Assassin's Creed: Hands-On

By Mayur Gandhi

We've played it, and yes, it's a damn fine game.

The first thing you’ll notice when playing Assassin’s Creed – it was certainly the first thing we noticed – is just how gorgeous the game looks. It’s silly to call games on the Xbox 360 and PS3 next-gen as now that they’re in our living rooms it means they’re current-gen. However, attaching that ‘next-gen’ moniker to Assassin’s is easily justified. Highly detailed character models set upon a massive cityscape painted with beautiful textures make for one of the best looking games to date.

But the game isn’t all looks. The games graphics aren’t the only thing which sets it apart from peers, it’s the overall package, most specifically the fluidity of the controls – but we’ll come to that later.

If you’ve been following Assassin’s you’ll be familiar with the Montferrat mission which is shown at most events promoting the game. If you’re not, head-over to our Assassin’s Creed Day Blog to check it out. When asked whether we wanted to play the said mission much to their surprise we said no, instead, we wanted to explore the toy aspect (read our interview) of the game. We wanted to adventure through the city of Acre.

Many games have done this before, but not on the level Assassin’s has, that is, to create a fully living and breathing city you can explore to your hearts content. Due to the size and scope of the cities you could walk from one end to another and it’d take you a good couple of hours. Remember, this is three cities we’re talking about, each with its own distinct look. What else is keen to note as during our playtime it was hinted that the three cities is all that was shown, implying that there could be more content left unseen.

We were walking through a quiet and more residential district of Acre and immediately it was clear that the people reflect the area. Here there were more peasants and elderly looking folk – a far cry from the handsomely dressed and immaculately groomed people of the centre of the city.

Walking through this area is where we got a decent taste of the unique controls. Instead of your buttons being mapped to jump, punch, kick, etc, they’re mapped to how you interact with the crowd. Of course, when you engage in combat, that’s a different story. Tap A to push people out of the way, B to slide past, you can even tackle people should you choose it, keep in mind that social status plays a big part in this game so tackling people left, right and centre does bare a significant impact on how you play the game.

In the top left-hand corner you have a waving bar which represents how the people, and guards, around you perceive you. Lay the smack-down on everyone you see and people aren’t going to like you, and will be more suspicious of you. This usually results in being chased by guards. Part of being a successful assassin is being unseen so it’s wise to be as subtle and inconspicuous as possible. Yes, we learned the hard way.

Of course, walking through the streets is, mind the pun, pedestrian so we took the rooftops by simply pressing a single button to grab onto a window sill a short distance above before vaulting to the railing on the rooftop. Within seconds we were five metres high, and after a few moments more were a few stories up looking down on the districts casual hubbub. At this point we were a little worried, after seeing so many videos of the game it seemed it would take one with the combined mental dexterity of an advanced civilisation to navigate rooftops through the various jumps. Fortunately, most of this is automatic; this is what you can call ‘effortlessly cool’. Run off a ledge and you’ll automatically jump and grab onto the closest ledge possible. The developers reasoning behind this is that the player will have far too much to be thinking about while in pursuit to be able to handle sensitive button presses in such dire situations.

Eventually we shimmied and jumped our way to Acre’s highest tower and looked over the city in pure Batman fashion. Other than the view being a breathtaking reward, it also provides the player with a clear map of city, after all, with the huge draw-distance, you can see everything.

Assassin’s Creed plays unlike conventional games and that’s because it represents what this current generation of consoles promised to deliver before they launched. If you’re sick of playing prettier versions of games you’ve already played on the PlayStation 2, Assassin’s is for you.

Even though we’ve seen and played quite a substantial amount of the game, it makes us no less excited about spending some more time with the game when it ships next month. Have you pre-ordered your copy?

Look forward to more exclusive Assassin's Creed features! Next-up: A Little Dudes web-comic, and more! Be sure to check out the rest of our Assassin's Creed coverage!

The best way to be kept up to date is to add Assassin's Creed to your myNZGamer wishlist by clicking here for Xbox 360 or here for PS3.

 del.icio.us  StumbleUpon  Facebook  Reddit