Video Game Blog 002: SoraRabbit Is a Terrible Assassin

Welcome back to my video game blog! So far I’m making great progress with my game list. At the time of writing we’re 15 days into 2021 and I have finished my first game! Granted, it was one I started last year, but it counts. I am here today to discuss the very first game in the Assassin’s Creed series!

Bad time to mention I’m afraid of heights? (Credit: Ubisoft)

Assassin’s Creed is a game with an interesting history for me… I heard good things about it from my brothers and several other people, so I knew I was going to try it some day. But I didn’t bother getting a copy of the first game until Cocoashade suggested it. She wanted to try it out, so I found a cheap used copy at the game store. I watched her play briefly, and I liked the graphics, but I wasn’t sure about the game itself. For one thing, I’m terrible at stealth games. Whenever there is a stealth mission in a game (the hedge maze in Ocarina of Time comes to mind…) it takes me many many tries and much frustration to get through it. I’m not a stealthy player. I prefer to power through, charging into battle with abandon (and usually dying as a result).

Still, the story intrigued me and I liked that it used historical settings. So, believe it or not, I ended up buying like six of the games before even trying the series. I know, I know, dumb. If I absolutely hated it I would feel obligated to play anyway since I spent the money. Luckily I tried it last year and instantly got hooked.

Stabby stabby. (Credit: Ubisoft)

The story in Assassin’s Creed is that a nondescript bartender named Desmond is kidnapped by a shady corporation named Abstergo Industries. They strap him into a high-tech machine called the Animus. The Animus accesses the memories imprinted in a person’s DNA, allowing them to relive the memories of their ancestors. It turns out Desmond is the ancestor of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a member of the Assassin Brotherhood in the 1100s. Altaïr is disgraced and stripped of his weapons and rank, forced to prove himself to the leader of the Assassins by carrying out specific high-profile assassinations in nearby cities. In order to accomplish these tasks, Altaïr must gather intel from eavesdropping, interrogation, pickpocketing, and meeting with informants. All of your targets are working with the Templars and threatening the peace of the land. However there is more going on than you first suspect. You have to work your way through the memories to figure out the secrets of an artifact known as the Piece of Eden and exactly why Abstergo has captured Desmond.

Every city has similar tasks. To start out you visit the local branch of the Assassin’s Guild, survey the surroundings by scaling to great heights, and then gather as much information about your quarry as you can. You can also save innocent civilians, which helps you by providing hiding spots and calling vigilantes to distract guards for you. This is useful because there are guards everywhere and if you draw too much attention to yourself, they attack. You either have to stand and fight or run and try to get them off your trail by hiding or creating distractions. The game also includes several flags that you can optionally seek out and Templars you can kill. (The flags and Templars were the only things I didn’t complete in this game, although I did find quite a few of them.)

One of the toughest parts to get used to for me was the climbing. I’ve mentioned before that I’m afraid of heights and this game did not help. Altaïr really likes climbing to precarious perches. I got good at climbing over the course of the game, but I never stopped thinking about how panicked I would get trying it in real life.

I am not stealthy. (Credit: Ubisoft)

The game has a pretty decent fighting system once you get the hang of it. You can fight with a short sword, throwing knives, a hidden blade, or your fists. You can also grapple with your enemies and counter attack, which either knocks an enemy down or instantly kills them. Your hit points in the game are represented with a “synchronization” gauge. If you go too far off from the way things actually happened, you lose synchronization with the Animus and the memory rewinds. (I thought this was pretty clever.) The biggest thing to realize in this game, my number one tip and one I wish I had known way sooner… the counter attack is the most useful move in the game. In the last section of the game the skill level of your opponents ramps way up and no matter how good you get at fighting it’s not enough to get through their defenses. And there are a lot of them, meaning the faster you dispatch them, the better. I had to stop and practice with the counter attack (which I underutilized until late game) in order to get past a certain point. (Right around Memory Block 6 actually.)

I had to learn fighting and running pretty quickly. As I mentioned, I’m bad at stealth, which makes me a terrible assassin. Early in the game I was super careful, keeping a low profile, not jostling the townsfolk or getting the attention of the guards. This quickly got old for me and I found myself in ridiculous predicaments. Like that memorable time I got tired of the annoying beggar woman and shanked her, forcing me to flee through the market from the enraged guards and make a final stand high atop a building. I ended up tossed off to my death, of course. Several times I hopped across the rooftops, lost my footing and landed on a guard, finding myself instantly surrounded.

I have lots of stories like that. As the game went on I became more and more reckless. One assassination attempt went off the rails immediately when I crept up to the target and accidentally jostled the wrong person, alerting an entire battalion to my presence. Rather than start over I went for it, rushing their boss and taking him out with a couple of well-timed swings. Then I died while fleeing, but still I got credit for the kill.

Yup. Not stealthy, not discreet. The Brotherhood would kick me out, but I get results, damn it.

A very common scene. (Credit: Ubisoft)

Pros: The story is well-plotted and dense. The characters are layered. Once you get used to the controls, it’s easy to free run through the cities and parkour around like a spider monkey. I enjoyed the tasks and gathering the intel, saving the citizens, and occasionally finding the flags and Templars. (Not enough to put several more hours into getting them all, though.)

Cons: The controls are a little tough to master, especially when trying to switch between battle and running, or jumping when enemies are around you. If you’re not careful you can easily fling yourself off a tall tower when you’re actually trying to climb. (Hitting the A button when I meant to hit B. Ugh. I eventually learned to not do this, but it was fairly common in the early parts of the game.) The game also has a few game-breaking glitches. There were a couple of times when I found myself imbedded in walls and had to reset the game. Also why the hell can’t you swim?! You’re a highly trained assassin and you drown the second you touch water? (Sorry, still a little bitter about my two hour long excursion to the docks of Acre.)

All in all, I enjoyed this game quite a bit. The game starts with a mystery and doesn’t give you all the answers. (It may as well have ended with the words “To Be Continued”.) It keeps you guessing and moving forward to reveal more pieces of what’s going on. I like the character of Altaïr… he starts out cocky and disrespectful and on his journey he grows as a person, accepting that there is more to life than power. This game does a good job showing that there is no black and white, just gray… both the Brotherhood and Assassins are after the same thing— peace— they just go about it in drastically different ways. You can never know which way is the best, all you can do is follow what you believe and accept those beliefs could be false.

I’m really looking forward to delving into Assassins Creed II, which is also on my list for this year. Although I meant to get back to Pokémon White 2, I may just jump right into AC2 next. Although I am still a shitty assassin.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, don’t stab the beggars and never A button when you should be B buttoning!

Breathtaking. But still afraid of heights. (Credit: Ubisoft)