History of the Assassin’s Creed series. Part 2: Pocket assassin

After the successful release of the first Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s top immediately gave the go -ahead to produce a sequel. And exactly two years later, the long -awaited Assassin’s Creed 2 with a new era, a new hero and a bunch of graphic and gameplay innovations will appear on the shelves. But wait, but what happened to the history of Altair? What happened to him after the events of the first part? The sequel refers to his future fate with only one flashback, which at one time surprised many, and a bunch of game notes called by the “Altair Code”. Reading is certainly interesting, but I would like something more serious in this regard. Two small projects were to fill in the gaps in this story: Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles for Nintendo DS and mobile platforms, and Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines – Exclusions for PlayStation Portable. And how well or bad it did it I suggest you find out in the new issue of the history of the Assassin’s Creed series!

Video version is also attached to the text. And you will find the first issue here.

Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles

At the beginning of 2008, simultaneously with the release of the original PC game, Altair’s chronicles reached the Nintendo DS console, and over the next couple of years settled on other mobile platforms, including known iOS and Android, with already improved graphics and management. The plot of the game originates in 1190 – a year before the events of the main game.

After the next task, Altair goes to the city of Aleppo, where the Assassin refuge is located. Along the way, he finds a wounded member of the fraternity, from whom he learns about the attack of the Templars on the local village. Having received a sword from the deceased brother, the hero cuts out the Templars who met him in the way and knocks out small grains of information from one soldier. It turns out one of the captains was ordered to find someone very important in this village. Who exactly? While this remains a mystery. Arriving in Aleppo, Altair receives a new and very important mission for the entire fraternity: to get a certain sacred object – a bowl. With her will be able to unite all the warring parties and capture the Holy Land. And for obvious reasons, it was impossible to allow her to fall into the hands of the Templars.

Altair decided to start his search in Damascus. Having met with the local representative of the bureau, he finds out that the merchant named Tamir (not the one whom Altair killed in the main game) has close ties with the Templars and may know about the whereabouts of the bowl. Altair finds Tamir’s refuge and smokes him from there, after which he arranges an interrogation. It turns out that the bowl is stored in the mysterious temple of sand, for the opening of which 3 special keys are required, stored in three different people.

Altair finds the first key with a circus dancer and combined fortune tellers, thajgers. He fulfills her request and kills an influential Templar named Alaat. After that, the hero receives the first key and aiming at the Templar Hospital in the city of Tire from the Tire. There, someone named Roland Bright interrogated one of the keys of the keys.

Assassin penetrates the hospital through the underground passages and stops Roland during. Explaining his intentions to the Guardian, Altair receives a second key from him. He also warns the assassin that the Templars know about the temple and the keys. Moreover: the current head of the Templars – Lord Vasilisk, wore the last key to the temple on his neck. To get to the last, Altair had to go to Jerusalem.

Having overheard the local conversations, and having arranged a couple of interrogations, Assassin finds out that the king of Jerusalem is preparing a small celebration in the Lakura villa, and Lord Vasilisk will certainly be present at it. Having made his way through a bunch of traps and a secret underground passage, Altair collides in a battle with a basilisk, but does not kill him, but only takes the key.

Meanwhile, the assassin agent Khazada manages to get a map of the location of the temple of sand, but the Templars kill him and take the map with them. Altair rushes behind them in pursuit and gets to the high fortress of the Templars. Taking all living things on each of its floors, he meets the owner of the fortress and his student, who outwardly very similar to the overwhelmed assassins. During the battle, they offered the hero to join them once, but Altair refuses the manner characteristic of him: kills both and takes the map.

Finding the temple of sand, the assassin discovers the people of the basilisk. In some unknown way, they were able to get into the temple without the help of keys, and besides, before Altair. Bypassing numerous traps and overcoming the sentinels, he gets to the very center of the temple, where the treasury was located. However, she was empty, and the lord Vasilisk showed the hero that the bowl was not at all an object, but a woman. And after these words he immediately removes, leaving Assassin to fight with the soldiers in the destructive temple.

But miracles have no limit, and Altair, apparently magically, transferring from the temple to his entrance. Not having time to realize what happened at all, the hero begins to run away from the impending sandstorm, after which he goes to the shooting gallery. There he makes his way to the Templars’ citadel, saves members of the fraternity and presses a basilisk to the wall. He offers a deal: to spare it in exchange for important information. Altair agrees and finds out that the bowl is kept on the guarded villa of Caravaggio, in Jerusalem. The villain also told about the plans of the Templars to poison all the sources of the drinking water of Acra and capture it until dawn. Altair spares a basilisk, but burns his ships so that he does not have time to get to the bowl before him.

Altair arrives in Acra in the midst of siege. He helps local residents, repels the attacks of the soldiers, disguised as he makes his way to the Templar camp and destroys siege tools. Having staged a sabotage, he literally flies out of the camp and goes in search of a bowl to Jerusalem.

To the surprise of Altair, the bowl is his old acquaintance named Hell. The hero follows her through the whole city, repel it from the Templars and runs out with her through the sewer. Altair wanted to take her to the assassins, but hell refuses, talking about how the Templars bribed Assassin Harash. He was the second in influence in the order after Al Mualim, and if Altair leads her to them, the faithful people will immediately grab her and pass it again. Hell asks to kill Harash and offers Altair to escape with her. The hero agrees and agrees to meet her after everything on the pier in a dash.

And while Altair took the life of Kharash, the Templars managed to grab hell and prepare the hero to the hero. Trying to get to Ada, Altair converges in the next battle with the Basil and kills him, but does not have time to save his beloved. The ship of the Templars was already too far. Altair gives himself a promise to find her. And on this the story of the game ended.

The analysis of the plot

This plot is actually difficult to take seriously, especially if you try to tie it to the main game. Separate plot points completely break the logic of the narrative. For example, how the Templars and the basilisk hit the temple? We were seriously told that you can get there only with keys, but they calmly succeeded without them. But we had to go through almost half the game in order to get them.

Ok, let’s say somehow they got there. But why, in principle, everyone needed keys and a temple if there is nothing in it? The basilisk revealed to Altair that the bowl is not an object, but a woman. But how did he know this himself and for what purpose he then came to the temple to Altair? And what kind of strange teleportation of Altair from the temple was? It turns out that either somewhere behind the scenes there were whole pieces of the plot, or the scriptwriter of the game was very drunk. I have no other options.

And understand me correctly, it’s not just nit -picking. This project is part of the main canonical history of Assassin’s Creed. Using a transmedian narrative, Ubisoft decided to reveal the universe outside the main series of games using all the available sources of media: comics, manga, books, films, games for smartphones and portable consoles, and even mini-games and applications for social networks. In addition, they created a separate team to comply with the correct interconnection of the main games with all other products.

And in this sense, from the point of view of the plot, the chronicles of Altair are a completely useless product. The end of history does not give as any emotions, and you do not understand why you played it at all. It looks even more strange that in Assassin’s Creed 2, reading the Altair Code, you can stumble upon his memories of ADA:

I thought Ada would make me rest, I would put my sword in a scabbard and I have a healing with an ordinary life. But now I know that there are things that are better not to dream about … Her face is in front of my eyes. I always remember those days when I was chasing the sea for the Templars that stole her. I almost caught up with them. Almost. If only I could swim faster! But everything turned out differently … I recall how I found her body – and what horror froze in her eyes … I killed her abductors one after another – until they all went to the other world. But this did not bring me joy, because their death did not resurrected hell and did not heal my wounds. When hell died, I was sure that I could never love. Fortunately, I was mistaken.

And this main detail solves everything. If these words www.abukingcasino.co.uk of Altair were in Altair’s chronicles, no matter even in what form, then the plot would have at least some adequate climax. And it could be perfectly tied to the plot of the first part. Everything immediately falls into place, and you begin to understand why Altair behaved like the last asshole at the very beginning of the game. He lost his beloved woman for whom he wanted to leave the order. For him, in an instant, everything around him ceased to represent at least some importance, and he could only release his pain and anger in that he knew how to kill him.

But in the end, we observe only a couple of references to the events of the chronicles of Altair in the main game, and the plot is sewn with white threads, whose plot holes are trying to close in hindsome. The only significant event, the consequences of which we can observe in the main game – the siege of Akra. It’s nice to realize that even such a small project was also tied to historical events. But this is rather a pleasant trifle purely for me.

Gameplay

The rest of the game is not as bad as you could expect. Gameplay is almost a classic prince of Persia with a wider arsenal of weapons and abilities. All the main time takes either battles with opponents or platforming. Sometimes simple puzzles are found, and even less often stealth.

Altair, along the plot, finds a new weapon, like a crossbow or chimney, and learns new combat techniques. The developers also transferred the system of retortings and counterattacks, but the game can be safely passed without them. True, due to the lack of a sane plot and a prolonged duration, by the end of the game the battle begins to tire.

The game also has a pair of bosses, but for some reason the battles with them are much easier than with ordinary opponents. Platforming is sometimes annoying not the most responsive control and camera, which sometimes hides behind the scenes of markers of checkpoints and you do not know which direction you go further. Features of sensory management are used for the theft and interrogation of victims made in the form of a mini-game, which slightly dilute the monotonous gameplay process. The game may well please a variety of locations and events, however, some levels are greatly knocked out of the general style and rather suit the prince mentioned above, and not Assassin’s Creed.

Opinion and verdict for Altair’s Chronicles

As a result, we have a very mediocre project in the universe of Assassin’s Creed, which had every chance of being a more significant and high -quality product for mobile platforms, but the developers did not bother to use them to fully. I personally received my portion of pleasure from the gameplay component, but the plot is a clear disappointment. In addition, frank hack is visible: during dialogs, the faces of the speakers are displayed, and Al Mualim looks like anyone, but not to himself. And the keeper of the fortress and his student look like an over -foamed Altair. This is generally the other. If you are not an ardent fan of the series, collecting all the grains of the plot Laura, you can calmly pass by. The game cannot offer you at least something really deserving your attention.

And if Altair’s mobile adventures are not something outstanding, then maybe the project for the portable Play Station will turn out better? There are more capacities, and the graphics are better, and on the script and dialogues, it seems like Derby McDevitt himself worked. And this is, among the other things, the same guy who won the awards for scripts for Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and Vallhalla. There are serious hopes, so let’s move on to the next project.

Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines

In 2009, simultaneously with the release of Assassin’s Creed 2, the PSP is a direct continuation of Altair’s adventures – Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines. The game was developed by Griptonite Games in cooperation with Ubisoft. The plot starts a month after the events of the original game.

Under the leadership of the new master of the Order – Arman Bushar, the Templars planned to regain a particle of Edem, but Altair decided to get ahead of them and struck the first. With a small group of assassins, he makes his way to the port of Akra, where he sees the floating ships of the Templars. There, he meets again with Maria Torpe, the very girl that Altair spared in the first part of the game.

Introducing her, he finds out that the ships are heading towards Cyprus. The Templars bought the island from King Richard and established their new orders on it. However, local residents did not like this, and they began to actively rebel and created resistance groups. Altair decides to figure out what’s the matter: takes Mary captured and saves with her to Cyprus.

In the port of Limassol, they are met by a representative of resistance named Alexander loyal to assassins. He tells the assassine that the Templars were fixed in the Limassol Castle, but it is almost impossible to get there. To get into it, Altair eliminates one of the Captains of the guard, so that the resistance spy that took his place could weaken the protection of the castle.

From this spy, the hero learns that in Cyprus the Templars have a mysterious repository, which there are many different rumors about. After that, Assassin successfully makes his way to the castle and kills one of the commanders of the Templars – Frederick Red. Arman Bushar publicly announces to the residents of the city, who are also accused of the patronage of the killer.

At the same time, in the hope of getting the location of Bushar, who escaped Maria informs the Master of Templars about the plan of Altair. Bushar does not believe in the sincerity of the girl, suspecting her of conspiracy with the assassins, after which he orders to send her to prison. During the emerging Altair, he manages to free the girl, but she is not at all grateful for this. Thus, he only further increased Bushar’s suspicion that she was not at all in hand.

Through a friend of Alexander, the hero learns that the pirates are transporting a special cargo for the Templars to Cyrian. Altair suggests that this can be somehow connected with the repository, and decides to go to Cyran with Maria on one of the pirates ships. Alexander also advises to find there the leader of the resistance to Barnabas, who will certainly help the assassin.

Having reached the port of Cyrenia, Altair and Maria managed to talk a little about the personal, as well as argue about the contradictory worldviews of the assassins and the Templars. Altair tried to open the girl’s eyes on the true motives of her order, but she only with a mockery of the hero’s intention. At the exit from the ship, the girl uses the moment and makes an escape, and pirates attack Altair. Having escaped from them, Assassin finds Mary on the streets of the city with one of the resistance members named Marcos. After making sure that the girl will be safe with him, the hero goes to the local shelter of resistance to meet Barnabas.

He says that Arman Bushar is most likely now in the Buffvento castle and bypasses his prisoners. For his help, Barnabas asks Altair to kill the traitor to Ion. Altair tracies the traitor and finds out from the fact that the Templar, nicknamed the bull, appointed the Assassin and his companion award. Having killed Jonah, Altair immediately rushes to the aid of Maria and Marcos. Having beaten off the attackers, Altair sends both to the shelter to Barnabas.

Meanwhile, after the murder of Jonah, the inhabitants of the city raised a riot, and Barnabas sends the hero to suppress him by force, which causes him serious doubts about the correctness of the act. Having dispersed the people and dealing with the people of the bull, Altair returns to the shelter, where Maria and Marcos just arrived. However, Barnabas was gone there. Maria reveals to the assassin the real name of the bull – Moloch, and the fact that he is in a specially protected fortress of Kantar.

Under the cover of night, Altair makes his way into the fortress and kills Molokh with his own weapon. Returning to the shelter, he learns from Markos that Mary, along with other resistance members, was abducted by the Templars, and they learned about the shelter from the dark oracle from Buffvento. The hero thought that they were actually betrayed by the escaped Barnabas. But Marcos said that this was impossible, because the Templars executed him a day before Altair arrived. Everything indicates that Assassin talked with a Samoznan spy sent by the Templars. The hero goes to the streets of the city to save the allies from execution, but does not find Mary among them. The saved reports to Altair that the son of Moloch – Prince Shalim took her.

Assassin decides to go to Buffvento to deal with the dark oracle, because of which the Templars predict each next step of resistance. Having made his way into the very depths of the fortress, Altair becomes a witness to the conversation between Bushar and Shalim. The Master of Templars reports the prince for the escape of Maria, after which it instructs to send Alexander from Limassol a special parcel. This pushes Altair thought that Alexander can also be a spy of Templars. Having followed Bushar, the hero gets to the prison camera of the oracle. Altair decides to talk to her, but sees in front of him a crazy and cruel creature, which is quite remote reminiscent of a once noble Cypriot. The hero kills oracle and returns to the shelter.

After that, Altair decides to arrange Shalim’s surveillance and notices his strange behavior. On the first day, he arranges a brawl and robs ordinary residents with his assistants, and the next collects a peaceful meeting of the townspeople and surprises everyone with his calmness and generosity. On the advice of Marcos, Altair wanted to talk with a monk, whose shalim often confesses, but he suddenly kills the mysterious agent of the Templars. Altair tried to catch up with him, but the attempt was in vain.

Trying to find a way to get closer to Shalim, the hero learns that a new supply of girls for the prince arrived in the city port, among whom, as it turned out, Mary hidden. Using a steamer with girls as a cover, Altair penetrates the castle and finds Shalim. There, Assassin manages to eavesdrop on the conversation of the prince and Maria, from which we can understand that she only now really understood the far-deep goals of her order. The hero interrupts their conversation, after which he reveals the reason for the prince’s strange behavior: it turns out that his brother was twin Shakhar. Maria runs immediately, and Altair has to fight alone with two brothers. Having finished with both, the hero returns to the shelter, where he learns from Markos about the retreat of the Templars: all their ships return to Limassol.

Altair also arrives in Limassol and meets there with Alexander. It turns out that Alexander is not a traitor at all: that package that Shalim sent him was a severed head of a real Barnabas. Having clarified the situation, Altair goes for information to the owner of the port pier Demetris. And before Assassin at least I had time to find out something, once again his informant is killed by an agent of the Templars. Returning to the shelter, the hero finds a note that states that Alexander will wait for him in the courtyard of the castle.

In the castle, Assassin finds the body of the murdered Alexander and finally faces the secret agent of the Templars, who pretended to be Barnabas. At that moment, angry residents of the city, who want to kill Assassin for the murder of John, burst into the castle. Altair stops the crowd with the help of Eden and directs their anger to fight the Templars. In an instant, Maria appears, kills a Ljovarnava and shows the assassin a secret passage leading to the storage of the Templars.

With difficulty breaking through the numerous ranks of the Templars, Altair gets to the storage, where Maria loses in the battle with Bushar. The Master of Templars reveals the main secret to the assassin: in fact, the Templars have long owned the island, and his purchase from King Richard was only a divert of attention. In fact, the Templars did not bring treasures and artifacts to the storage, but on the contrary, they took them out of the island. And at the moment, it was already empty.

Having defeated Bushar, Altair receives Maria’s exciting gaze as a reward, and together they leave the destructive storage. Heroes reached Limassol’s pier and began to discuss their plans for the future. Maria comes to the conclusion that the ideals in which she believed earlier has now lost all meaning, and her service to the Templars is now over over. She decides to go on the east. Altair wants to increase his knowledge and reveal all the secrets of the world, and the miracles that the part of Eden is fraught with. And like Maria, he also decides to go. East.

The analysis of the plot

As you probably already understood, at the end of the plot, Altair and Maria became a couple. And playing after that in Assassin’s Creed 2, for you it will no longer be so surprised to see them there together. However, the developers again repeat the mistakes of the chronicles of Altair. It seems to us how they are trying to hint that some feelings should appear between Altair and Maria, but they absolutely do not reveal this topic.

Despite the repeated attempts of Maria to betray Altair, he still saves her every time, but they do not show us a single good reason for this reason. The developers should add at least one monologue to Altair, a couple of visual gestures of Maria: like hugs or at least an approving smile, and so we have only one touching look at the end of the game. At the same time, through the game, we are shown by excerpts of Altair’s memoirs, who writes his code. They reveal how it has changed after the events of the first part, that it is asked by serious philosophical questions and shares his thoughts about the origin of the Eden particle. But why it was impossible to single out one such scene to disclose the relationship of Maria and Altair? Why is the most important and seemingly a climax for their relationship we see in another game? This decision is absolutely incomprehensible to me.

The rest of the plot lines are also full of problems. The developers tried to hit a spy militant with intrigues and set -in, but in the end we received a strange mess from flat characters and plot turns from scratch. Why did Shalim and Shahar pretended to be one person? Why did we try to show Alexander as a traitor if, in the end, this is allowed in one scene and does not affect the plot anymore? Why created an intrigue with a dummy varnava, who turned out to be a secret agent of the Templars? You seem to expect that now you will definitely be encountered on the plot and there will be an interesting fight and a denouement. but not the devil. Maria and all.

Trying to tell an interesting plot, the developers eventually put their own sticks in the wheels. The intrigue with the repository of the Templars in the end did not lead to anything interesting, and the main villain of the game – Armand Bushar turned out to be completely unremarkable and flat. And the rest of the bosses have only a couple of replicas in the game, and they are not opened in any way. History almost does not affect the further development of the plot in the main line of games, limiting himself only to small mention. But there are pleasant moments.

Unlike the first part, the structure of history has changed in Bloodlines: now you are realized by the plot: with a variety of locations and game situations, dialogue setting, and full -fledged katsets, where the camera takes close -ups and at the right points gives drama. In this sense, the game is all in order.

Gameplay

Before the release of the game, the developers told how much time spent so that when playing in Bloodlines you could experience the same feelings as in the original. At the same time, they honestly admit that they could not do without Downgraid. Due to PSP capacities, the game could not avoid downloading and a significant reduction in detail: all for the sake of stable performance. But in fact, the developers should be praised for the technical component of the game, since it is played almost exactly as well as on senior consoles. With the exception of the eagle vision and the possibility of hiding among the monks, the portable Altair is capable of everything that his senior version can: combo strikes, captures, parries and parkour.

Battles with opponents are held according to the already familiar scenario: several soldiers surround Altair and attack in turn. True, there is a small problem related to timing. Sometimes opponents begin to attack very quickly one after another without a break, because of which you physically do not have time to parry the blows. It is not clear that this is an unsuccessful oversight or initial idea of ​​developers, but in some points it is very annoying.

For obvious reasons, the open world has become much smaller and divided into areas with a loading, so don’t even dream about horses. The picture of the game is pleasant and quite beautiful, but to the beauty of the level of God of war chains of olympus, she is clearly far away. There are very few passers -by on the streets, and there are much fewer elements for climbing the buildings, but within the framework of the portable project this is more a plus than a minus. The towers have not gone anywhere, but the map of the terrain is now open from the very beginning. Missions remained almost the same as in the original, but served under another sauce. Thefts and eaves were abolished, and in their place came track and pursuit of the purpose. Fights with bosses also appeared, but only the final battle with Bushar can be called “ a real bossfite ”, since the rest are plugged for one or two.

Gathering the Templar coins scattered everywhere and performing plot missions, you can improve various parameters of Altair, like damage from weapons, an increase in a strip of synchronization, or the number of throwing knives. In addition, you could transfer coins collected in Bloodlines to Florins in AC2. True, this is only for PS3 versions. For every boss killed by Altair, Ezio received a new unique weapon. In turn, for the pages of the Code found by the Ezio, Altair received the ability to fend off the blows with a hidden blade and additional improvements.

There are side missions, but they are not very different from the plot: to kill someone, transmit a message or steal something from the protected area. By the way, I really remember one strange mission in its contents, where Altair was supposed to interrogate the guard. And in dialogue with him, Altair in all his assassin uniforms seems to be a drunken soldier from the Buffvento castle. And the guard, as if nothing had happened, asked him what post he was on. And it looks so delusional that I still wonder how such a scene could get into the game. Someone was clearly checked here.

In general, playing for Altair is convenient and intuitive, but there are some problems with the camera. Due to the fact that the PSP has only one stick, you have to control the camera with the clamping of the left trigger and choosing one of the buttons of the direction: square – turn to the left, circle – turn to the right. Quite playable, but not very convenient.

Opinion and verdict for Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines

Summarizing all of the above, we can say for sure that Bloodlines is a plot of a bad game, but a successful attempt to transfer the basic mechanics of Assassin’s Creed to portable consoles. Especially for its time. There are no beauties that are in the original, and the adventures of Altair in Cyprus are not as interesting as the hunter of Robert de Sable. The spy militant failed, and Lavstory of the protagonist and his passion did not receive due attention, and even more so adequate climax. But if you close your eyes to the plot flaws, you can enjoy the gameplay and a pleasant graphics for a portable project.

Final opinion and conclusion

As a result, the time spent on the passage of both projects will not reward you with something really unique and interesting. And even Derby Mack Devitt did not save the situation here, although he already had serious projects behind his back. Perhaps his work was simply cut, or maybe he did not try too hard for such a small project. In any case, I believe that instead of these two games, Ubisoft could well make better animated short films or comics, which would be more correct.

Of course, you can say that I am too quarreling, but my opinion is that such projects are primarily proper to have a good and strong plot. If the developers are limited in the capacities of the consoles and cannot give a really impressive graphics and gameplay, then their plot should be the same hook that will hold the player from the beginning to the end of the game. But Ubisoft decided to release two plot mediocre projects in order to simply draw more attention to the franchise and get a little money to get.

This release of the history of the series turned out to be very small and more like the most critical review. The fact is that there is no special information on the production of these projects, and they themselves do not deserve such close attention. Therefore, I tried to tell about them in sufficient detail and at the same time briefly. For me personally, these are projects from the category: played and forgot. But since this is part of the general series, I could not miss them either. Of course, you may have a completely different opinion about these games than mine, so I urge you to share it in the comments. And on this I have everything. I say goodbye to you until the next issue and I hope that you were interested.