Gamertell

Title: Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles
Price: $9.99
System(s): iPhone, iPod Touch
Release Date: April 21, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Ubisoft (Gameloft)
ESRB Rating: Rated 12+ for frequent intense, realistic violence
Pros: Great visual and audio experience.
Cons: Not so great control experience.
Overall Score: One thumb Up and one thumb Sideways, 80 of 100, B-, * * * out of five.

It is commonly argued amongst us gamers whether or not the iPhone or iPod Touch is a serious gaming platform or a flashy impostor that refuses to accept its place as nothing more than a cell phone gaming platform. Big timers in the industry are slowly producing content for the Apple handhelds while also being seemingly timid that this is nothing more than a fad. Whenever a big name game is released into the tangled web that’s our favorite App Store, that game is always looked to as the justification of the platform.

That brings us to Assassin’s Creed for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Assassin’s Creed shows us that the iPhone and iPod Touch can produce quality visuals on par with the PSOne. It’s nothing that will shatter your pupils but instead will have you looking at your phone with bewilderment that this device can pull this level of quality off.

The music of Assassin’s Creed is also highly produced with everything from the crackling of a fire to the chirping of birds to the roar of drums being crisp and vivid to the ear. The voice acting, however, fails to match. The tone of each actor comes off as uninterested which made me uninterested to listen, making the Skip button a godsend. If they can’t get into their roles than how are we supposed to?

Controlling the role of Altair, the game’s central character, is a mixed bag of frustration and comfort. With the lack of a directional pad, Gameloft implemented a virtual joystick for navigating which works fine when running though a city but becomes a nightmare when trying time leaps across pits or scaling a ledge.

Since Assassin’s Creed is all about overcoming obstacles, frustration is bound to set in an unruly amount of times. I’m not even sure this is something that could be fixed via a patch, as it seems to be a loss of translation. Controlling a joystick on a normal gamepad doesn’t become half as frustrating as a virtual joystick. Maybe I’m just getting old and this new virtual control scheme isn’t for my generation.

Combat is, safe to say, much more manageably controlled since it simply comes down to hitting the sword icon. Altair is an assassin so, of course, he has to have interesting ways of disabling opponents or just gaining an edge, each of which is presented as a mini-game. Pick pocketing is presented as uncovering the screen by swiping your finger and than extracting the needed item without causing a stir by avoiding edges. Altair will also disable opponents by hitting pressure points which is pulled off by tapping specific points of the opponents body at the right moment. There’s also a sneak attack, which is just as it sounds. if Altair gets close to an opponent without them noticing, the option to commit the attack will flash red and show Altair leaping at his target and silence them.

Assassin’s Creed is a nicely packaged game with a serious flaw in its control scheme and while the graphics and sound are there, the experience isn’t. But, while Assassin’s Creed does drop the ball, it has brought the device closer to justifying it as a serious gaming platform than any game so far.

Purchase [Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles]

Check out the gallery: Assassin's Creed for iPhone