Tech & U: Assassin's Creed

Original:

“Stay your blade from the blood of an innocent. Hide in plain sight. Do not compromise the brotherhood.” That's the Assassin's Creed.

Something not taken likely in the days of the Hashshashin. Which brings us to you. You are Altaïr, well actually you're Desmond, a bartender that left the life of an assassin because it just cramped his style. Taken hostage by Abstergo Industries, they want Desmond to access and organise his genetic memories of his long lost relative Altaïr so that they can glem important information that is locked in there.

As you access these memories, you relive events in Altaïr's life as an assassin, successfully living out his memories unlocks new memories which he has to live through. Thus, opening the doors to secret history of the Hashshashin and at the same time unlocking genetic skills that Desmond will find useful in the last stages of the game.

The game starts you out as Altaïr, in the prime of you career. As such, you become prideful as you accomplishments and feel that you can do no wrong. After bungling your mission, you return to the order's base to face Al Mualim about your failure. To insult to injury, one of the lower ranked assassins that was with you survived the encounter as has completed the mission. He even tells Al Mualim about your miserable performance.

Al Mualim, enraged at your disregard for the Creed and failure of the mission and leading the Templars to the order's base, has you executed. You awaken after being 'killed' with all your skills and weapons gone to begin 'life' again as a lowly assassin.

This is where the game really starts as you wonder throughout the kingdom to kill 9 men of the Templar order that are accused of propagating hostilities between the Christians and Muslims. As you wonder around, gathering information to their whereabouts, you are presented with side quests which some have totally no relation to the main quest.

After all of this rattling along you have to ask, “How is the gameplay?” It's great. Altaïr has a host of moves which he can execute with several key commands. Altaïr can run up sides of walls, scale almost any surface, take flying leaps off buildings, pickpockets, eavesdrop, sit on benches and so on. In addition to his amazing display of acrobatics, Altaïr has an impressive list of moves for combat too.

That being said, the gameplay is still a bit arcadish. Fans of Thief will not like moves in the game like how to evade capture. Which, for me reminds me of a bit like Disney's Aladin movie where Altaïr has to run like mad to lose line of sigh of his pursuers. Which, you usually end up running across roof tops, then jumping into hay stack or a curtained garden.

Overall, the game has decent graphics, an intriguing storyline, well delivered dialogue by the voice actors and extremely easy to learn and use controls system. Everything to make it a truly enjoyable game to waste the summer away.

Title: Assassin's Creed
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Availability: New Era Interactive Software Sdn Bhd
Suite 27-02B, 27th Floor Menara Keck Seng
203 Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: (603) 2143 1332 Fax: (603) 2143 1330
Email: junking.my@neweraint.com
Website: http://www.neweraonline.com
RM159.90

Package: 1 Manual, 2 Game DVD.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Operating System: Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista
Processor: Dual core 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
RAM: 1 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista
Video Card: 256 MB DirectX 10.0–compliant video card or DirectX 9.0–compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (see supported list)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0–compliant sound card
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0 libraries (included on disc)
DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive
Hard Drive Space: 8 GB
Peripherals Supported: Keyboard, mouse, optional controller
* This product does not support Windows 98/ME/2000/NT/XP x64/Vista x64


Our Verdict: 4 1/2
Documentation: 4
Graphics: 5
Sound: 5
Replay Value: 4