Alternate Title: Why can't Assassin's Swim?
System: PS3
Bought: July 7th
Started: July 12th
Beat: Aug. 1st
Trophies: None. :(
Idea: You're Desmond Miles{although you don't really see yourself often}a bartender who was raised to be an assassin, but fled the lifestyle to live a more "normal" life. One night you're abducted by Abstergo, a mega-corporation that knows of your linage and wants to use it to find lost artifacts that can pretty much put an end to life as you know it.
How are they using you? With the Animus, a machine that allows you to relive {and them to record} your ancestral memories. Therefore most of the game is spent in this dreamlike state that has you reliving part of the life of Altair Ibn-La'Ahad.
Altair is an assassin, an assassin with a huge ego that doesn't seem to think the "Creed" refers to him. After a fairly botched up mission that ends in one man dieing, another loosing his arm and a whole army attacking the Brotherhoods hideout Al Mualim {the boss} demotes Altair to the novice rank.
The only thing that went "right" in the mission was somehow the other surviving man got the artifact that they were trying to prevent Robert de Sable from obtaining. This is where the mess starts.
Trying to gain back his rank {and weapons} Altair is sent out on missions to assassinate nine people, each high in power in different cities and each rather twisted in their train of thought. {One poisoned his party goers with the wine he was giving them, another was a doctor that was experimenting on captive patients and another was a slave trader who thought he was giving them "better lives"}. Anyways, turns out these nine people are actually Templars that were looking for the Pieces of Eden.
The final one, Robert de Sable was the most tricky. He knew assassin's were coming for him so he sent a female decoy to Jerusalem. That was surprising, she pretty much spilled the beans when Altair was about to kill her and then he didn't since she wasn't the target.
Turns out Sable is actually off in Arsuf meeting up with King Richard, once Altair gets there he tells Richard of Sable's plans and the fact he's a traitor and Richard just lets you and the Templar's men fight it out. Of course you win but... as Sable is dying he reveals the fact there is a tenth Templar.. and that Tenth Templar is Al Mualim.
Thoughts: Up until the end of memory five {of 7} this game was pretty damn boring, you're sent off to either Jerusalem, Acre or Damascus to kill targets. Each time you must save citizens, get viewpoints and gather information before you can actually get permission from the towns assassin leader to take down the target.
Walking around town can be a bit annoying, with the beggars, the guards and the lines from the people you save or the people who are preaching to the crowds can get REALLY repetitive. "I'm poor and sick and hungry". Uhg. The mental people pushing you into guards and such was a real pain in the ass at times too, one even pushed me into the water. Water, that's another thing...why the hell can't Altair swim? I'll rant about that later though.
I'm really glad that I got this game on the Revalation's disc and did not actually buy the game itself, sure it took a while to load onto the PS3 but...really... the game was extremely short. I probably would have been through it in a few days if I hadn't been alternating between two games at the time.
There's really no replay value and even though they have collectible flags in the game there is absolutely no reason to go back and find them all. Also, the thought of facing those beggars again gives me the chills though... I guess I could just go back and assassinate each and every one of them. No.
The End: Damn, my boss is the main bad guy. This wasn't really a shocker by any means, Altair had all ready started having his suspicions that something wasn't quite right with Mualim. He was correct, returning to Maysaf Altair is met with mindless citizen slaves.
Mualim has used the Apple of Eden to enslave all the people, the same trinket he had shown Altair earlier and it had no effect on him. {Too defiant to be brainwashed?}Anyways, after fighting you way carefully through the brainwashed citizens you come face to face with Mualim. After a little chatting he summons the ghosts/illusions of those Templars you have all ready killed. Fast, Easy Battle.
Of course that didn't defeat you so Mualim himself decides to fight you, using his Apple he divides himself into eight and by some luck I killed two and they all disappeared. Then the one and one which was actually pretty easy too and he finally dies...the apple falls to the ground and Altair says he will destroy it ...but it lights up and shows a map of the globe with pinpoints indicating several locations around the world.
And then Desmond wakes up.
At this point in the game Desmond all ready knows that Abstergo is ran by Templars and that he's their prisoner. The present day assassins have attempted to save him once, but that ended in them being shot to death by security.
So, at the moment he's feeling pretty screwed. With the exception of one small hope, Lucy Stillman. The Animus tech that has been there the entire time and has been feeding him small bits of information here and there. She's also the one that probably leaked your location to the other Assassins.
Now the Templars have the "map", Lucy prevents them from killing Desmond on the spot with the thoughts of them perhaps needing him/his memories for future reference for obtaining the Pieces. It seems that with this final interaction with the Animus, Desmond has come back into current day reality with the Eagle Vision skill.
There's stuff written all over the place, unusual stuff that I can't read and neither can Desmond. hehe..
The ending was okay, since I have Assassin's Creed 2 waiting in the wings. If I had played AC1 and 2 hadn't been released yet then the ending would have been... FUUUUU!
I'll go into characters and such in the Assassin's Creed 2 write up, that will give me more characters and information to prattle on about. I've all ready started in on AC2 so...it may or may not be that long.
Random Rant- So, Seriously. There's only one reason I can think of that would explain why you "die" every time you fall in the water as Altair. It breaks the synch rate between Desmond and Altair, Altair is too talented and would never just fall in the water and get drenched. A soggy assassin is a dead assassin.
