TGS '07: Assassin's Creed Impressions

Although we recently got a lengthy hands-on with Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft was showing a slightly different section of the game here at TGS, which will wind up being the first time the public gets a chance to get their hands on the game. The demo took place in the same city of Acre, but we managed to wrest out a few more storyline details from Jade Raymond, and also got a look at a new assassination mission.

One of the new features of the game that we saw, or rather heard, was the Japanese voice track. Given that the game is almost set to go gold, it's no surprise that the voice tracks are all recorded, but the Japanese voice work does seem pretty impressive. However, it's not going to be coming to a console near you, in all likelihood; the U.S. and European versions of the game will have English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian languages on it, while the Japanese-language version will only appear in Japan.

Anyway, in the demo version on the show floor, Altair the assassin is attempting to track down William Demontfre, a lieutenant of Richard the Lionheart. If you've been following the coverage of the game, you'll know that it's set in the year 1191, during the Third Crusade. William is apparently a corrupt member of the army who uses his position for personal financial gain. Altair is able to infiltrate his castle by walking in through the front door while posing as a monk. After finding a place to climb, Altair uses his throwing daggers to one-shot kill the archers on the rooftops before they manage to alert the guards on the ground. These daggers are easy to kill with, but you only have so many of them. Furthermore, your assassination targets are immune to the daggers' effects, so you'll have to get up close and personal.

Speaking of which, Altair eventually managed to get above a training area so he could look down upon William, who was sparring below with six or seven of his soldiers. If you can perform the move correctly, you can kill William with an air-to-assassinate move, wherein you leap down onto your target and stab him for an instant kill. Of course, that move forces you to fight your way out from the guards and climb up to the top of the fort to shake them off your trail.

Some other miscellaneous details snuck out from the producers as we watched them play the demo. There are apparently going to be three large cities of roughly same size in the game, each of which will have three assassination targets and around 30 investigation missions. In-between the cities, you'll be able to travel on horseback, but traveling is somewhat dangerous because there are plenty of soldiers around who won't think twice about fighting suspicious figures. The countryside will also have hidden flags that you can collect to obtain achievements on the Xbox 360. We were also told a bit about what occurs at the end of the game, but you'll just have to wait until November 15th to find out more.

As you may have heard, the developers of Assassin's Creed are currently submitting revisions of the game in hopes of making a gold master, so it would appear that the game is well on track for its release date. Stay tuned to GameSpot for much more coverage as the game nears its release date.