Smokin' Gameplay

I keep forgetting that Assassin's Creed is coming out on PC. Perhaps the "delayed-for-PC-'til-2008" announcement deleted it from the buffer memory that I reserve for thinking about upcoming excitements, or perhaps my hype-immunisation jab actually kicked in for this one. (Get yours in time for Christmas!)

Yep, in some ways it really does look too good to be true: a series of huge, open Medieval cities in which to adventure as a nefarious hashshashin, picking up missions as you meander. You can scale buildings with La Parkour ease, and interact with crowds with shoulder-bumping precision. You'll be hiding in plain sight, leaping rooftops, lurking in shadows, and gutting infidels like dogs. (In fact only *that* level in Blood Money really seems to have crowds with even a fraction of Assassin's Creed's realism.)

If you're in any way interested in the game RPS calls "Splinter Thief", you will perhaps want to watch this eight minute sequence of footage:

Thanks, GameTrailers.

Anyway, yeah, looks like there's plenty of cut-scene exposition. Sigh. Actually, what is far more worrying is this speculation that the whole game is going to be revealed to be a sci-fi setup of some description, perhaps with the assassin experiencing all this via 'genetic memory' or some other such fantastical implausibility. I'm not against science fiction twists per se, but that's exactly the kind of over-wrought plot device that it's easy to fuck right up. Careful, Ubisoft, saying "and it was all a dream," doesn't tend to go down well these days... A far better end would be sending your protagonist back to HQ to have a big old smoke.