Assassin’s Creed is a difficult game to pigeonhole. Technically it takes place in a near future setting in which you take on the role of Desmond Miles, a citizen of some unknown importance who has been abducted by a corporate organization that wants information that only he possesses. Well, technically, they want information that one of his ancestors possessed. The basic conceit in this game is the notion that, as Desmond, your genes carry within them the memories of your ancestors and in this case, one of yours knows something this corporation wants very, very badly. To get it, a lead scientist and his assistant plug you into a machine called the Animus, which basically amounts to a VR machine that taps into these latent memories. It's at this point that the real story of Assassin’s Creed begins.
The ancestor whose memories you tap into is the assassin, Altair (Al-tie-eer). Altair is very good at what he does, but predictably, he’s arrogant. It’s not long before we find Altair busted down to novice status after his ego results in a colossal failure on an important mission. At this point you begin reliving Altair’s assignments, and his quest for redemption, as your captors search for information that leads to the answers they seek.
On the surface, Assassin’s Creed is an extraordinarily impressive game. The adventures you relive as Altair take you through such painstakingly reproduced Middle East cities as Damascus, Jerusalem, Acre, and Arsuf. The level of detail in these cities is incredible, and nowhere is this attention to detail more evident than the many points at which you must scale enormous towers to look out over the cityscape. These moments are absolutely breathtaking.
Likewise, the cities themselves bustle with activity. There aren’t a lot of different models for the citizenry, but they get the job done. The world itself is a sandbox in the same vein as a Grand Theft Auto, allowing you to travel the streets in any direction you choose, including leaping from rooftop to rooftop – though some city areas are artificially blocked off.
For awhile, the entire game exudes this sense of extravagance and wonder. After traveling on horseback across terrain that transition from barren to bustling, you arrive in a city and begin undertaking missions that ultimately lead you to the target that you must assassinate. At first these missions are both varied and interesting, ranging from pick pocketing to eavesdropping to protection and so on. You can also, if you so choose, rescue various nameless citizens from abuse by the city guard. Any time you are able to do so successfully, a small batch of the city’s populace will seek to hide you from city guards should they be chasing you. To find these missions you must climb to one of several of the aforementioned lookout points, which results in them being marked on your map.
The problem is, by the time you’ve assassinated your first target you’ve basically seen everything the game has to offer. And by everything—I truly mean everything. Every time you’re given a target you need to gather up to six bits of information from the city where the target resides before you can proceed. Every pick pocket mission is the same, as is every eavesdropping mission and every intimidation. By the time you’ve rescued your two-dozenth civilian you’ll want to just let the guards have them.
No mission, save for your final target, feels important or distinctive and if you’re not bored to absolute death by the end of the game its only because the experience of just playing around in this sandbox universe is satisfying enough for you to overlook the bland, repetitive gameplay.
