2) Interfering With The Locals

We know what Al’s job is (check the title on the box if you’re at all unsure), but if you want to get a bit more topical, here’s a despicable little hobby you can try.

Using the assassin’s inherent ability to look at people wandering the streets, take a bit of time to analyse the crowd. Alongside the viable victims like guards and slave merchants and social workers, there are thousands of soft targets going about their ordinary lives without being assassinated at all. The cheek of it!

From the low roof tops you’ll soon start to see the everyday social and economic systems working the city streets. Stall keepers, beggars, women carrying jugs on their heads, common thuggery, mental patients, well off fat blokes, people wearing green, people wearing brown, lazy buggers loafing around on the park bench, mouthy preachers – there’s loads of them.

Choose one of these castes and show them your blade wielding talents. Standing around and fighting off a bunch of guards who are all spoiling for a bust up is one thing, but these folk will scatter like whippets on Red Bull. You’ll have to move like a greased pig-bitch on heat just to nail both the loafers on the park bench – once you do one of them, the other’s off like a ferret up a Yorkshireman’s trouser leg and disappears into the crowd.

The game takes on a whole new speed-platforming angle when these racing snakes run for their lives, so you’ll really have your parkour skills put to the test.

After this, you’ll definitely need some weak lemon drink.

Take away the swords and it’s basically a lot like West Side Story

3) Nuisance From Afar

Okay, so this isn’t so much an assassination task as an amusing way to spend a few mindless minutes.

Unlike today’s law enforcement officials, the guards in Assassin’s Creed are a bunch of witless gimps (ahem, ahem). Toying with their emotions is tremendous fun, and they’re brainless enough to keep coming back for more.

Alongside your rapidly emptying flask of weak lemon drink, you’ll also need to ensure Al is equipped with throwing knives for this hobby. Get tooled up by nicking the maximum number of knives and take to a low roof overlooking somewhere very busy and well guarded.

From your naughty vantage point, target a guard who’s as far away from you as possible, then whip a throwing knife into the back of his neck. Big Al never misses, and the dude will be dead before his turban hits the floor. Naturally this’ll send all the other guards into a very manly, yet confused, frenzy. Keeping yourself just out of view on the roof means they shouldn’t move far from their fallen comrade’s cooling corpse, and just as they’re about to give up and return to duty, chuck another knife into one of their backs.

These guys will not only remain in a tight bull’s eye formation, they’ll actually shout for nearby comrades to come and help them; providing you with more authoritarian throwing knife fodder with which to amuse yourself. Just to rub it in, when you’re out of knives, go pick pocketing among the pile of dead bodies to replenish your stock before heading back to your sniper’s lookout.

Sip casually upon your weak lemon drink between chuckling manically to yourself as yet another narc hits the floor.