The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Three new[*] assassination styles demonstrated from Galata Tower. All involve prolongued free fall and, in that sense, are loosely related to the Eagle Strike. Please watch the video first and then join me below the fold for the descriptions.

For May the featured member spotlight turns to Fed981, our resident expert on speedruns. He just celebrated his one year anniversary as a member of The Hidden Blade. It seems like yesterday that Fed showed up, talking about his latest conquest. At the time I think his "home base" was Speed Demos Archive. Eventually he came around and made THB his home. He chose wisely.

Tell me about the first time you played AC.

I saw the TV spot about AC2 and I decided to buy the game. Then I discovered a powerful assassin, in a very big area of gameplay. I was also surprised by the various ways to fight, from silent to stunt assassination, and by the immersive feeling.

What do you like most about the games?

What I like most is the progress during the game. I mean the memories/targets and the various ways the game wants you to realize/assassinate them. It's like an awesome movie. You want to know what will happen next and you're a part of it.

What AC accomplishment are you most proud of?

I'm most proud of the speedrun of AC2. The games are generally known for being quite long (a few dozens hours) but completing (and recording) AC2 in about 5 hours and 42 minutes is something amazing. It was also very pleasant to plan, find the shortest routes and prepare strategies for assassinations.

What is your favorite quote from the games?

In AC2 when Ezio kills Vieri de' Pazzi he doesn't tell him anything. Then Mario comes and say (in French) "Que la mort t'apporte le repos auquel tu aspires. Requiescat in pace." (Let death bring to you the rest you would like, or something like this). This sentence shows all the respect of the assassins for anyone, even for their targets.

http://youtu.be/WChyupk-afE
[Front-paged. -stabguy]

Losing City Alert
A new easy setup for restarting an assassination mission. Put simply, desynchronize while autosaving. Why? Because while desynching you aren't under city alert. And since the game records you being under city alert why wouldn't it keep track that you're not? The way I did it was fall into water after talking to a saved citizen, but there are probably other ways. After respawning you no longer have city alert and can reinitialize the memory by going through one of the city gates. Now the fun begins.

Tamir's Early Death
As a result of Back to the Future Exploit, Tamir walks around randomly after accepting the mission. He can still detect you, and the memory corridor scene can be started. One thing to also note is Tamir spawns back at the assassination location when you get within a certain area of it. So what happens if he spawns back while you assassinate him? You appear at the prestaged location, which also contains the character Tamir kills in the cutscene.

Instant Kill
Reinitialize the memory by going through one of the city gates. Since Tamir is no longer recognized as a target by the game, taking out his health won't result in the memory corridor scene. Then talk to the bureau leader to restart the mission. Afterwards Altair teleports to kill because the game recognizes Tamir as a target. Tamir was killed in the place where the assassination takes place, and from that far away he glitched under the ground. Now Altair is stuck in limbo, spawning where he killed the target.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUX0ywBguqM
[Front-paged by stabguy]

Setup
To start this glitch out of the city and restart the assassination mission. Here's the original video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKrs0HyY7hg
By restarting the mission this way you change the mission structure. The game still thinks you have to assassinate Majd even though you haven't started the assassination cutscene yet. However Majd is nowhere to be found. You can still hear his voice, though, and the target sign on the map is fixed where Majd should be on stage. So go to one of the city entrances to reinitialize the memory. Go back to the execution area. Majd Addin is somehow there. The first time I did this he was walking out of the area, but every time I try it now he is glitched under the stage (seriously, what's up with me getting extremely lucky the first time?!). This is because the game can't model objects from far distances away, and they disappear, a technique known as "There is no Spoon" (or "TINS" for short).
Luckily, Majd isn't unresponsive and can fight you. If he does a combo kill he glitches out. Killing him will result in a non-story assassination with no memory corridor scene.

Instant Kill
I wanted to see what would happen if you took out the target's health without assassinating him, and then restarted the mission. And to make it better I took out his health on the bureau entrance. Well, as you can see, the game recognized him as a target and teleported Altair for the kill. I also tried taking out his health in the execution area to see what would happen. The cutscene seems to have started during the kill and ended. All the HUD elements disappeared and didn't reappear until I desynchronized. The invisible memory barriers during the scene were still there, which I had to glitch out of. One thing I also tried was leaving Majd alive and restarting the mission, but he disappeared. Too bad, I wanted to see what would happen if I had managed to clone him.

The Eagle Strike at San Marco Campanile was missed, so i found a way to remedy it

The Assassination Contract i used there is "Zero Tolerance", it seems the only one where you're free to move around the target, and it's the closest to San Marco (still 250+ meters).

There isn't much to explain there, i just grabbed the target without being detected, and moved him near the San Marco Campanile, at the west side. A smoke bomb to freeze him was not needed, the target was already unresponsive because of the waypoint separation.
This Eagle Strike required a manual aim, otherwise Ezio would automatically jump in one of the 3 haystacks.

I was thinking to make an Eagle Strike from the highest point of Constantinople after the Galata Tower, and I thought about Hagia Sophia towers, that seems the highest towers of all districts (perhaps they're equal to the ones at Fatih Mosque).

I think the Master Assassin mission "The Deacon, Part 2" is the best mission to do it, because you are free to do anything you want with the target before kill him. As i wrote in the video (at 00:35), the Deacon can't be killed by anyone except by Ezio.

So, to get rid of the assassin recruit you have 2 ways:

1st: Attract a group of guards in the conflict (01:40) and wait that your recruit is killed by them (you'll not get desync).

2nd (the one i did here): if your assassin is still alive and he keep fighting the Deacon, just leave the area and come back, and both of them will be freezed (02:42).

After that, you are free to place the Deacon anywhere you like, and kill him.

Since the Hagia Sophia towers are full of haystacks i took a while to find a good position to make the ES, then follow exactly my movements to success in the jump.

I'm pleased to announce that our featured member for April is Slembroccoli. In the year that he has been a member his infrequent posts have been insightful and well reasoned. When Slembroccoli has something to say, I take notice. He has only posted two videos as separate topics, one of which was front-paged (try to guess before reading "AC accomplishment" below). Before doing this interview I really didn't know much about Slembroccoli, other than he doesn't check his messages.

Tell me about the first time you played AC.

I saw a friend of mine play ACII while we were at a LAN. As soon as I saw the white robed man climb a tower hundreds of meters above ground in San Gimignano, I knew that I wanted to do the same.

Unfortunately, I didn't start off with the first game, as my friends told me it wasn't any good. I can see now in the aftermath, that I was wrong.

I spent hours figuring out what to do as Ezio in Florence, so I decided to spend my time with robbing people. LMAO!

What do you like most about the games?

The fact that you can do whatever you like.

When I have spare time, I just run around in the cities, trying to avoid conflict. And you always notice new details in the cities while wandering around, which I find very nice.

Of course the story is also very good; it's like a mix of all religions mixed together in an exciting conspiracy theory.

[Front-paged by stabguy]

Click the spoiler to read my thoughts. You really have to watch the video first, though.

http://youtu.be/c9kzPis1J68
[Front-paged. -stabguy]

Since this mission is scripted there aren't much creative opportunities. Here's a small variety pack.

Fists Only Assassination
For those of you unfamiliar with Eagles Bruise it's the technique where you kill people in the game using only your fists, unless you have to use another weapon. Because of how the mission is designed it seems as though the only way to first kill the target is with an air assassination, but from a pillar you can jump in front of the target and knock him out with your fists instead. I also use fists against the archers beforehand. For those of you wondering how to defeat him with fists during the fight there is a technique known as thief bash (countersteal + punch).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p227XZAXgE&feature=player_detailpage

Fast Easy Fight
Some of you might wonder how to defeat the target fast during the fight. Here are two ways:
1. Go to the roof of the building outside the fighting area. It's high enough that characters will die from the fall. So knock Shahkulu off when you have the chance. If any of the guards get in your way grab them while holding a weapon to quickly kill them.
2. Go to the same roof. When Shahkulu climbs up drop down and ledge assassinate him. As you can see I got lucky as the target was the first to climb up.

Weapon in Scene Glitch
You are able to have a weapon unsheathed during the memory corridor scene and the scene that follows. I show one of two ways to do this:
1. Unsheath a weapon when you reach the platform from which you air assassinate Shahkulu. Select hidden blades and quickly air assassinate before you sheath the weapon. After the air assassination Ezio seems to sheath the weapon, but it is unsheathed in the scene (perhaps he doesn't sheath it all the way?). I've had one time where it didn't work, could either have been based on chance or on the type of weapon.
2. Another way would be to air assassinate like normal and select the weapon. Ezio unsheathes it before the memory corridor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEvivSJ3l7w
[Front-paged. stabguy]

This is the only time I managed to get away with killing Tarik without desynchronizing.

Early Death
During the last scene when tailing Tarik the game won't recognize him as a tailed target. You have an extremely short moment before the scene starts to kill him. Here are two examples: An air assassination, which leaves behind a large bloodstain; and throwing a large or heavy weapon, which stays in him during the scene. The result of being killed and reanimated for a scene is "dead standing up". Afterwards he disappears. I tried this for the scene before this one, but it desynchronized right after he scene.