GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 02/11/2008
- Released on: 02/05/2008
- Originally published on GameSpot: Assassin's Creed (DS) Review
It's not surprising that the Nintendo DS iteration of Assassin's Creed doesn't feature the often-stunning, open-world exploration of its console counterparts. It does feature many of the same elements, however: An attractive visual style, some nice animation work, and decent sound effects that make the Middle Eastern cityscapes you explore feel alive with activity. Its fundamental design, however, bears a closer resemblance to another of Ubisoft's landmark properties: Prince of Persia. In Altair's Chronicles, you travel through 3D environments on a mostly linear path, avoiding traps, scaling walls, and occasionally beating up some bad guys in the process. When the game hits its stride, this makes for some fairly enjoyable entertainment. Unfortunately, clunky controls and an overall lack of refinement frequently conspire to sully the experience.
The sense of sci-fi wonder that permeated the console release is noticeably absent from this prequel. The story is a pure, straightforward chase-the-artifact adventure that wouldn't be out of place in a Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones title. Chronicles' holy grail is a mysterious chalice, and while it serves its purpose as a plot catalyst, there's nothing very interesting about Altair's tale. The narrative plays out via dialogue texts that convey just enough information to keep you up to speed, and is thus missing the metaphysical, morally ambiguous ramblings you may have expected. Altair is reduced to a generic hero in ancient garb, which may be fine for Assassin's Creed fans but won't be of much interest to those new to this game universe.
Yet in spite of its generic characters and wooden script, you'll still glimpse a little magic here and there, as fleeting as it can be. The art design is quite nice, featuring soft, earthy hues and some nice details in the architecture. Altair himself often moves gracefully, and the climbing and running animations are splendid. Others don't look nearly as good, and some jumps are missing transition animations completely, making it look like Altair is teleporting instead of leaping. On your travels you'll hear the commotion of crowds, the chirping of birds, and the snoring of sleeping guards, and while the same effects are replayed often, they still make the cities through which you travel feel organic. Combat noise gets to be grating over time, however, since you'll hear the same grunts over and over again. The Arabian-themed soundtrack is similarly repetitive, but still properly dramatic.
You'll spend the bulk of the game getting from point A to point B by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, climbing walls, and crossing beams. The clear-cut level designs keep platforming sequences from being overly challenging, though they occasionally require some light puzzle-solving (push a few boxes or pull a few levers) and trap navigation (look out--spinning blades!). They do suffer from some frequent annoyances, not the least of which is that you are often required to jump to a platform that you can't see. Altair also has an annoying tendency to slide forward a bit after landing his jump--sometimes slipping right off the platform and into death's cold embrace. Even worse, the camera will occasionally move to a position that doesn't even allow you to see Altair, forcing you into even more guesswork. As a rule, the platforming works, but the general fluidness of what you see onscreen is never matched by similarly slick controls.
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