Christmas Video Game Buyers Guide

As usual there’s a hail of fine games coming out this Christmas for almost any platform you could care to name; for those of us without the inclination to keep up with video game hype. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s far easier to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Without further ado, we’ll get into the meat of the article; the games themselves.

Assassin’s Creed

Without a doubt one of the most anticipated games of 2007 has been Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed. For anyone unfamiliar with the game’s context, Assassin’s Creed is set in the Middle East during the crusades (the year 1191). Players take on the role of Altair, a master assassin hired to dispatch various (and usually protected) public figures in the region.

Just why you’re there to perform these assassinations is something that’s been kept relatively quiet. There are more hints about a futuristic plot than you could shake a very long stick at, but, without spoiling anything, there’s very little to be said in that respect.

Play takes place in crowded urban landscapes, and while we’re all well aware that there are so many sandbox games based in cities, there’s a pleasant change of pace when the city in question lacks the usual degree of techological advancement. This is sandbox gameplay, but in a locale we’ve not yet had a chance to appreciate (one that turns the term “sandbox” into a delicious pun). As in Crackdown, players have the freedom to scale buildings, run across rooftops and generally use evasion (and elevation) to keep themselves out of trouble.

Of course, this all seems simple enough up until it’s time to actually commit any kind of murder (let’s not mince words, this is just another murder simulator). Here is the play that will either make or break Assassin’s Creed. Finding and actually killing the target is only half the battle, as in Hitman there’s an onus on the player to actually escape that can’t be over-emphasised

Here is where play gets a bit dicey; Assassin’s Creed’s control system is almost as confusing as the muddle of possessives you need to refer to it. Essentially, each face button corresponds to a body-part (much like Tekken), with one devoted to legs, one to each arm and one for the head. This isn’t too complex, but it’s the controls that govern movement that really stand out.

In order to negotiate terrain, there’s very little call for the face buttons at all. Rather than having a climb button, players simply activate Altair’s “high-profile movement” mode and dive headlong across rooftops or scamper up walls, effectively making use of any hand-and-footholds available, often without the need for individual input from the player. It’s a little jarring to those of us brought up in a world where button presses correspond directly to actions, but it’s always interesting to see game controls taken in a new direction.

Assassin’s Creed won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but the fact that it’s being hailed as the first real next-gen title by so many might well mean that we can finally stop calling it the next-gen and start enjoying the current-gen we’ve waited so long for.