Assassin's Creed brought a level of freedom that I couldn't even have imagined. I am of course referring to your ability to freerun in a vast open world, climbing virtually any wall in large ancient cites, leaping from roof to roof. Freerunning in games had previously been confined to limited obstacle courses. But in Assassin's Creed, you are the king of the world. Just running around using the game's movement system is so fun I sometimes felt like the game didn't need anything else. It could have been released as just a giant sandbox game and I still would have liked it.
The exotic setting of the game gives it even more appeal. The world of 800 years ago is brought to life so believably, and the experience is perhaps made more palpable by having the main character be an observer from the future. You feel like you've been plopped into this ancient world because that is what has happened to the character. Your first leap of faith marks the start of a game that you know is going to be incredible. Your first viewpoint reveals a beautifully rendered landscape that makes you wonder how you hadn't noticed it before. When I approached Damascus, the game's first main city, on a horse, and I saw the spectacular walled city down below from my vantage point on a cliff, and the horse turned sideways in the foreground and reared up into the air, I was so moved and thought this must be one of the great moments in gaming history. I loved the first game so much that after I beat it I scoured the Internet for clues about any secrets I might have missed. And I was somewhat peeved about how they put a cliffhanger at the end of the very first game, since I imagined if the game wasn't successful they might not make sequels.
And after the first game, I couldn't believe it but the series got better. Assassin's Creed 2 seemed to fix every minor complaint a person could have about the first one. I was so excited when I discovered my character could swim that I called my brother into the room to see. And the introduction of money was also sure to satisfy a lot of people. I got goosebumps when the title finally showed up as the music crescendoed, shown alongside your soon-to-be assassin perched atop a building in Renaissance Italy. The only problems in that game were that you could no longer leave the animus or revisit old memories, but the next game, Brotherhood, fixed both of those.
The whole series is not only revolutionary because of the gameplay but also because of its ability to inspire people towards revolution. Much like the movie V for Vendetta created a symbol for fighting against oppressive government power, Assassin's Creed has created new role models for young people everywhere. People can think of the assassins when they think about bringing corporate and political villains to justice. The upcoming Assassin's Creed 3 is even set during a very literal revolution.
But I have to say the most recent game, Revelations, is my least favorite of the series. The game excludes one of my favorite parts of the previous two games, the puzzle sequences you encounter when you find a hidden symbol with your eagle vision. The tower defense minigame and the first person minigame seem lackluster and out of place. I suppose the hook blade is cool, and the bomb system and double weapon wheel system aren't bad but I don't think I would say they make the series any better. The art style for the characters looks radically different from the previous games, and worse in my opinion. And the coding is so sloppy that at one point I encountered a fatal glitch that prevented me from either completing my memory or leaving it so I had to start the whole game over again from scratch. I noticed the game was made by six different Ubisoft studios, so maybe that has something to do with it. I was happy to hear we'd get to revisit Altair, but nothing special was really done with that. We didn't even get to see Malik, my favorite character from the first game.
My favorite part of Revelations is the first sequence, when Ezio visits Masyaf and you get to see what the place looks like after three centuries. The intro cinematic is breathtaking. And the sequence creates an atmosphere of hopelessness, like this once invincible assassin has grown so old that he will surely meet his doom. It's welcome after playing the other games where your athletic prowess seems to have no limit. Leandros is the best villain in the game but he dies in the first sequence. He has more character than any of the other villains, so hellbent on discovering the assassins' secrets. One of your assassination targets turns out to be a good guy, and you don't even get to kill the main villain.
I think the biggest problem with the nearly perfect series is the lack of challenge. You are powerful enough to fight everyone else in the world at the same time and win. The game has to artificially make you lose when you get detected in certain missions because otherwise it would be too easy since you could certainly fight off all the guards and you have nothing to worry about. This is exemplified in Assassin's Creed 2 when you see that instead of giving the usual villainous speeches about how they're sure to win, the templars all cower in fear at the thought of this assassin who is easily wiping them out one by one. This is perhaps why I think Cesare is the greatest villain of the whole series. He's so full of character and so full of himself.
My idea is to have the templars fuse one of their greatest warriors with a Piece of Eden somehow, so that he'd be more powerful than you are. I think the games would be better if you had something to be afraid of instead of the ability to kill everyone everywhere and not worry about anything. When you see the super templar you'd have to run, like a real assassin. It seems to me like assassins should have to choose their battles wisely instead of winning through brute force. The way the games are now you're more of a super soldier than an assassin.
Though the enemies in the Assassin's Creed games die so easily, one thing sets them apart from the enemies in other games for me. Sometimes when a guard sees you he'll get so excited that he'll yell, "You're mine, assassin!" But the last part often gets drowned out, perhaps because of the noise of battle, perhaps because he dies before he can finish. So it ends up just sounding like, "You're mine," screamed with all the intense passion a guard could muster. It's like his entire life has been building up to this moment. It's like he's thinking, they all told me I'd never amount to anything. Today's the day I prove them all wrong. I am going to kill Ezio Auditore.
