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My history with Assassin's Creed Games
My first game was Assassin's Creed Bloodline, but I never finished it cause I couldn't get pass a certain level. I also no longer have a PSP, really want to get one though because I still have a lot of PSP games.
I recently wanted to play other games so I bought The Ezio collection and I loved AC 2, but hated Brotherhood on account of how much effort I spent getting Altair's armor only to lose it like 5 minutes into Brotherhood's cutscene I held a grudge and Revelation's was okay but very short.
I had bought Assassin's Creed 3 and instead got Rogue. I wrote a review since the people who sold it to me. (It said Ubisoft on Amazon, but Amazon is notorious for letting people fake identities and selling fake shit) refuse to answer and they blocked my review and said I was " Violating Guidelines" which I was pissed cause all I told them was it wasn't what I had ordered. So I kept Rogue and to me it's pretty good.
I also got Black Flag cheap on the Xbox store since they had a sale, but AC3 wasn't. I have to wait to get a Wi-Fi box since my phone is out of hotspot.
My history with other games is on my header but, I love zombie game. Have played both RDR games and the zombie DLC. Dead Island, L4Dead, GTA VC,VCS, IV, Liberty City Stories, and a lot of older war games. I lost a lot of the other PSP games cause my brothers can't take care of anything. Btw some of these I haven't played, I had a case with other games, but yet again my brother broke and lost my case and SD card. The case had two extra slots for game disks and SD cards. The one below is the one I still have.
Assassin’s Creed Story: A Life; The Assassin Is Reincarnated
I have a story I want to write, and here is version 1. I might put it up on my fanfiction accounts, but then if I ever did many to type up the other story, they would clash. So, I’m posting it here instead.
The story centers on Desmond, as he grows up on the Assassin’s ‘Farm’. If you want to know any more, just reread the title: A life; the assassin is reincarnated.
Desmond hated water; he always was unnerved by its presence. His mother despaired of ever making him take baths; he was 6 before he could finally take a shower without panicking. Rain unnerved him, leaving him itching to find shelter even as he stared at it in fascination. The puddles left behind by the precipitation unnerved him greatly; he always expected them to disappear immediately, yet they stayed for days. The lake near the Farm was the only water he could look at peacefully, the only time when the liquid was expected rather than… alien.
Even with his near-fear of water, he always had a container of it with him. Desmond feared what would happen if he ever went without it. He had nightmares of dehydrating in the desert, of his throat baking and saliva drying up before it could reach his parched mouth. His father thought it was an oddly dichotic weakness, and believed that his constant need for drinking water was proof that his hatred of water was false.
He was forced to learn to swim. The traumatic lessons began under great protest, with Desmond being cruelly forced into the water. The only other children at the farm – either far older or far younger than him – all learned to swim with a natural ease. Desmond completely refused to go anywhere near the water when anyone else was around, and would not let them take him to the water’s edge for the lessons. This was the only time when he would scream, when he would viciously fight his parents and the other people who would force him into the water.
His mother hated these attempts, hated the inhuman howling that would burst from Desmond’s throat. She broke down in tears as well, the first time this happened. Desmond hid behind her and shook as he held onto her legs, his body wracked with spasms as he trembled in hate and pain. His mother would bend down, wrapping her arms around him and trying to soothe his pain. His dad… his dad didn’t seem to understand. He kept pushing, trying to force Desmond into the lessons. His mother protected him, and she seemed to be the only one who could see the true terror and loathing in his eyes.
One day, his father grew tired of his avoidance of water. When his mother left the house to help take care of the farm, he made his move. He bodily lifted Desmond up from where the 7 year old was playing quietly, and carried him over to the water. Desmond knew where his father was heading almost immediately. Cries rent the air, ripping through the quiet atmosphere and filling the farm with his shouts. His screams drew everyone from their homes, piercing even the thickest of walls as he cried out in mortal terror, yet no one moved once they discovered who was screaming. They saw his father, the head of their tiny community, and no one went against his words or actions. His father was the leader, the one they all followed, the one they trusted to keep them safe from their enemies.
He fought ferociously as his father carried him to the deep lake. He thrashed and bit and clawed, striking out with his tiny fists. He drew blood, and knew that his father would suffer from heavy bruising on his arms, yet he could not break free. Even utilizing all of the physical training that his father had insisted on for all of his life, he could not escape. His father made it to the water’s edge still carrying him, and then threw Desmond in.
Desmond panicked. He thrashed wildly in the water, droplets spraying out across the surface of the lake as he fought. His frantic gasps sucked water into his lungs, forcing him to choke as he tried to climb up and oh God I can’t breathe I can’t breathe the water the water’s everywhere I can’t breathe I’m breathing water let me out let me out let me OUT this does not belong I can’t breathe I CAN’T BREATHE! MALIK! ABBASS! FATHER! HELP!!! Let me out I hate this I hate this I hate this let me out “PLEASE!!!” Nobody is coming, nobody will help; I need to do this alone, I must do this alone! No one cares about my screams and the traitors won’t help, and I can do this alone… I’m always alone…
Desmond felt his mind suddenly clear as his vision faded. His thoughts and his surroundings turned to gray, a calm overtaking him even as his body began the slow process of death by drowning. His limbs stilled and his torso broke free of the water, coughing up the fluid in his lungs even as his legs kicked out as hard as they can – as hard as before, only with control. He managed to drag himself through the hated liquid and to the edge, his mind still blank as he forced himself to move with precision rather than terror. When he finally broke free, he coughed and shook and coughed and drowned on land and shivered and his thoughts came swirling back in a panic, forcing him to look up.
His father was just standing at the water’s edge, watching as Desmond tried to breathe with frantic gasps, gulping down the life-giving air. The man had not moved from where he had thrown Desmond into hell, his face not portraying any emotion. Desmond tried to pretend later that his father was trying to hide self-hatred at what he had forced him through, but in that moment and forever more, he suspected that his father truly didn’t care; his emotionless face was no mask but a truth for how much he felt.
His father only moved to him when he could finally stand straight, when all the unnatural liquid was gone from his lungs and his stomach. He had thrown up, he knew that was the only explanation for the vomit spread across the grass, but he had no idea when it had happened. He was staring blankly at the putrid acid when a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder. Desmond jerked away, giving a full bodied flinch as he pulled back and struck out. The pale blue – barely brighter than gray landscape – figure narrowly avoided having the wind knocked out of him as Desmond struck out with purpose. Desmond stared, almost unseeing as his vision flickered from grays and that silver-blue to the normal hues. The world finally settled into its proper colors as his father reached for him once more.
Desmond didn’t move once he knew who the figure was. He didn’t say anything as his father congratulated him on swimming, on keeping his cool after panicking. He stood immobilized as his father gave him a solemn nod and walking away, leaving Desmond standing by the water’s edge. Water dripped off of his clothes and his soaked form, as he stood silent and still. If he moved he would feel the wetness of his clothes, would feel the presence of water as strongly as he had when he was dying. The sun took mercy on him and came out from behind the clouds, gently drying his clothes and freeing Desmond to move.
It was the stench from the spoiled vomit that finally forced the child to move, unless he wanted to once again decorate the ground with his insides. His stride showed no evidence of the trauma he had just gone through, and no emotion managed to break through the fog and across his face. He slowly walked home, his mouth burning with the acrid taste which had somehow gone unacknowledged. The sting was horrible, and his mouth begged for water. Desmond ignored his bodies pleas, as the rest of his body was screaming for him to get away from the foreign substance.
He made his way back through the Farm with his mouth on fire, ignoring the hesitant glances some of the 30-odd adults cast his way. When Desmond entered his house, his vision had once more grayed out. A neon-blue figure made its way out to greet him. Desmond relaxed slightly at the bright color, somehow knowing that whoever this figure was, they were on his side and wanted to protect him. When muffled sobs reached his ears, he knew that it was his mother holding him and rocking his unresponsive body.
Desmond blinked slowly as his eyesight settled, focusing intently and managing to make his arms rise around his mother’s back. Her tears stopped falling, and she moved to lift him into her arms. Desmond fought not to tear himself away and strike out as she attempted to remove him from the ground, trying to focus on the fact that this was his mother and he trusted her not to throw him away like his father had. His mother’s grip tightened momentarily as she sensed his inner conflict, before she gently let go, instead kneeling so that she faced him on his level and could engulf him in her loving arms.
Neither spoke, although both struggled for words. The young boy looked into his mother’s eyes and saw the sadness inside, the words she wanted to say struggling forwards yet not making it out. He knew that he must be the one to speak if he was to ever speak with her again. His mind blank of appropriate phrases – sorry about drowning, I hate my father, why did dad do this to me, why weren’t you there to save me, why didn’t anyone stop him, does no one understand? – He finally broke his soul-deep paralysis and mustered the tremendous effort to speak as he tried to make his mother smile. “Do I still need to shower tonight?”
His mother laughed as she cried, gently kissing him with promises to help him clean without submitting himself to the barrage of water. Desmond loved her as he held her and she held him, and he felt nothing for his father wrapped in the palest hint of ice blue. Even as he bit back the shaking sobs as his body was rinsed off of pond scum, he didn’t stop loving his mom and feeling apathy towards her husband.
The 7 year old seemed to just stop after the incident. He stopped smiling as often, even though he had rarely smiled beforehand, leaving his face a frozen mask. He never screamed again, even though one boy tried to reenact the same, horrifying scenario. He didn’t talk to the ones that had ignored him, that had not cared at all as his father dragged him to hell. He had once listened to the adults around him, admittedly somewhat begrudgingly, but now he rebelled in small ways that no one saw; no one looked at him enough to see.
His father never again tried to give him swimming lessons, seemingly satisfied with what he had shown that day. Desmond didn’t think he’d shown any skill in the subject, but he didn’t care. He left the house more and more often to avoid his father, going running in the woods outside and around the farm. He had often run before, marveling with the sense of running in green, but he now took every chance he had to escape and run with the wind in the trees. By the time he was ten, he must have run millions of miles in the land around the Farm.
Although his father never tried to give him another ‘swimming lesson’, Desmond refused to let the water defeat him. He was soon able to once again look at the lake without wanting to violently expel the contents of his stomach. Within a month, he was able to stand on the shore without shaking. Within two months, he was able to take a shower without having violent flashbacks. Within half of a year, he managed to force himself into the water, standing with the liquid reaching halfway up his legs. He slowly progressed, forcing himself to go further and further into the hated liquid. Sometimes he would gray out his vision, and the lack of contrast between the water and the earth and the sky made it easier to go farther. Sometimes he hated his father, for forcing him to confront his weakness and the cruel apathy in how he went about it. Three days before his 9th birthday, Desmond managed to completely submerge himself without having a paralyzing panic attack. By his 10th birthday, he could jerkily make his way from one side of the lake to the other without leaving the water or breaking down mid-stride. However, he never managed to stop his dreams of drowning, the moments of mortal terror that left him shaking and unable to breathe and soaked in sweat.
Although his father never forced him into more ‘swimming lessons’, he increased the intensity of Desmond’s physical training. The display that Desmond had given in his attempt to get away was apparently very promising, and he was pushed harder than ever once his father saw his potential. Desmond ended every day sore, often bruised and bleeding as his father pushed him in his fights. It normally wasn’t even his father who did the actual instructing, but instead one of the other adults who lived in their solitary community. Desmond had never understood why he was forced into these lessons, and he knew even less about why they were pushing him even harder now. The lessons never ended unless Desmond was so close to collapsing, that his vision went hazy at the edges. His muscles constantly shook spasmodically, and the burning after each session never seemed to lessen.
Desmond remembered almost enjoying the lessons, once. Back when he was still young, when he was almost 5 rather than almost 8. When they had started training him then, they hadn’t pushed him as hard; they hadn’t worked him into unconsciousness. They had let him proceed mostly at his own pace for several months before his father started to push him farther beyond his capacity. He had enjoyed the fluid motions of the training stick, of the way his young body was flexible as he flowed from one stretch to another. He had enjoyed learning the new skills they presented him, almost playing with the weapons as he made them dance to his tune. Although Desmond seemed carefree with the weapons, he had a clear respect for both the training tools and the live blades. The moments that Desmond spent twisting through his forms were moments of calm and contemplation, opening him up to the world outside him in a beautiful and oddly peaceful fashion, the subtle flow of acting and reacting to the environment becoming a deadly and beautiful dance of serene calm.
His dad, however, stole this moving peace away from him. When he saw how well his son was doing with the blades and his fighting, he increased the pace and turned his lessons into a relentless assault. “Focus Desmond, focus!” he would cry as he sparred, as if Desmond wasn’t focusing with the entirety of his being. Desmond started to trip up occasionally as his father pushed him, stumbling on moves he had executed perfectly hundreds of times before, tripping over his own feet as he ran. “Strength, speed, agility. No excuses,” his father would say, as if Desmond was intentionally slacking off or not trying his hardest. No matter how hard he hit, how fast he sprinted, or the surety in his steps as he dodged and ran, he was never good enough for his father.
Self-doubt began to cripple him as his father dedicated more and more time to his physical training and less to the informal schooling all of the kids received. Every time Desmond faltered in a move he knew, his father’s disdain grew and it showed in his words and it threw him off until he was screwing up more, and his father was disappointed more and he became ashamed of his progress. Desmond never stopped trying, never stopped pushing his body to the limit and occasionally far beyond what was wise, but he never understood why. He saw the serious faces of the adults and the constant worry they had that would be found and destroyed so he trained his body through the perpetual haze of exhaustion that seemed to engulf him. Once someone tried to console him, to give him a reason as to why this was happening. “One day you'll understand. You'll see. All this unease will be worth something. I promise,” the man had said. Desmond didn’t see, and didn’t believe him.
His father told him tiny bits of information as he fought, rarely deviating from his favorite lesson. He once mentioned that, “They’re looking for us. And they will not stop until every one of us is dead.” He never said who they were, or why they wanted to kill us all. Instead, he kept repeating the same words as if they held all of the answers to life. His father had been intent the first time he told him, reaching down so that the he was on the same level as the toddler when he spoke. “Nothing is true,” he had explained almost gently. “Everything is permitted. You are an assassin, and this is our creed.”
Desmond hadn’t understood then, and he still didn’t understand now. What did it mean, nothing is true? Was everything permitted? If nothing was true, then why say it with a ferocity belying the soul-deep belief of a fundamental truth? Was his body forced to burn in each session because it was permitted, expected of him?
“Live by the Creed, Desmond. Empower yourself.” These words, spoken by his father, almost made him laugh. He didn’t understand the creed, but he knew it was used to control him, not give him personal strength. If the creed empowered them, why were they always ready to run? What help would it be against the mysterious ‘they’ no one ever explained?
No one was willing to answer Desmond’s questions. They told him the same things as his father: “You are an assassin. The Templars are our enemies. Nothing is true, and everything is permitted.” They mentioned an endless war, an eternal struggle, and even told war stories – but they never answered his questions. Desmond stopped asking, and instead began to close himself off from these people who would give him no answers but were always preparing for some epic catastrophe. He believed them, that they were hiding from someone and that the training had purpose. He had to believe them.
The adults in the community continued training him, constantly forcing Desmond to the limits of his body, and then beyond into a realm of unending pain. They never broke bones, but he often went home to his mom – never his father – covered with sweat, his limbs wracked with exhaustion. He raged quietly at his mentors, and at his complete lack of choice. He had no control over his life, no option to refuse anything they tried to teach him or make him do. He couldn’t tell them that, “No, I don’t want to train today.” He couldn’t tell them that he was tired and he hurt and every movement brought him pain. He had tried, once, twice, thrice. He stopped when there was no result, and instead rebelled silently. When his father took him to task, he eventually stopped trying. If nothing he did would ever be good enough for his father, if he constantly screwed up despite his best efforts, then he wouldn’t give his father his best efforts.
Desmond stopped giving his all. At first it was just with his father, not pushing his body until it shook with exhaustion and he fainted into the ground. When his father made no mention of his lack of improvement, he tried even less. His father scolded him, but the remarks remained the same. Sometimes Desmond wondered just how horrible he truly was if he could do so little right, how awful his skill was despite the fact that he had once thought himself talented.
After his tenth birthday, Desmond stopped trying so hard for everyone else as well. He had persisted in showing his best to the others because of the constant, invisible threat of Templars and destruction, but he stopped believing quite so unquestioningly, and thus saw no reason to push himself so hard. Once he managed to swim a lap around the lake – I taught myself, I made myself stronger, you made me weaker – he stopped listening to almost everybody and trained on his own. He put up a weak façade of obedience, one he expected that he would need to reinforce before anyone believed it.
Everyone believed it. Desmond hated the fact that they just accepted his transparent mask without looking any closer, without actually seeing him. He soon realized that they didn’t see a difference because they never actually saw him, just another tool against the Templars. Desmond wanted someone to notice how cold he was becoming, how his words had turned to subtle sarcasm, how his respect for them had dimmed, how he grew impatient with their empty platitudes, how he stopped listening to their words and trained himself instead. No one did, except for his mother. She mentioned it once, and he respected and loved her enough to listen to her worry for him. He treasured her words and kindness that no one else gave to him, but she was not always there and it was nowhere near enough to give him a true connection to their community.
He was lonely, alone in a crowd. His mother was the only one who tried to listen, but she was forced to leave at times and never realized the true depths of his solitude. The only times he could speak with somebody was when they were teaching him, and they refused to listen to him when he spoke. Instead, they would force their beliefs and words on him without care for his thoughts. He tried once to befriend the older teenagers, but quickly realized he was not welcome amongst them. He never bothered trying to connect with his dad; there was never any opportunity to, and their brutal spars didn’t count. The near two-dozen adults were mostly couples, and they only made him feel alone and powerless when he interacted with them.
He trained himself out of sight, where none of the ‘Assassins’ could make him feel weak. He hid weapons in the forest and trained with them, teaching himself how to use them with proficiency. When he practiced with his weapons, it was like he already knew how and just needed to become reacquainted with it. When he practiced with the swords, he taught his body to move like how his mind already knew. He knew that the others couldn’t teach themselves; he had mentioned it to one of the older kids when he was still young and naïve and they had made fun of him and telling him he would only mess up on his own. He fought them all and won with his self-taught techniques, but they never interacted again.
Desmond knew something about him was different than the others. He realized that others had never seen the world like he could when he said that the boys were red and no one understood him. He debated with himself about mentioning it to his mom, always afraid that this new thing would be what caused her to ignore him like everyone else, but he tried telling her just a little anyways. He told her that she was a beautiful blue, shining like a star on Earth compared to the others dim glow. She laughed and told him that he was sweet, that she appreciated the compliment. She didn’t understand. Desmond entirely skipped the next day’s training, hiding himself in the forest and exhausting himself with running through the trees.
Desmond took to running through the dark green forest and the small Farm. He climbed trees and buildings with equal fervor, coming as close to the sky as he could, then racing above the people below. He flew above their heads, soaring over their petty words and away from their lies. He was free when he ran, and he laughed as he flew through the woods. The human hawk jumped from roof to roof, climbing the windmills and pulling away from the restricting earth. He smiled freely as he ran over the rooftops, the only time he smiled in his prison. One day this grin pulled at a scar on his lip – a memento from a training session with his father.
It had been a nasty fight. Desmond was now 14 and his rebellion was only growing with each passing year. He had stopped showing such prowess in his lessons, and his father had finally noticed and taken offense. He hadn’t let up that day, trying to force Desmond into learning, trying to bash the lessons into his head; trying to beat out the secrets he was keeping, trying to subdue him, trying to make him display his full talents. Desmond had already learned this lesson, had long ago decided it was a waste of time trying to find lessons when his father didn’t care enough to give them; he would never betray his secrets, he would never let his father overpower him again, and he avoided showing his true skill.
He lost the fight, but Desmond saw an opportunity where he could have been the victor. If he had used the hidden blade he had hidden away – he wore it unless he knew that his father was back and intending to focus on Desmond’s training – he could have easily defeated his father. For a sickeningly glorious moment, Desmond imagined being the permanent victor of this battle. He was skilled enough that he could even be merciful with his win, causing only temporary harm, yet still doing enough damage that for once it would be his father who would lose.
The young teen did nothing, letting his father land a finishing blow, permanently scarring his face as he struck through Desmond’s lip. Desmond still counted this as his victory: his father had not planned on leaving a mark, yet Desmond had engineered the finish and forced his father to make this final move. When his father realized just what he had done, he froze and pulled back. The man could see just how deeply he had cut and how much blood was pouring off of his son’s face. Desmond smiled for the first time in his father’s presence, splitting the gash open farther and tasting the blood on his lips.
“Love you too, dad,” he lied as he left, heading back home to his mother. He knew that doing this would deny his father a place to recover from what he had just done to his son. Desmond wasn’t sure if his father would be bothered by what he did, or why he would if he did; Desmond knew that this man only viewed him as a tool. The man wouldn’t dare come home and confront his wife for several hours, and by then Desmond would be back to walking and running in the woods.
When he arrived home, his mother forced ibuprofen on him. He was careful not to speak as she fussed over his lip, and instead he examined the bottle. One of the names on the label stood out: it was a name he had seen repeated on various different items, but he had never bothered to ask about it before. When he focused his special sight on the bottle, the words glowed a faint red and he knew he couldn’t ignore it any longer. “Mom, what’s Abstergo?” He asked her, wincing only slightly as his words caused pain to spread as he further stretched the cut.
He tried to keeps his words short, but she laughingly scolded him for making his lip worse as she responded. Desmond listened carefully as she described Abstergo. She started off by mentioning that the average American household contains 3 dozen Abstergo owned products at any given moment, that if you tried to purge them from your life completely, it would be a full time job. “We pick out battles, I guess. So many to choose from!”
She laughed as she said the last bit, but it was a bitter laugh. She explained that Abstergo had their fingers in not just many pies, but in every one. It was a global conspiracy, a front for the Templars. The Templars who had their hands in everything: politics, war, finance, technology, agriculture… Abstergo was the Templars face, and they were deeply involved in governments, corporations, universities… anything with potential power over the people.
Desmond didn’t tell her as she finished attending his lip, but she had finally given him a face to the scary monsters they had always told him of. He didn’t tell her that he now laughed in the woods, imagining that his greatest enemy wore the face of the pill bottle. He didn’t tell her that he had almost stopped believing in the Templars, that he stopped believing there was a threat hunting for them to eradicate their existence and then dominate the world. As she carefully stood back up and avoided asking where he had gotten his wound, he did not tell his mom that he hated this life and wanted to be free.
Oooh, I love that first idea! It would vocally be an explanation for how the heck he keeps getting these confessions when surrounded by guards trying to kill him.
2, I've thought that... well... the "Garden of Eden" was kind of a reward and respite for the assassins? And if a future assassin comes out of it, that's just one way to keep numbers up. It would also strengthen the bonds of the brotherhood, if they don't know their fathers (in some cases) and have more of a communal family rearing them.
3. I never thought I'd it before your story, but I love it and I'm keeping it XD
Could you give us some of your favourite headcannons regarding assassins creed?
Currently only on AC1, so everything is about it for me right now, so…
Keep reading
Happy New Year!
WEN JUNHUI as LING CHAO Exclusive Fairytale — Episode 24 (2023)
A few character headshots I've done as of late! Altair and Selene are from Callsign" BlueJay, and Mistral (bottom pic) is my PSO fancharcter!
just a little draw i did of Altair and Midnight, since they are from the same fanchild couple!
Altair belongs to @94natygg12
Assassin's Creed + Tarot Cards - pt. 3
And now for something a little different from your regularly scheduled programming.
*This post and any others like it will contain spoilers*
*General spoiler-free advice for anyone looking to try the game out will be listed at the bottom*
I recently realised I had basically every Assassin’s Creed game I really wanted to play, so I figured I’d play through the entire series until I either got bored or distracted, starting with the Original game for the Xbox 360, which I had never played before. I got into the series via AC: Brotherhood and AC: Revelations and I have a bad habit of starting a game, getting most of the way through, then just stopping, so I was determined to see at least the first game through to the end.
I’m going to go through my specific highlights of the game, low points and just generally talk about the parts that interest me. I’ve played multiple Assassins Creed games in the past, predominantly Brotherhood, Revelations and IV: Black Flag.
Highlights
Characters! I absolutely love how everyone has an actual personality and acts and reacts as actual people. I’ll probably go further into this in another point but most every character you interact with is different (barring the guards and pedestrians), and give the impression of goals, motivations and an entire life that you only have a brief window into.
The Bureau Leaders are probably my favourite example of the above. Jabal, Malik and…. the other fellow are Altaïr’s main points of contact in each city and their relationship with him changes as you progress throughout the game, parallel with how Altaïr himself develops.
Speaking of; Altaïr. He starts the game as an entitled prick of the Assassin Order, promptly fucks up horribly, and spends much of the game making amends for his mistake and ultimately growing as a person and understanding the philosophies of the Assassin Order. Their creed, if you will. He has real development and makes mistakes, but you emphasise with him for most of it because you learn things at the same rate he does.
The single Templars dotted about the map - functioning essentially as mini-bosses, there are Templar Knights with red helmets standing guard at various points throughout the maps. Though I never searched them out, it was gratifying to be presented with a single target where the only objective was to kill them. In one memorable encounter, I ran full pelt at a Templar and was able to stab them seven times before they could even get their sword out.
The actual Templar assassination targets are also all pretty good, character-wise. Certainly some are better than others (I’m not really a fan of the penultimate boss(es), nor Majd Addin), but it’s overall a very good showing, some managing to elicit sympathy, others showcasing how far they’re gone.
I like how the three cities are each distinct in their colouration and architectural style - Acre is a dull grey and has numerous churches and destroyed buildings, reflecting its recent seizure by King Richard and the Crusaders. Damascus is a warm orange and is dotted with mosques and gorgeous towers with scripture all across them. Jerusalem is a delightful green and has numerous gardens, lending it an earthy feel. I admittedly found Acre the weakest of the three, but it was nonetheless nice how I could easily tell which city I was in.
Low points
The fucking timed assassination missions. I like the flag hunts, those are nice. It’s a good test of your free-running ability and it feels like you’re strutting your skills to the novitates. But the timed assassination missions are just you running around stabbing people and desperately hoping there aren’t any guards you haven’t seen. They’re the only missions I ever had to retry.
Speaking of the guards - There’s roughly three kinds, varying in competency and damage. With three cities and multiple different armour designs, it can be difficult to distinguish which are the actual threats in any given fight. This can lead to Altaïr being thoroughly brutalised in a very short period, since you can very easily not notice how much health you’re losing until it’s too late. Furthermore, the guards tend to crowd around you and attack sequentially. Though rare this can sometimes lead to you getting what I termed “Ultra Combo’d” during my playthrough - multiple guards will attack within a very short window, each knocking you into the next swing and leaving you little opportunity to parry or dodge.
Speaking of the guards, during the final parts of the game you essentially have to wade through multiple combat encounters with well-trained enemies. So unless you’ve rigorously practiced with the combat system beforehand it can be very easy to get killed. It bothers me specifically because it’s just been one aspect of the game until now, but it just becomes the main part right near the end, so if you don’t have the combat down pat, then you’re gonna have a bad time.
Saving Citizens is fine, but I wish they had more than five lines to thank you with, even if some of the line deliveries are really good. Also I didn’t use the vigilantes much (barring one memorable assassination where they restrained a target for me)
General points
The beggars are fairly obviously designed to be annoying and get in the way, which is reinforced by their behaviour and almost mocking voice lines. However there’s one in Jerusalem that appears to randomly have a far softer voice that elicits far more sympathy.
I was surprised by how much of Desmond’s story is in this - particularly given that later games apparently decided to drop that entire plot. I find it far more interesting than I expected to, particularly how Desmond grows from experiencing his ancestor’s past life and how you know absolutely nothing about the modern Assassin Order (Desmond and Lucy’s conversation about how Abstergo found him is particularly interesting).
Though it’s something of an old game now, I was surprised by how resonant I found many of its themes - the Abstergo and the Templars are explicitly mentioned and shown to excercise information control and censorship - one of your assassination targets is in the process of leading a book burning when you kill them which is a relevant theme to, well, basically all modern media. The Assassins and Templars both seek peace, but the Assassins aim to teach people to comprehend the truth, whereas the Templars seek to obfuscate the truth and control people by presenting an illusion of the world. Freedom through knowledge versus Order through Oppression. It’s also interesting that this is what the Assassins seek as a group, rather than a focus on individualism.
Similarly to the above point, I like how Brotherhood is emphasised as a theme - Altair succeeds in his tasks due to the help of his brothers, but it’s them working towards a common goal, not some “power of friendship” thing (for the record, I don’t dislike “power of friendship” but it’s very easy to do wrong).
The Ending…… I like, but it does feel anticlimactic, and I find it’s very easy to pick up on some of the twists just through the landscape and the design of certain areas. That said, I think it’s a good set up for a sequel (even though they probably couldn’t have known it at the time). I can however see why they made the decision to excise Desmond’s plot later - though I very much like Desmond’s plot (at least so far), it kinda clashes with the historical Assassin storyline. Though I do love how eagle vision becomes relevant right at the end.
The Freerun system - it’s in the other points column because, when it works, it’s amazing. You feel like a masterful assassin, free and able to effortlessly outrun your pursuers, striking down targets as you need. When it doesn’t work, it’s just a massive frustration, as you try get Altair’s chaffinch brain to grab something as ten guards bear down on you. Mixed results, essentially.
Tips for new players
So you hear about that new Assassin’s Creed *Insert Title Here* and wanna see how it all started do you? Or maybe you just think this particular one sounds cool. Here’s some stuff I picked up during my playthrough:
Throwing Knives are amazing, use them. Just one little blade and a guard is no more. However, you do need to ensure there’s nothing between the two of you and it’s difficult to refill them without returning to Masayaf.
The Hidden Blade, as long as you just do the slow walk assassination and don’t do the big fancy jump, a target killed by the hidden blade will take a few seconds to die, thus granting you time to escape before the guards notice.
Citizens around the streets will spawn either vigilantes or scholars after being saved. If you’re struggling to get in places, then look around for a citizen that can get you some scholars. Vigilantes will distract guards for you, but they don’t really come up much unless you run towards them when being pursued.
Some Story assassination missions are designed to degenerate into chases or combat. When in doubt, just gun for the assassination target.
Speaking of Combat, some later enemies will counter your attacks, but you can counter their counters. A good strategy is to attack then immediately counter as the animation plays - if there’s no counter then it doesn’t cancel anything, but it will immediately counter the enemies counter if they attempt one.
You lose synchronisation by punching beggars and lepers/madmen, but not drunkards. Do with this information as you will.
Try to get all the Eagle Vision synchronisation points in the Kingdom on your first visit to each city. Guards get tetchier later in the game, and it makes navigation much easier to have them all.
Last part of my Creedtober sketches.
I don't care what others think or say.
I am here to do my job.
Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad
I am so excited I'm pissing my pants!
Well this wasn't awesome as hell!!!!! 2015 can't come any faster!
