Sneaking Into Gamer's Hearts

Everybody has heard of Assassin's Creed, if they haven't played it since it came a year ago. I just got my hands on a used copy from that newfangled interweb and set to work beating it.

I feel obligated to say this up front: this game has mountains of potential and only reaches half-way up.

Start a new game and it immediately dumps you in this odd, dream-like world. Instructions keep popping up in front of you, but there are tons of people around and everything, including your movement, is slowed to a crawl. Honestly, it's fairly confusing and may turn a casual gamer off.

Fortunately, it just leads into the introduction of the fantastic story line. Your modern day character wakes up in some type of Star Trek-esque machine that brings you back to the days of the Crusades and your assassin ancestors' battles with them. As a prisoner of a huge corporation, you're forced to spend your time reliving (playing) as your ancestor or wandering around the three rooms the corporation gives you access too. Since you're severely lacking in the freedom department, interactions with the staff members and using the machine are highlights of each day. I won't go into much detail about the story itself, but I will admit that it does become increasingly engrossing and leaves the door wide open to the rumored sequal.

As a regular guy, you can walk and interact with just a few things. But the machine becomes an escape, giving you control over a deadly assassin. You're tasked with killing nine leaders in an effort to bring peace. How you do it is largely up to you, so long as you do the minimum amount of research - interrogations, evesdropping, pickpocketing and the like - and learn the controls.

As an assassin, you can not only run very fast with seemingly endless stamina and jump high, but you can run up walls, climb towering structures and swing from poles. The control design is well thought out, hold R1 to do high-profile actions like sprint or release it to blend in and do other lower-profile actions. For some odd reason, almost anything of value has you holding R1 and X while moving.

My beef with the controls comes more during combat. As the game progresses, your arsenal includes a sword, a hidden retractable dagger, throwing knifes/short blades and you - the assassin can punch, grab and tackle. Holding R1 typically blocks, especially with the sword and throwing knifes/short blades. If someone attacks you and you hit square at the correct time, you'll counter the move. However, that gets frusterating to correctly do later on, and you don't always kill them when you counter no matter how much you pound attack.

The hidden dagger is my favorite. If you catch someone off guard or walk up behind them, just push square without R1 and you'll quietly assassinate them. Hold R1 and you'll show off a bit more when you stab them. My trick was to grab my opponents, even when I was surrounded, and stab them while they lied on the ground. They can't block your attack and there's no timing to worry about.

Unfortunately, targeting can be annoying, especially with this technique. You target an enemy by moving your character until the right baddie is highlighted. This left me pathetically trying to stab alert guards instead of his buddy lying on the ground simply because it changed targets. This may or may not also play a role in countering, I haven't been able to tell.

There are three cities you must navigate, explore, investigate and murder in to be successful. It's a blast the first couple of times as you figure out what can be climbed over and how to kill a guard, but the action does get a bit boring since you're doing it nine times.

Thankfully, the cities are big and diverse. There are ladders, windows, poles and overhangs to climb; corners and alleys to hide in; changes in elevation throughout the city. And when you're not actually running from a guard or pretending you didn't just kill that mentally handicapped peasant (yes they put retarded people that flail around, as well as poor beggars that won't leave you alone), take a moment and enjoy the detail of the city. Just a few years ago I would have swore that grandiose amount of hi-def visuals were impossible.

The sound and music aren't bad either, fitting the situation appropriately. I just wouldn't say either was extraordinary either, don't expect a Metal Gear Solid or Castlevania-esque soundtrack.

One of my biggest beefs with this game has to be the lack of any multiplayer. I understand it may be difficult to put more than one local player on the screen at a time, but why not set up a network deathmatch? How hard can it be to have people running around hiding and killing each other. I mean, if push came to shove, ditch the hiding stuff and just have people jumping off of roofs and running around corners with throwing knives.