The Reasons People Liked Assassin’s Creed

* Linking the future and the past
* Exploring large, open cities
* Fluid combat system
* Beautiful visuals and rich sound

Much like Altair himself, Assassin’s Creed for the DS is an unlikable mess. Eschewing the aspect of the console game that was actually interesting — future/past memory manipulations — the portable Creed poses the question that only a few people really asked: What happened during Altair’s life leading up to his pursuit of the Templars?

The rest of us pretty much assumed that — hey, just like in the console game! — he spent most of the time killing people in cities. And instead of taking the opportunity to challenge that basic assumption and fully flesh out a character that badly needed it, Ubisoft and Gameloft elected to take the easy road: run-of-the-mill 3D action with occasional text boxes that reveal Altair’s pre-Desmond life to be thoroughly mundane, even by nonassassin standards. There isn’t even a supporting cast to make Altair interesting by association — just another gamut of interchangeable guards, insiders, and Templars talking nonsense about chalices and documents.

Even though a handful of character abilities and free-running ideas make the crossover to the DS, there’s nothing “open” about the exploration or level layout. You’re basically running through a Prince of Persia-type obstacle course, replete with unrealistic jumping pathways, swinging boulder traps, and of course, deadly spikes. Despite the 360 degrees of movement you experience while either falling off a phantom ledge or missing jumps entirely, there’s really only one way for you to proceed: Follow the green arrow.

In fact, Creed embraces the gaming cliché hall of fame: Why does an explosive barrel spontaneously ignite when I move within five feet of it? Why are there seven snakes hanging out in a square plaza guarding the only two obvious safe points? Why can a catapult hit me behind a wall at an impossible angle? Fallen enemies give orbs that replenish health and let you upgrade weapon power, and some boss battles require timed button presses to execute attacks. Other bosses stand out of harm’s way and snipe at your health bar while you fend off waves of mindless, constantly-blocking guards. That’s always fun. And if you were one of the critics of the console game’s repetitive interrogations and pickpocket missions, well…a handful of terrible Operation and Elite Beat Agents cloned minigames might change your perspective on how bad things can really be.

t’s unfortunate that there wasn’t much inspiration here, because the basics of the combat system are actually kind of OK. Just like the console version, the DS version suffers from enemies preferring to be audience members instead of participants during battle, which leads to a lot of “tap-tap-tap” combos aimed at whittling away one guy’s health bar. Counterattacks are bit less responsive as well, and they’re practically ineffective against the tougher guards and Templars who just laugh as they toss you aside. Throwable bombs are added to Altair’s arsenal, but looking down to the touch screen to switch weapons shaves off precious seconds in the heat of combat, so it’s more worthwhile sticking to the sword. There’s little incentive to improvise counters and put together a more graceful battle scene — more often than not, you just want to get to the next green arrow quickly.

It’s on the DS…

..which doesn’t automatically mean that it can’t look and sound good, but seeing — and especially hearing — it wouldn’t do much to convince you otherwise. Like most 3D DS games of similar caliber, blur and low resolution defeat whatever triumphs the art style accomplishes. Not much can be done about that, but the sound in this game is atrocious. Looping “crowd” samples that are supposed to represent laughter sound like cries of agony, game music kicks in and out with little rhyme or reason, and for certain enemies and obstacles they didn’t even bother with sound effects (hope you can make a good catapult sound in your mind).

With everything crossed off the list, there’s just not much left to like.

Originally from 1UP