The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

http://youtu.be/MUKxGZyNnWc
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Time for Emilio's house of cards to literally start crumbling!

Setup
Watch the original video to see how to remove the front door of the palazzo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvPCx2sIYRg
After that, go to the herald to the west of the place. Move him by getting in a fight with a civilian. After you get him through the front door, the herald won't walk back to his original location.

There is no Spoon Assassination
This has to be done a certain way because of how different surfaces are modeled. The stairs in the palazzo disappear sooner than the flat surfaces (the floor at ground level doesn't disappear at all), plus Emilio disappears when you are about a hundred meters away. So the ideal time to TINS Emilio is when he is at the highest stairs (in other words, he dies from falling the height). Here is where the herald you previously moved comes in handy. Bribe him at the right time to teleport to his location. Since it's a little over ninety meters away, the stairs disappear instantly, and Emilio is TINSed. Keep in mind that if it weren't for the herald you wouldn't be able to get past the invisible memory walls surrounding the palazzo.

Failed Attempts
I originally thought this wouldn't be possible because of failed attempts. I moved the herald outside the palazzo, but then the scene wouldn't start! After finding a way to remove the front door, I tried moving the herald inside the palazzo, and now it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZvPCx2sIYRg
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Look at the title picture and guess what will happen.

Setup
When you start from the last checkpoint in the Emilio mission desynchronize a good distance away from where the map marker is (in the video it's nearly 160 meters away). When you spawn back there aren't any posted guards around the palazzo, and the front door is open. This is related to There is no Spoon type missions, with an object no longer being modeled in the game. Now you can just waltz in there instead of having to infiltrate from the roof.

Emilio Outside the Palazzo
After the cutscene stealthily kill all the guards in there (I also hide their dead bodies). Wait for the boat to arrive before going after Emilio. With the door missing you can drag him outside. Wait, doesn't that contradict what was later said about how Emilio died?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PhFRmuNjx-o#t=45s
Anyway, Emilio's AI is to escape on the boat, but there's a problem. The AI of characters still thinks the door is there, so he is turkey shooted. Now for a stylish assassination. Place Emilio by the well outside and jump from the highest point in the palazzo, one of the chimneys. This is A Hole in One, one of the most recent assassination styles (a deadly fall landing safely into a well). Afterwards there is the scene with the thieves, and of course Rosa opens the front door, despite it not being there.

Our featured member for July is 1001Human, also known as Gray. He's one of the founding members of THB (user number 24) who was gone for awhile but is starting to come around again. Gray holds the distinction of writing the first forum topic to ever be promoted to the front page. I hope he will stick around at least through AC3.

Tell me about the first time you played AC.

I remember it startlingly well. Christmas Morning 2008, after I'd received my Xbox and one game of my choosing. Popped it in while Mom and Dad went to the store to get eggs for breakfast. My brothers were still at their mother's house, so I was alone. Me, Altäir, and the Crusades. I played for about an hour and was totally mesmerized by the graphics and story, but above all the feel of a living and breathing city. There are games that do this better, but it was my first and totally blew me away.

What do you like most about the games?

The open world, as previously mentioned, and the story. I don't play games (90% of the time) JUST to kill or run around. I do love screwing around on any game, but there usually has to be a good story to tell or it won't hold my interest. I love both Ezio's and Altäir's individual struggles. Whether it's Altäir, already a master assassin, struggling to understand why he kills... Or Ezio, who knows why he kills, but has none of the skills (at first).

What AC accomplishment are you most proud of?

I haven't really accomplished much compared to others on the site but I'd have to go with getting a perfect no-death first place for three games in a row on Brotherhood multiplayer.

What is your favorite quote from the games?

"No, it's too soon. I'm not ready!"
"We rarely are. Che la morte non sia crudele. (Death be not unkind.) Requiescat in pace."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYq4IWr_CRA
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Early Death
After the Banker appears in the memory he walks to the party. He can be scared into running away. Chase after him for a good distance. When you get within a few meters he stops. The target is supposed to teleport in place for the scene, but since you are so far away from the scene location he doesn't (probably because the party area isn't modeled in the game from being so far away). Now the only way to kill him is moving him into water. He falls nearly two hundred meters. Here's the thing: If you get about sixty meters away from him horizontally you desynchronize with "target lost". There are probably a few reasons why that's so, but in any case you don't desynch directly from killing him, making it a successful Early Death.

A Hole in One
This took a long time to perform right. Start off by stealthily killing the guards in the area. Then throw their bodies to the ground below to lead to the well nearby.
Now place the target at ground level, as was shown in a previous video, where he can be lured by the dead bodies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq9j-ixTH2w
Having the target follow the bodies is tricky. He doesn't seem to notice some of them that much, might have to do with distance and object modeling (or he just takes too long to inspect the bodies). Now for the assassination. A fatally high jump from the top of the nearby pillar will have you safely land in the well to ledge assassinate the Banker. This is A Hole in One, loosely related to Eagle Strike.
It was pioneered by IanXO4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE-92iM7KiI
And used as an assassination style by Stabguy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3cP6atjiOA

Longshot
I had intended to lure the Banker using dead bodies, but instead chose the easier way of moving him. At the start of the assassination quickly stealth kill all guards that could expose you during the setup. For a short while the Banker is unresponsive and can't detect you. You can grab him without being exposed. Move him to the place shown and release him. You'll need to use a smoke bomb or two to keep him in place long enough to lock onto him. Quickly kill off the archers that can see you and lock onto the target. The distance you desynch at is sixty meters. There is a brief moment before you desynch, so you might succeed at sixty meters, but in this setup from where Ezio is standing the farthest distance the target got was fifty nine meters.

Stunt
At the beginning of the assassination quickly climb up the roof of the building and kill the archer. Then run off the corner and assassinate the target. If I remember right I got this the first time I tried it. But in this video it happened a little different. In the original try I landed right behind him. But in here I landed to the side of him (good thing I locked on). In both cases I got the stationary high profile animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=893anT8UDjA
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For the setup for Back to the Future on Majd Addin watch the original video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKrs0HyY7hg

Stunt
Thanks to the exploit the target walks away to the temple area. This gives a window of opportunity to stunt assassinate him anonymously. Now the ground in the execution area is on a low level, while the path Majd takes slopes upward. To get a sixteen block stunt (the highest amount of damage Altair can take without dying) you need to perform the stunt before the target goes up the stairs. There just so happens to be a beam from which you can lose sixteen blocks of health by jumping off of. You'll need to hurry though. Majd starts walking that way as soon as the scene ends. Luckily he's on the other side of the area, and the crowd might slow him a little. If you're fast enough you might have a few seconds to spare. I had to do this stunt a few times because of mistiming, but in the end it worked out well with a stationary kill animation. I also included the escape afterward.

http://youtu.be/fJlv36uWC8c
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A collection of additional assassinations in AC1, made possible by back to the future exploit.

Maria
Start this the same way as the original early assassination of Maria.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaikxWTUYVI
Reinitialize the memory by going through the city entrance in the south of Jerusalem. The game doesn't recognize Maria as a target anymore. Now there is no memory corridor scene, and Maria stays dead. It's probably possible to get an instant kill from this by taking out her health and talking to the bureau leader, but I didn't have enough time to record more.

Sibrand
Start this the same way as the original early assassination of Sibrand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tww7kpXiA8
Reinitialize the memory by going through the city entrance in the north part of Acre (there's also an entrance in the eastern part, but you desynch before getting there from the game thinking you already started the mission). Sibrand usually goes onto the docks and walks back and forth along them just like the guard patrol. He's unresponsive to you, but still reacts to seeing dead bodies (in the original Back to the Future assassination he can detect you and would run back to the ship to get to the guard tower). Now that the game doesn't recognize him as a target there's no memory corridor scene. You can also take out his health for an instant kill, but it isn't very interesting.

The Hidden Blade's featured member for June is Vhan Master. We first met on YouTube when Vhan would tell me what the AC characters were saying in Arabic. He didn't answer my interview question about greatest accomplishment but, to me, the translations he provided for my Linguist video are something to be proud of. Vhan was the inspiration for that video. He doesn't post here that often (except when he has some juicy info on AC3!) so it was nice to learn more about him.

Tell me about the first time you played AC.

My first time was with the Original AC. I had just bought a PS3 and among my first games I bought with it was this game called Assassin's Creed. At that time I had no idea what this game was about, only that it involved the Middle Ages and Assassins so when I first started the game you can imagine my surprise finding it is based in the present and past as well.

I remember playing through the night until I discovered it was morning already, and I had to leave for school in 15 minutes... xD
So you can see AC quickly sucked me in from the very start.

What do you like most about the games?

While the assassinations and Free running were fun and all I was fascinated most by the historic themes of the games, which is why I loved reading Shaun's Database entries when they were first introduced in ACII. That and Shaun's witty humor in 'em~

What is your favorite quote from the games?

Anything Shaun says~ xD

What would you like to change about AC?

Nothing really, though I wish for more options during Assassination attempts, each with their own pros and cons. You may go for a frontal Assault but with the danger of it causing a difficult Escape route with guards closing paths and forcing you to deal with your actions. Same for stealth, while slow and difficult to accomplish it will allow you a safe retreat or the very least a few minutes of confusion to slip out and meld into the crowds.

There shouldn't be a perfect way. All methods should bare a balance to not overthrow other methods and rather allow you to embrace your own preference and not force you into one solution. Plus the more creative they are the more fun it is.

http://youtu.be/boj32as8Iaw
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As the title says, a 16 block stunt, the highest amount of damage you can take from falling without dying. Made possible on Maria by reinitializing the memory to restart the assassination mission in a certain way.

Setup
Here are the original setups.
Glitching out of the city to reinitialize the memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKrs0HyY7hg
Results of Back to the Future with Maria.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaikxWTUYVI

Stunt Setup
The location in the video is a viewpoint close to the southern city entrance. Maria walks around randomly as a result of BTTF, but she usually walks around there. If she doesn't go directly to that area after leaving the cemetery, wait a little while. When she enters the area she may keep walking forward, which will lead her around the building with the viewpoint, or she may turn to the right and leave the area. Maria doesn't go much farther away than seventy meters, probably because areas aren't modeled in the game from far distances (so be patient and wait for her to come back).

Now for the stunt itself. The actual viewpoint tower won't work for a 16 block stunt. This is because the height for sixteen blocks of damage is right above a railing on the tower. Jumping from there will land you back onto the railing.

However what will work is the dome right next to the tower. It's about as high as the railing on the tower, and a wall run up the spike in the center top of the dome will give you the extra needed height (you may have trouble running up the dome sometimes). Just wait for Maria to walk in the right spot, about 10 or 11 meters away, when you start the wall run, then kick off and assassinate. It may be possible to get a stationary high profile kill, but I wasn't going to keep trying for it.

This little video was literally years in the making. Ian and I recorded 16-bar stunts (where you lose 16 bars of health - the maximum before death) on every target except Tamir. There were two big obstacles: having 16 bars of health to lose this early in the game (Memory Block 2), and designing a stunt on Tamir after he's been aggravated. You see there aren't any suitably high towers in the Souk.

http://youtu.be/2q1sUjuO5-A
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Early Death
The Borgia captain appears at the beginning of the memory, but memory walls prevent you from getting to him. So hire a group of mercenaries, get as far into the memory wall as you can without desynchronizing, and send the mercenaries on a patrol of guards that walk around that area when you get the chance. If they fight close enough to the Borgia captain, he will join the fight and hopefully get killed. An easier way to do this is to first start the mission. The memory wall is no longer there, but there is a distance limit from Machiavelli. Move him closer to the captain's location and run there (Machiavelli stops moving when you are a certain distance from him). Now you can kill the Borgia captain like you normally would during the mission.

Result of the Early Death
What happens if you kill the captain early? The game recognizes the Borgia captain getting killed, and you can complete the memory normally. After the cutscene prior to the assassination the next cutscene starts (exactly the way it happened in the video, none of that was edited).

Blitz
The fastest way to get the target as far as I know is to run directly to him. It's a bit harder that it looks in the video. First, there might be some civilians in the way, which messes up the blitz. The other hard part is at the end. You want to run in between the posted guard and the wall. Now for whether the blitz is anonymous. When I get to the target, his SSI arrow is completely red, but I still appear to be anonymous. During the kill animation the arrow disappears, but I'm detected. I think the blitz was anonymous.