Assassin's Hay

It's the first time I'm playing the game, mostly because Mike would frown everytime I brought it up. But I needed something new to play on these long hours while he's at work and WAR's population is lacking. So. I bought Assassin's Creed.

I didn't know much about the game but I knew that it was set in the present but you played in the past. Didn't require a huge cerebral strain to figure out how they'd pull that off. But what I didn't know was how much assassinating would I have to go around doing and how easily I could get away with it. This last one gave me pause as I was unable to eve rplay more than 5 minutes of any Metal Gear due to my inate inability to stay hidden.

I was delighted to realize that assassinating in Assassin's Creed is usually nothing more than clapping your hands, perfurating an enemy body with a blade and then clapping your hands again until you find a bale of hay to dive into. Oh, what fun. It seems that, because the game doesn't sport a persistent bloodstain feature, the only way for soldiers to suspect you of any wrong doing is if you stand next to a dead body holding a blade. Alternatively, if you stand next to a dead body with your hands clasped you "blend" with the crowd (even if no one else in the crowd has their hands clasped) enough that even if you're the only one there, you mustn't have been the one.

Kill u in da streets!

If you think this ludicrous mechanic left me jaded or unsympathetic towards the game you'd be severely mistaken. Whenever I pull one of those off I yell "Shield of Invisibility!"; whenever I sit on a bench I holler "Bench of the Inconspicuous!"; when I dive ribs first into a mound of hay I'll shout "Everybody say HAY! HO!" You see, I don't give a rats ass about the assassinating bit. I could very well live without it. What I did like was the parkouring side of the game.

I was a big fan of Prince of Persia. Not the original one and certainly none of the ones that came after Chesty Jake. No, I'm a fan of the cell-shaded 360 one. Why? Because it was a parkouring game with no further aspirations. It reminded me of Ico and Shadow of Colossus where the most important thing is navigating terrain and, boy, does AC ever have terrain to navigate. And bug-eyed horses that look like they'll kill you or sodomize you when you turn your back but will, in reality, always follow you loyally even if you hack and slash at them for a bit as a stress reliever.

Ah... Good times. I love a good "find all the flags" game. I wonder if the sequels are as relaxing as this one. If so, they may just squeeze a few more Euros out of me.