Assassin’s Creed
Assassin’s Creed is going to be one of PlayStation 3’s landmark titles. We’re absolutely confident about that and there’s still a full four months before the PS3 is even released.
Why? Well for one thing, Assassin’s Creed is the latest brainchild of the talented chaps behind both the Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia games. And for another, Assassin’s Creed is a stealth game that takes everything we know about the genre already and blows it out of the water. With an atom bomb. It’s not often we say this, but Assassin’s Creed is a genuinely new concept.
The story puts you in the soft leather boots of Altair, a young, 12th Century assassin tasked with stopping the holy war currently tearing up his home city of Jerusalem. Only, and here’s the twist, rather than simply picking sides between Richard the Lionheart’s Crusaders or Saladin’s Saracens, Altair must instead assassinate key members of both forces and bring down the armies from within.
t’s here where the clever bit starts. Firstly Altair must stalk his victim through the busy city streets - usually during daylight hours and through huge milling crowds - then, once the deed is done, often via a deadly looking retractable blade attached to Altair’s wrist, the trick is to escape at all costs from the city guard by melting back into the crowd. It’s literally stealth in the streets.
How you go about this depends on how you interact with the crowd. Treat general punters well and they’ll hide you and redirect guards as you make your escape through dimly lit back streets. But barge them about too much and they’ll shop you quicker than a playground prefect. Courtesy of PS3’s highly advanced brain, dozens and dozens of onscreen folk will swell and sway intelligently around you as you make your bid for freedom.
Throw in Prince of Persia-style environment puzzles, a unique combat system and a plot with more secrets than Dan Brown’s brain and you’ll see why this is easily one of our most wanted PS3 games.
