Late to the Party
Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles
By Jorge Figueiredo - July 4th, 2010
After playing the Assassin’s Creed series on a next gen console, I was curious to try it out on a hand-held. So I ran out and grabbed Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles for the Nintendo DS. I had just purchased a DSi XL, so I was interested in putting it through its paces. While I love the ideas behind it, and admire the ambition of the creators, I did not like this title as much as I wanted to; and now I’m going to tell you why.
Altair’s Chronicles takes place before the events in the first Assassin’s Creed; Altair returns home from a long journey to find it under attack by the Templars; and thus the adventure begins. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, as that is one of the only redeeming parts of this game; suffice to say that Altair does not hold as high of a rank as he does at the beginning of Assassin’s Creed. That being said, the overall plot involves a search for an artifact across several cities. The story is told from the viewpoint of Altair, and there are no references to the present day, nor is the Animus used anywhere except in the game’s menu.
I mentioned earlier that this was an ambitious title. It’s obvious that the developer wanted to make more than a 2D platformer, so a more 3D feel is utilized; this is one of the loose threads that, if tugged, unravels the experience, leaving a pile of threads instead of what could have been a rich tapestry. I personally found the viewpoint to be a weakness; objects in the game appeared to be closer than they actually were, which led to many missed jumps. Couple this with the poor control scheme and you have yourself a very frustrating experience. Luckily you don’t really have to start the game over when you die; you just start from the last checkpoint.
Sound design is not bad, which is a relief, albeit your attention is drawn to the repetitive soundtrack (thanks to the constant dying that is bound to occur); background noises are also looped, which, again, is not really hard to understand, as this is the DS.
One of the saving graces of this game, next to the story, is the escape from the normal platforming/stealth mode: the minigames. One of these is the pickpocket game, in which you have a limited amount of time to move the stylus on the touch screen to reveal the contents of your target’s pocket/bag; after which point you touch and drag the object in question to the exit without letting it touch anything else. Another minigame is the interrogation game: touch various pressure points in the indicated order and slide the person’s arm into an uncomfortable position. These are not the most difficult of minigames, but they are actually quite fun.
As a fan of the series, though, I was a bit disappointed in this adventure. Maybe I’m too used to the PS3 version; maybe I was expecting too much. In any case, I played this through. The silver lining is that the story is fairly compelling, and increases the depth of the overall Assassin’s Creed storyline. I wouldn’t recommend this title unless it was on sale. I also want to say that the DS sequel (Assassin’s Creed 2: Discovery) is a much better game, but that will be a tale for another day.
