Hands on with Assassin's Creed

Get ready to take out some medieval despots in the stunning Assassin's Creed on PlayStation 3.

Set during the third crusade in 1191, Assassin's Creed places you in the role of Altair, a member of the secretive Hashashin - a group of deadly assassins tasked with eliminating evil lords and despots throughout the medieval Middle East.

The demonstration we saw was absolutely breathtaking. The graphics are stunning, practically photo-realistic, and the animation is some of the most fluid and lifelike we've ever encountered. Beginning with Altair riding a horse through startlingly detailed scrubland, the demo soon shifted to a crowded market place in a bustling medieval town. The crowds are completely dynamic and their levels of suspicion rise and fall depending on how you behave. Walk calmly through the crowds and you will be largely ignored, but run from place to place, shoving into people and flinging bodies off battlements, and you will likely bring down the wrath of the town upon you, who will then co-ordinate their efforts to bring you to justice.

Altair is far from defenceless however. Possessing catlike agility along with incredible parkour (the French art of "free running") skills and a deadly array of weapons (including a longbow and wrist blades), Altair is more than a match for the many palace guards and vigilantes he'll encounter on his missions. He is also able to disguise himself dynamically to blend in with his surroundings. One neat application of this in the demo was Altair donning a hood and joining a procession of hooded monks snaking their way through the market square and passing close to his intended target, getting Altair close enough to strike the deadly blow.

Of course, an outright violent act soon brings the guards down upon you, and the more guards that surround Altair, the trickier combat becomes. Ubisoft have included something akin to a "panic meter", whereby greater numbers of enemies attacking Altair will cause his vision to blur and distort, making it more difficult to defeat them.

Combining stealth, combat, platforming and tactics with next gen presentation and a development team that has worked on the Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six game series, Assassin's Creed is shaping up to be an absolutely jaw dropping addition to the PlayStation 3 library.