Spirit of Damascus

Assassin’s Creed is the first in a multi-game franchise spanning hundreds of years of history, from the Crusades to Renaissance Italy.

While ostensibly set in the present day and focusing on a character who’s been selected for a genetic memory procedure, that’s just the frame story; the real meat of the gameplay is in the memory sections, where we learn about the main character’s assassin ancestor, Altair.

Altair has to carry out missions to assassinate various people; some unscrupulous businessmen, some crusaders. While doing so, he has to avoid detection by the plentiful guards, which means that he can’t do anything that would cause him to stand out. If he behaves suspiciously, he’ll arouse their interest and have to run off somewhere out of sight to hide until they give up looking for him.

My only complaint with the game was that it was kind of repetitive; there are only so many ways you can sneak up on a guy and stab him with your secret spring-loaded, wrist-mounted knife, after all. The setting is beautiful, the controls are pretty good, and the music is appropriately epic.