Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima thinks Assassin's Creed is "fantastic" - unsurprising given that it's the only game as ambitious, thrilling and fiddly as his own. After playing a full level at E3, Assassin's feels awkward and intuitive - one second you're effortlessly speed-running over rooftops and dispatching guards, the next head-butting walls, cursing the camera and flailing wildly. We suspect it'll be easier with extended practice - after all, MGS3 took about five hours to feel remotely natural - but the elaborate controls may initially scare casual players.
Not in control It pays little respect to convention - instead of holding L1 to lock-on, you simply tap it on/off to engage combat mode, which takes adjustment, especially since you can't always tell whether you're locked on. All controls are context-sensitive, with different abilities available when you're locked on. The R1 button is used as an 'Aggression Modifier'. Your main buttons are displayed in a tiny icon (e.g. X to blend into the crowd, circle for push, square to punch), but hold R1 and they're aggressively modified (e.g. X to free run, circle to barge, square to attack). 'Punch' may become 'assassinate' when you're holding the right weapon, and alter according to where you're stood, and by whom.
It sounds baffling, but you do adjust. The payoff is that the lead character is hugely flexible, and there's a variety of ways to tackle any situation. In our demo, we reached our target by scaling roofs and strangling guards, but we could have sneaked past disguised as a monk or just battled through.
The combat isn't as complex as feared. Whack square for standard swipes, but with R1 engaged (this time for Defensive mode), you can do one-hit counters - a bit like Onimusha's Issen attacks, but with far more generous timing. There's a variety of gruesome counter-kills (like dodging and tripping a foe in one movement before impaling him), plus dodge moves and pushes - you can shove foes into ladders, which collapse on them. Weapons, selected with the D-pad, include a sword, throwing knives and assassin's blade - Altair's signature weapon that he lost a finger to accommodate - with context-sensitive kills for each weapon.
Free running is intuitive, except when you need to make a bigger leap - once, we vaulted three small ledges before tumbling off a roof. When you jump and cling onto ledges, the jump key becomes a backward leap, not climb, leading to more falls. You can climb anything with handholds by charging X below any wall, before entering free climb. The much-trumpeted Leap Of Faith is performed from specific high spots - rather than crude flashing icons, these high spots are indicated by fluttering pigeons.
We also got a brief glimpse of the horse-riding plain (like Hyrule Field in Zelda) which links the cities, engaging in horse-mounted combat. The rumoured 'twist' - that the game isn't set in 1192, but contains futuristic elements, with you retrieving essential DNA strands - is confirmed by the demo. All characters 'flicker' with a Matrix-style code haze, and the screen almost fades to white when you lose sight of your target in the final chase - suggesting a break in the timeline.
The demo's final scene sees your fallen foe, Talal the slaver, suggesting he isn't that evil, and that you're a pawn in a more sinister plot. At key points in the game, the entire screen 'glitches', and you can tap any button to retrieve brief plot clues.
The need for Creed Control quibbles aside, it's visually impressive, with hordes of villagers and fluid animation - the draw distance from the Leap Of Faith points is staggering, and anything you see can be reached. Most importantly it feels like a fresh experience: marrying next-gen visuals to a complex set of interactions over a near-unprecedented scale. Clumsy as we were, we wanted to keep playing, relishing the thrill of the unknown. As Hideo Kojima's games attest, it isn't always about flawless mechanics, but the bravery to attempt something new.
I was really looking forward to this but im not too sure about the clumsy control system, surely the controls will have to be as intuitive as free-running and feel totally natural rather than fumbling about the controller trying to get your dagger out! I've still got my fingers crossed for this one though!
Well then, thanks for spoiling the 'twist' in the plot for those of us that would rather have waited. Spoiler notices will be welcome next time.
This is one game I'm still looking forward to. Slightly different control systems are always fiddly to get to grips with. Just take the Wii for example (no that isn't a knock at the console – I love my Wii. My left-handedness just makes certain games damn near impossible to play).
Games like this annoy me. Not because the game itself is annoying, but because when a game is hyped for such a long time before release - like this one - it's invariably gonna let you down somehow.
Plus there's the fact that journalists always seem to need to latch onto a handful of games and will give them a great rating despite short-comings which would cause other games to get a serious grilling. Crackdown for example. How could anyone give 9+ to a game which has such terrible frame tearing. It is fun, but it's not nearly perfect.
Anyway, if the game has clumsy controls it means the game is flawed in a way that is utterly central to the game; the gameplay! How then, can the game be considered a classic? It's just one of those games that was always gonna get good reviews because for some reason journalists decided it would 18 months back.
You watch, every review will sing it's praises even if they say it falls down in pivotal ways.
It only said that basically the controls were a bit fumbly to begin with, like most new games.
don't you ever get when you play a game for ages then go onto a similar game with different controls you always find yourself trying to use the previous games control system?
i reckon it will just be like that, not hard once you get used to it.
personally, this game, ratchet and clank, FF13 and kingdom hearts 3(if the rumours are correct) are the only reason i wanted a ps3, and the only reason im going to get it.
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