Assassin's Creed is a sandbox style action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. The game was released for Xbox 360 and PS3 in November 2007 and for PC in April 2008. The game centers around use of a machine dubbed the "Animus", which allows its user to view the genetic memories of his or her ancestors, specifically a bartender named Desmond Miles. As Desmond relives the memories of one of his ancestors, the Assassin Altar Ibn-La'Ahad who lived in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade, details of a battle between two ancient sects, the Knights Templar and the Assassins, emerge as both scour for an artifact known only as a "Piece of Eden". The game received primarily positive reviews, for both its story and its gameplay, and received several awards at the 2006 E3. In November 2009, Assassin's Creed II was released as a sequel. Assassin's Creed is a non-linear action-adventure video game during which the player controls Altar, whose life is experienced through the Animus by Desmond Miles. The overall goal of the game is to rise through the ranks of the Assassins Brotherhood by carrying out a series of assassination missions ordered by the leader of the Order, Al Mualim. In doing so, Altar travels from Masyaf to cities in the Holy Land, specifically, Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus. Upon arrival in any of the cities, Altar must locate an agent of the Brotherhood who will provide a safe house and basic knowledge of the target. It is up to Altar to perform additional intelligence gathering via eavesdropping, interrogation, meeting with informers and fellow assassins, and gathering important items. It is only after Altar has gathered enough information that he can safely and successfully carry out the assassination. After successfully completing assassinations, Altar returns to the Brotherhood and is rewarded with a better weapon and then given another set of targets. While performing the necessary missions, Desmond must direct Altar to high points in the city to further synchronize the memories which maps out the city that he is currently located in. Other side quests include tracking and killing Templars, flag collecting, and saving citizens who are being threatened by city guards. Altar needs to carry out most of his missions without being noticed by officials. The game uses the Alertness Level Meter to inform the player of how noticeable Altar is to the surrounding individuals, including the guards. Performing certain actions at certain times may or may not raise the local area's awareness level. If an area is on high alert, all citizens will run and scatter in various directions as guards chase and attempt to bring down Altar. To reduce the alertness level, Altar must break the guards' line of sight, find a hiding place or blend in with wandering scholars (who coincidentally are dressed similar to Altar) or with citizens sitting on benches To conduct many of the assassinations and various other tasks, Altar is capable of both high and low profile commands, both of which affect the alertness level. Low profile commands will allow Altar to blend into crowds, hide, and use Altar's hidden blade to attempt quiet and low profile assassinations. High profile commands increase alertness at a greater level and include free running, attacking foes, and high profile assassination attempts. Health in the game is measured as the level of synchronization between Desmond and Altar's memories. When Altar is injured, it is experienced as a deviation from the actual memory that occurred and synchronization decreases. If there is complete de-synchronization, the current memory that Desmond is experiencing ends and restarts at the last checkpoint. If complete synchronization is obtained, Desmond as Altar is able to use "Eagle Vision", which has the Animus highlight all visible characters in the current setting in specific colors depending on their status (friend, foe, target). Because Altar's memories are being rendered by a computer, "glitches" may often be experienced with nucleotides and error messages appearing. Such glitches can be used to help identify targets and if the player reacts quickly enough, may be used to provide other vantage points during the cut-scene.