The main story follows the assassin Altair, a member of the Assassin’s Guild during the Crusades. The Assassin’s guild exists to preserve peace and harmony by eliminating individuals that hinder it. Your mission in the game is to eliminate nine leaders of the Templar Knights who are attempting to use the chaos and fear spread by the Crusades to further their own agenda. As you carry out your missions, you begin to piece together what the Templar’s true plans for the Holy Land are.

As mentioned above, the main goal of the game is to assassinate nine key players in keeping the Crusades happening and hindering the path to peace. The assassinations themselves are easily the highlight of the game. After collecting some information around the town about your target (such as location and alternate routes to get close to the target) you then get permission from the Assassins Guild Embassy of the town to execute the hit. The hit can be a quick “charge in sword banished and fight 50 soldiers until you eventually kill your target. Alternatively you can take your time and gather all the intel on your target so as to reveal secondary paths or any habits of the target that would leave him open to attack. Scouting out the guard locations and surgically “removing” a few of them is also good so that after you make your surprise kill you have a clear exit. The level of thought and stealth possible in these assassinations is classic Ubisoft and its what most Ubisoft fans have come to know and love about their games.

I have one major complaint about this game, it can get oh so repetitive. While the assassinations are all a different, unique experience, the things you must do to gather intel in order to unlock the assassination are always the same thing. The only hint of variety is in the Assassin informer tasks but, while definitely the most enjoyable ones, even those only come in a couple varieties. Each type is exactly the same as the one in the previous cities, the only difference being what information you get out of the task. Thankfully you don’t have to do all the tasks in order to get enough intel to make your hit but if you are going for achievements you have to do them all. I just wish there was more variety or that they would have gotten more challenging in the later levels but alas they did not.

One thing I have to say that Ubisoft pulled off perfectly in this game was the Parkour, also known as freerunning. They nailed this flat on the head. The motions are fluid, quick, and impressive. I had so much fun running along the rooftops of Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre, performing daring leaps and climbing to the top of churches before jumping hundreds of feet into a conveniently placed pile of hay. Not to mention that jumping though the merchant stands was hilariously fun. In what other game can you climb to the top of a cathedral and then free fall 200 feet to the ground? Now granted I am an amateur traceur (a person who practices Parkour, yes it is viewed as a martial art) so this REALLY appeals to me but I believe even the average gamer will enjoy this particular game element.

Altair: Currently listening to I Believe I Can Fly

This game does have one more aspect that will be appealing to a certain demographic, mainly the completionists. Each city holds 100 flags hidden on the rooftops, in alleys, and other obscure locations throughout the city. There are also viewpoints to climb to and Templar Knights to hunt down and eliminate. After completing the main storyline the player is allowed free-roam of the world of Assassin’s Creed to collect anything that was missed during the first playthrough. The achievements awarded for completing these collections are not a bad incentive either.

The story of Assassin’s Creed could have been better. From the very start you are confused and have absolutely no idea what is going on. The intro is really bad. I can see maybe for the future of the franchise why they did what they did but they did a bad job of introducing that aspect of the story. The main storyline is no better. While you do learn more about the Templar’s plans while you are gathering intel on your targets, the whole thing always seems vague and leaves the player with no clue as to what is going on. Once I found out what the “big picture” was I just groaned. It was so lame.