of
recent tries. The pacing is nowhere
near the breakneck speed of Valhalla,
but to see Middle Eastern cities
realised so expansively was
groundbreaking for the time.
Assassin’s Creed is a testament to
Ubisoft’s strengths as a studio, where
scope was just a word and every
gamer’s natural instinct for historical
murder tourism can be explored with
some genuine zeal. Altaïr may be a
fumbling mess at many times, but he
walked so we could run.The crowd loves a show.EXTRA LIFE
DIARY I MOD SPOTLIGHT I REINSTALL (^) I WHY I LOVE