iPad Review: Assassin’s Creed-Altaïr’s Chronicles HD

Assassin’s Creed comes onto the iPad again and if you enjoyed Assassin’s Creed for the game console, you’ll probably enjoy Assassin’s Creed-Altaïr’s Chronicles HD. But of course, with most games, it’s not without its shortcomings.

As the game name indicates, you play as Altaïr, an assassin tasked to complete missions, find people, and you know, kill people. All in a day’s work. You find yourself caught up in a Third Crusade, where the Holy Land is being ripped apart, the Templars trying to make their way through this all. As a Master Assassin, you are decreed by the Order of the Assassins to find the ‘Chalice’, a mysterious object that the Templars are in possession of and waiting for just the right price to sell it. If in the right hands, the ‘Chalice’ will bring an end to the useless and devastating Crusade. If not, there is a heavy price to be paid. And guess what? It falls on your lovely shoulders. Hooray!

When you progress through the game, the game teaches what you need to know in order to succeed. Oh wait, scratch that. Survive. Because it really only gives you the basic knowledge you need to play the game - you yourself must design a method to do well and learn all the tricks that you can in order to be successful. Oh joy.

It’s a good thing that the graphics were fantastic - they made the playing experience just that much better (and they better darn well be because it says HD near the name!). But what I noticed was that sometimes, the graphics were somewhat spotty. Spotty in the fact that objects were somewhat see-through when they shouldn’t have been and would be faded until you reached that certain area. Uh, if the graphics are in HD, shouldn’t they be smooth and well-defined? That’s what common sense would think.

Now, I have to get the actual gameplay. The touchpad was a little sensitive and you could fall off the roof/beams at any time when you were on those objects. Not cool especially when you’re trying to be careful. Better yet, jumping to other rooftops was a pain in the butt. You would think that moving in one direction, then jumping off the edge to reach the other side would result in a fair landing, but no. Sometimes, Altair would kind of be hanging off the roof. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he didn’t like that either. Other times, the jump button would be ’stuck’ and I end up falling to the ground. Better yet, if you let go of the directional pad too early, you wouldn’t reach your destination. Why so picky, game? This is a touchpad, not a game controller - sometimes, it’s just a little hard to jump. Like that one jump that seemed nearly impossible to complete. And the few times I would clear it, I somehow died and had to rejump it. And besides, I thought that checkpoints meant my game would be saved at the area. Sometimes, it didn’t save and I’d start all over again. Oh, imagine my frustration.

While I did enjoy playing the game, I have to admit - when most of the game is jumping onto buildings and whatnot, it is a bit of downer when you can’t make a certain jump. It detracts you from wanting to continue because if you can’t make the jump on the iPad where you could have on a game console, what’s the point in playing? For me, I persevered because I hate giving up but others, they might give up without trying again.

Until they fix that, paying $6.99 isn’t justified. You can get it when it goes on sale for $0.99 but you’re better off playing the game on your actual game console.

Interested in wanting to know more or to purchase the game? Click here.