#0006 - Assassin's Creed - 2007- Multiplatform - Ubisoft Montreal - Action/Platforming

Assassin's Creed was so hotly anticipated that it seems almost impossible that it could have met expectations. The scope was huge, the promises were equally so, and the hype matched both. What we expected was a sort of Grand Theft Auto: Crusader Edition - mission structure set within a dynamic ancient world with its own life cycles. More importantly, we were supposed to have choice. (Choice, of course, being the great illusion in video games.) We were promised the ability to interact with a living, breathing city population. What we got, and this is of course no surprise to the jaded gamer, is a game that was basically a prototype for the mirage that was the Assassin's Creed concept.

I still had fun with it, and it seems impossible to not even have a little bit of fun with a game where you can roam around cities killing targets at will. But it only takes an hour in to see that it's all a sham. Behind the Anvil-powered glimmer lies a puppet show where NPCs have only one line recorded with at max two different voice actors, there are only two or three real approaches to combat, and the entire six-hour length only offers about five different mission types. This is literally the progression that Assassin's Creed follows every thirty minutes: enter a city, go to mission hub, complete three of six available submissions that are always drawn from the same handful of types, and complete the final assassination. Engage in a cutscene, repeat. And that's it.

There was an idea that was Assassin's Creed, but it was lost somewhere amidst corporate deadlines. The game needed more time in both pre-production design and development. As I said, there is an element of fun here, and I certainly didn't gripe much on my way through the campaign. The story is original and compelling - a breath of fresh air in a generation of console gaming that is wildly derivative. The characters are realized in a powerful way, and the ascension of conflict to climax is about as well done as could be asked for. There's even some great twists on the way. I have no complaints with that.

The problem is that there's not enough of a compelling reason to stay in the game world for even the length of the campaign. After the first 'chapter' you've seen everything that can be done in the game. It's mostly downhill from there. Sometime in the future I'll cover Assassin's Creed II, but you can't talk about one without the other. Creed II is the game that the first was supposed to be. It delivers on the promise for a near-real world that drags you in and changes up the pace enough to keep you there. It's a symphony of varied experiences and free choice - the first Creed in contrast is a two-note Phillip Glass piece that just doesn't last.

What's great is that - more than almost any other developer I know of - Ubisoft Montreal demonstrates an ability to learn and modify their games to meet criticism. They refashioned Prince of Persia twice in the Sands of Time trilogy to result in Two Thrones, arguably the most refined iteration of the formula. They tried something new and unique with Assassin's Creed, accepted what was wrong with it, and moved forward with a bigger and better sequel. That's the sort of flexibility that I respect, and the sort of development dynamism that I think the game industry needs going forward.