Introduction
A warning appears that says “Inspired by historical events and characters. This work of fiction was designed, developed and produced by a multi cultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs.” Which is basically legalize for “I am not racist, I have lots of Muslim friends.”
Don’t push start!
We arrive at a sprawling and uniformly medieval city from viewpoint that is floating slowly over the city walls. An eagle flies from an executioner’s scaffolding and towards a man who is dressed in a hooded white moo moo, tuxedo tails, and a cummerbund that has been heavily bedazzled. He stands on the ledge of a church’s bell tower overlooking the end of the execution. The bell swings and the man is gone by the time it swings the other way.
When the bell tolls a second time the moo-moo-clad-man is stalking through the crowd pushing himself, quite rudely, to the front. When he gets there he readies the crossbow (that is strapped to his back) to shoot one guard before hooking the second one with the back of it. The third guard is killed not by the crossbow, but by a shiv that extends out of the man’s wrist.
Obviously pursued, moo-moo runs through the city and up onto the rooftop. Good move. He then makes a jumps off the roof and onto a guard. Dumb move. Now he is now on the same level as the guards and because it is a high-density city, he finds himself at a dead end. He is just in time, though, because the door behind him opens and a gaggle of monks, also clad in white, file out. With the guards confused by all the white, the man escapes.
We get to the title screen with the Assassin’s Creed logo that looks more like Jimmy Durante wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
The Start
The screen garbles the way high tech things do when they go wrong and we see the moo-moo man again. This time he is surrounded by faceless women and the background is swirling and blurry. A man and a woman argue over the whole experience and whether they should get him out of there. This is one of those great, surreal, “Being John Malcovich” moments that videogames are so adept at reproducing but are sadly rarely utilized.
There are no consequences in this dreamscape so you can do what I do when I find myself in such a situation which is to start punching indiscriminately. Just when it really becomes fun, the screen goes white and a man wakes up in Tom Hank’s apartment from Big.
The man, named Desmond, is flanked on either side by a man and a woman who reassure him that everything is going to be fine. The standing man has a grey beard so he must be a scientist and as the is the case with all scientists, he is recklessly testing the ethical boundaries of humanity but will get his comeuppance in a terrifyingly ironic way. The female is attractive and young so she will be sympathetic to the protagonist’s plight.
Desmond, still sitting on the table, accuses them of being bastards and then he yells at them for kidnapping him and strapping him to that “thing” which we soon find out is called the Animus. The man in the lab coat says that he has information that they need. In his own defense, Desmond says that he is a bartender and in effect knows nothing of value. Lab coat then says “you are an assassin” and Desmond says yes, “but I gave that up years ago” as if it were something you just stop doing like tennis or knitting.
Lab coat insists that the bartender lies down so they don’t have to induce a coma and force the memories out of him. The bartender agrees and the Animus machine starts up.
Before Desmond is reinserted into the Animus, the scientist is courteous enough to explain what is going on. Our ancestors’ memories are locked deep in our DNA. They are called “Genetic Memories” and the Animus allows a person to relive those buried memories. Desmond was kidnapped and had the red pill shoved down his throat because his ancestors participated in something that is very important to the doctor and his organization. The whole explanation is a bit long winded and would have gone over better if they just brought Mr. DNA to do the explaining.
Now that he knows the science of the device, Desmond accepts his fate and “jacks in” to the Animus.
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Assassin's Creed 
