By hopping on a statue when no one was looking, then grabbing onto a balcony and scaling a wall, we were able to get to the roof of the building next to the guards. Once on top we discovered there was a guard up here as well keeping watch. Moving slowly Altaïr crept up behind him and stabbed him in the neck with the Assassin’s blade and let his body fall to the street below, to distract the guards. While they were busy investigating the corpse, we walked right past and headed towards the slave trader’s warehouse.
When Altaïr arrived at the location a cut-scene was triggered. Unlike most games, in Assassin’s Creed the cut-scenes take place in real-time with you still in control. Using a feature called a “Memory Glitch” you’re able to view the cut-scene from another character’s perspective. It’s a neat way of conveying the story and hopefully will end up being more than just a gimmick in the final product.
Once Altaïr had found Talal, we were forced to fight some of his lackeys. Combat is simple in that it’s based around attack, defend, attack, defend, but at the same time complex, because so much emphasis is placed on the timed countering enemy attacks. By the time Altaïr had dispatched the four or five henchmen that had attacked him, Talal had fled.
What's really neat is that the nothing we had just experienced, or experienced following it, is scripted. We could’ve very easily tried to move around the henchman and killed Talal there in the warehouse, but because we took too much time, his A.I. had managed to find an escape route and was now running through city streets trying to find some supporters to back him up. We weren’t too far behind him so we gave chase.
Talal’s A.I. was surprisingly smart and did everything he could to try and slow us down, including throwing people in our way. In fact he did such a good job that he actually managed to lose us and get away. In a normal game this would be where you get a game over, or the character just arbitrarily stops a few blocks away from you and waits for you to find him before he runs again. Not the case in Assassin’s Creed. Talal just kept running and searching until he had rounded up a decent posse and once he had, he started scouring the streets trying to find Altaïr. They met in a crowded city street. It was intense, but Altaïr managed to take down his mark. Unfortunately in doing so he alerted the guards and had to make a quick escape.
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