Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed is a stealth game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide in November 2007 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles.^[1] The North American PC version was released on April 8, 2008.

A prequel for this game, titled Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles, developed by Gameloft,^[10] was released on February 5, 2008 for the Nintendo DS.^[11] It was also ported to the Symbian Mobile. A sequel was confirmed by Ubisoft, tentatively to be released in 2010.^[12]

Plot

Animus machine

The main story of Assassin's Creed takes place in early September 2012; Desmond Miles, a bartender, has been kidnapped by the fictional company Abstergo Industries in order to be used as a test subject in the "Animus," a device that can stimulate the recall of ancestral memories buried in the user's DNA. Abstergo has Desmond use the device to recall the role of Altaïr ibn La-Ahad (الطائر ابن لا أحد , Arabic: "The Flying One, Son of None" or "The Bird, Son of None"), one of Desmond's ancestors, in the "Assassin Brotherhood" during 1191 as part of the Third Crusade in the Holy Land. The character and his clan are based on a true military wing, called Hashshashin, the idea for it coming from Bartol's novel Alamut.^[13][14] Desmond at first has trouble adjusting to the device, but eventually is able to relive Altaïr's exploits over the next several days. Much of the core game is then presented from Altaïr's point-of-view as seen by Desmond, though at times interrupted by glitches resulting from the Animus.

At the start of the memories, Altaïr is shown attempting to retrieve a "Piece of Eden", a strange artifact, from Solomon's Temple with the help of other assassins, but is stopped by Robert IV de Sablé, a member of the Knights Templar and sworn enemies of the assassins. Altaïr breaks all three codes of the Assassin's Creed to attempt to kill de Sablé, but fails; upon returning to the Brotherhood, Al Mualim ("The teacher"), leader of the Assassins, demotes Altaïr to an initiate, giving him another chance to rise through the ranks of the Brotherhood. To this end, Al Mualim assigns Altaïr the task of assassinating nine key figures across the Holy Land in Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus, in order to attempt to bring peace between the Crusaders and Muslim forces. Altaïr methodically completes each task, learning that each target is connected to Robert and the Templars and share their mysterious goals. Altaïr's final target, de Sablé, reveals in his dying words that Al Mualim is himself a member of the Knights Templar, and used Altaïr to kill the other members so he could keep the treasure for himself. Altaïr quickly returns to Masyaf to accost his master. Al Mualim reveals the truth; the Piece of Eden creates illusions, and he denounces religion and other seemingly supernatural events as illusions caused by it. He then states his intention to use the artifact to compel mankind into a brainwashed state and so bring an end to conflict. Altaïr attempts to kill his former master, but Al Mualim uses the Piece of Eden to warp Altaïr's vision. Altaïr is eventually able to see through the deception and kill Al Mualim, recovering the artifact. As he does, the Piece of Eden activates, showing a holographic view of the world with numerous locations marked across the globe.

Cryptic messages on the wall of Desmond's bedroom at the end of the game.

With Altaïr's memory complete, Desmond wakes up out of the Animus and learns that Abstergo Industries is already sending out recovery teams to locations shown by the "Piece of Eden" in Altaïr's memory, hoping to find additional artifacts. Desmond, no longer being of use to the Knights Templar, is to be silenced; however, he is saved by a researcher named Lucy Stillman, who reveals herself to be an Assassin by showing her hand with her ring finger closed as if it were missing. In the conclusion of the game, Desmond, having become "synchronized" with Altaïr, is able to use the eagle vision (a sort of empathic sight to see hidden messages and tell friend from foe) and by looking at Lucy, he can see that she is an ally to him (shown by her glowing blue), giving further proof that she is a genuine Assassin. He also sees messages that only he can see, scrawled across the floors and walls that refer to the end of the world described by several religions, among other writings; such writings include references to the biblical passage Revelation 22:13 ("I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."), a Lorenz attractor, the Eye of Providence, as well as part of a Mandelbrot set and other writings in foreign languages. Additionally, there is the Mayan date of 13.0.0.0.0—December 21, 2012—which is only three months away within the game's timeline and represents the planned date of the launch of a mysterious satellite the Templars have created, which they claim will "permanently end the war." The Arabic word "Az-Zalzala", literally meaning "The Earthquake" can be seen, which is the title of a chapter in the Qur'an that talks about Judgment Day. Some Nazca Line drawings are also found. There is also a reference to Yonaguni, a Japanese island similar to Atlantis. This leads to the speculation that the sequel might be set in feudal Japan, though Ubisoft has not commented. Also written on the wall of his room are the Hebrew words "Olam ha-Ba" (עולם הבא), meaning "the next world" or "after-life". Further investigation after the credits reveals an email sent to Vidic by Lucy, stating that the drawings come from a mysterious "subject sixteen" who went insane due to what they described as a "bleeding effect" (essentially, genetic memory assimilation comes to a point where the subject can no longer distinguish between their life and their ancestors' memories. Lucy speculates that, though subject sixteen's "bleeding" was brought on by too much time spent in the Animus, natural forms may occur, such as Dissociative Identity Disorder and other forms of dementia).

Gameplay

The player must climb tall towers in order to map out the city and discover the location of investigation targets.

Sitting on a bench will allow the player to blend in and avoid being spotted by guards.

Assassin's Creed is a third-person stealth game in which the player primarily assumes the role of Altaïr as experienced by Desmond. The primary goal of the game is to carry out a series of assassinations ordered by Al Mualim, the leader of the Assassins. To achieve this goal, the player must travel from the Brotherhood's headquarters in Masyaf, across the terrain of the Holy Land known as the Kingdom to one of three cities, Jerusalem, Acre, or Damascus, to find the Brotherhood agent in that city. There, the agent, in addition to providing a safe house, gives the player minimal knowledge about the target, and requires them to perform additional intelligence gathering missions prior to attempting the assassination. These missions include eavesdropping, interrogation, pickpocketing, and completing tasks for informers and fellow assassins. Additionally, the player may take part in any number of side objectives, including climbing tall towers to map out the city, and saving citizens who are being threatened or harassed by the city guards. There are also various side quests that do not advance the plot such as hunting down and killing Templars and flag collecting. After completing each set of assassinations, the player is returned back to the Brotherhood and rewarded with a better weapon and then given another set of targets, with the player free to select the order of their targets.

The player is made aware of how noticeable Altaïr is to enemy guards as well as the current state of alert in the local area via an alertness level meter. To perform many of the assassinations and other tasks, the player must consider the use of commands distinguished by its type of profile. Low profile commands allow Altaïr to blend into nearby crowds, gently pass by other citizens, or other non-threatening tasks that can be used to hide and reduce the alertness level; the player can also use Altaïr's retractable blade to attempt low profile assassinations. High profile commands are more noticeable, and include running, scaling the sides of buildings to climb to higher vantage points, and attacking foes; performing these actions at certain times may raise the local area's awareness level. Once the area is at high alert, the crowds will run and scatter while guards will attempt to chase and bring down Altaïr; in order to reduce the alert level, the player must control Altaïr as to break the guards' line of sight and then find a hiding space such as a haystack or rooftop garden, or blend in with the citizens or wandering scholars. Should the player be unable to escape the guards, they may fight back using a number of swordplay maneuvers.

During gameplay, intentional glitches that include nucleotides (which compose DNA) and computer messages will flash on the screen.

The player's health is described as the level of synchronization between Desmond and Altaïr's memories; should Altaïr suffer injury, it is represented as deviation from the actual events of the memory, rather than physical damage. If all synchronization is lost, the current memory that Desmond is experiencing will be restarted at the last checkpoint. When the synchronization bar is full, the player has the additional option to use "eagle vision" which allows the computer-rendered memory to highlight all visible characters in colors corresponding to whether they are friend or foe or even the target of their assassination. Due to Altaïr's memories being rendered by the computer of the Animus project, the player may experience "glitches" in the rendering of the historical world, which may help the player to identify targets, or can be used to alter the viewpoint during in-game scripted scenes should the player react fast enough when they appear.

Development

On September 28, 2006, in an interview with IGN, producer Jade Raymond confirmed that Altaïr is "a medieval hitman with a mysterious past" and that he is not a time traveler.^[16] In a later interview on December 13, 2006, with IGN, Kristen Bell (who lent her voice and likeness to the game) talked about the plot. According to the interview, the plot centers on genetic memory and a corporation looking for descendants of an assassin.^[17]

"It's actually really interesting to me. It's sort of based on the research that's sort of happening now, about the fact that your genes might be able to hold memory. And you could argue semantics and say it's instinct, but how does a baby bird know to eat a worm, as opposed to a cockroach, if its parents don't show it? And it's about this science company trying to, Matrix-style, go into people's brains and find out an ancestor who used to be an assassin, and sort of locate who that person is."

—Kristen Bell

On October 22, 2007, in an IGN Australia interview with Patrice Desilets mentioned that the lead character's climbing and running were done by "Alex and Richard – the same guys from Prince of Persia".^[18]

Altaïr is voiced by actor Philip Shahbaz,^[19] and his face is modeled after Spanish model Francisco Randez.^[20]

Altaïr (meaning "The Flying One" in Arabic) is a star in the Northern Sky in the constellation of Aquila ("eagle" in Latin); this ties in well with the white eagle seen in the trailer, who is shown flying over the city of Acre, and lands on the bell tower Altaïr himself is standing on. To complete the theme the Assassin's clothes consist of white flowing robes. His hood also has a hook on the end and his lower robe features a stream on each side, therefore making Altaïr's shadow in air look like an eagle. According to Ubisoft Altaïr is not religious but rather spiritual and is the son of a Christian mother and Muslim father. It is also stated that in events before the start of the game, there is an initiation where Altaïr's left ring finger is cut off, so that he is no longer a novice, but an assassin. This procedure provides for the hidden blade to extend from under Altaïr's forearm.

The Nintendo DS prequel, Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles, was released on February 5, 2008.

Music

Jade Raymond, producer of Assassin's Creed said "For Assassin's Creed we wanted the score to capture the gruesome atmosphere of medieval warfare but also be edgy and contemporary."^[21] The musical score was composed by Jesper Kyd in 2007. Six tracks were made available online to those who have purchased the game; a password was given to people to insert at the soundtrack section of the Ubisoft website.^[22] Several tracks are also available to listen to on Kyd's MySpace and his official website. The released tracks as a whole have the archaic Latin chorus and dark orchestral music, whilst the track "Meditation Begins" features a kind of Saltarello with a very ominous, dark, ambient overtone with men whispering in Latin. The atmosphere in these tracks is what Jesper Kyd is known for and is effective in situ.^[23]

PC version

It was made public in April 2008 that Assassin's Creed would be sold electronically and available for pre-order through Valve's software distribution program, Steam, and though advertised to the entire Steam customer base it was locked out for any Steam-customers not residing in North America (along with the entire Ubisoft catalog). The PC version of Assassin's Creed was released on April 8, 2008 in North America. Four bonus mission types, not seen in the console version, are included. These 4 new missions are archer assassination, rooftop race challenge, merchant stand destruction challenge and escort challenge.^[24]

A pirated version of the game has been in existence since late February 2008 – more than a month before its expected release. According to Ubisoft a bug was purposely inserted into the pre-release version of the game by the publisher itself to unpredictably crash the game and prevent completion as a security measure,^[25] though players were able to use extra content available on the internet to bypass it.^[26] The pirated version of Assassin's Creed was one of the most popular titles for piracy during the first week of March 2008.^[27] The presence of the bug and performance of the pirated version of the game was believed by Ubisoft to lead to "irreparable harm" for the game and resulted in low retail sales; NPD Group reports that 40,000 copies of the PC title were sold in United States in July, while more than 700,000 copies were illegally downloaded according to Ubisoft.^[28][25] In July 2008, Ubisoft sued disc manufacturer Optical Experts Manufacturing, believing the company to be the source of the leak, citing poor security procedures that allowed an employee to leave with a copy of the game.^[28][25]

Demos

On July 10, 2007, during the Microsoft E3 Press Conference, a demo was shown using a previously unseen city, Jerusalem. Features that were demonstrated included improved crowd mechanics, the "chase" system (chasing after a target trying to flee), as well as deeper aspects of parkour. This was the first time when Altaïr could be heard speaking. It was again showcased for nearly 20 minutes on Wednesday, July 11. The video showed an extended version of the E3 demo, and included Altaïr trying to escape after his assassination of Talal the Slave Trader.

On August 26, 2007, an 11-minute demo of Assassin's Creed was shown at the Penny Arcade expo. The level that was shown was the same as in the E3 demo; however, a different path was taken to reach the target. At the end of the demo, a conversation between Altaïr and the head of the Assassin's bureau in Jerusalem called Malik was shown.

There is no demo available for Assassin's Creed over Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network, or PC.

Reception

Assassin's Creed has received generally positive reviews, although several publications such as Eurogamer, while still awarding the game decent scores, pointed out a number of significant shortcomings. Eurogamer stated that the gameplay "never evolves and ultimately becomes a bit boring, and quite amazingly repetitive."^[29] In Andrew P.'s review for EGM(Kage), he writes that the game features "a challenging parkour path of escape…"^[30] Famitsu awarded the Xbox 360 version of Assassin's Creed a 36 (9, 9, 9, 9), while the PS3 version received a 37 (10, 8, 9, 10) out of 40, positively citing the story, presentation, and acrobatics, while criticizing the one button combat, map layout, and camera problems.^[31][32] Game Informer awarded Assassin's Creed a 9.5 out of 10, praising the control scheme, replay value, and intriguing story, but expressing frustration over the "repetitive" information gathering missions.^[33] On the The Hotlist on ESPNEWS, ESPN's Aaron Boulding called the game's concept of social stealth "fairly original" and added, "Visually, the developers nailed it."^[34] GameTrailers similarly praised the story (giving a 9.7 score to its story), and also cited repetitive gameplay and "moronic" AI as somewhat stifling its potential.^[35] The game also received a 10 out of 10 from GamesRadar, and has a Metacritic score of 81.^[36] According to GamePro, Assassin's Creed is one of the "finest gaming experiences ever created" if you are willing to be "patient" due to the lack of fast-paced action.^[37]

Ubisoft announced that the game has sold more than 3.46 million copies as of March 1, 2008, exceeding their initial expectations and prompting the company to raise their sales outlook.^[38]

Ben Croshaw of Zero Punctuation, known for his often cruel reviews, gave it a rare positive review, praising the free roaming aspect, assassinations, and overall uniqueness of the game while criticising the combat and the lengthy cutscenes.

Awards

The following awards were awarded to Assassin's Creed at E3 2006:

• Game Critics Awards
  • Won: Best Action/Adventure Game.^[39]
• IGN
  • Won: Best Action Game, PS3 Game of the Show, Best PS3 Action Game, Best PS3 Graphics
  • Runner-up: Best Console Game, Best PS3 Artistic Design, PS3 Award for Technological Excellence
  • Nominations: Game of the Show, Best Graphics Technology
• GameSpot
  • Won: Best PS3 Game of the Show
  • Runner-up: Game of the Show, Best Trailer, Best Graphics, Best Action Adventure Game
• GameSpy
  • Won: Best PS3 Game of the Show
• GameTrailers
  • Won: Best of Show
  • Runner-up: Best Trailer, Most Innovative, Best Action/Adventure
• 1UP.com
  • Won: Best PS3 game
  • Runner-up: Best Visuals, Game of the Show

The award nominations and wins after release included:

• Spike TV Awards^[40]
  • Nominated: Best PlayStation 3 Game, Best Action Game, Best Graphics – Artistic, Best Plot Twist, Best Trailer ("Lonely Soul"), Breakout Character (Altaïr)
• X-Play Best of 2007 Awards^[41]
  • Nominated: Game of the Year, Most Original Game, Best Gameplay Innovation, Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Art Direction, Best Animation, Best Sound Design

Sales

Sales for Assassin's Creed have been unexpectedly huge according to the publisher. An official press release from Ubisoft stated:

Assassin's Creed has greatly outstripped Ubisoft's sales expectations and currently ranks among the top two or three best-selling games for the Playstation 3 computer entertainment system and Xbox360 video game and entertainment system in the vast majority of geographical regions. In less than four weeks Assassin's Creed recorded more than two and a half million units in sell-through sales worldwide, and is the fastest-selling new video game intellectual property ever in the U.S. Consequently, Ubisoft now forecasts that it will sell a minimum of five million units of the game in 2007–08 compared with its previous estimate of approximately three million.^[42]

Other media

Metal Gear Solid rendition

Initially revealed on April Fool's Day 2008, Kojima later announced that the Altaïr costume would actually be in the game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, unlockable by doing "something special". To obtain the attire, the player must acquire the "Assassin Emblem", a nod to the game's title.^[43]

Grand Theft Auto 4

An achievement called "Assassin's greed" was included in the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV and also as a Trophy on the PlayStation 3 when the game was patched in October.. To obtain it, the player had to complete the nine assassination side-missions.

Prince of Persia

Altair, the protagonist of Assassin's Creed, has been revealed as an unlockable skin for the main character of the 2008 video game Prince of Persia.

Short film

Ubisoft and IFC held a contest for short films based on Assassin's Creed. The winning film can be viewed here.

Limited editions

Alongside the standard retail version, a limited collector's edition was released in North America for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The European limited edition contains the game and a 2-inch (51 mm) Altaïr figure in addition to an art book and a DVD containing several short films.

References

External links

• Assassin's Creed UK site
• Assassin's Creed US site
• Assassin's Creed Wiki