Assassin's Creed

Gabeed

New member
Finn said:
It's not like they'd even heard about CCTV or modern police procedure in the Holy Land... plus those were violent times.

:confused:

Just because the Crusades era was violent doesn't mean there wasn't the basics of law and order in a given city, or the proper reactions to an Assassin attack.

The actual Hashishin were feared because you never knew when they would strike. They actually used disguises, which is why they managed to weave their way into the immediate vicinity of their targets, despite the number of guards.

But on the other hand, in the game, we have a character who openly wears tons of weapons (as you said), but in addition seems to immediately be recognized as soon as he gets into a fight, with the guards yelling about their being an Assassin attack. Given this, no doubt the targets would change their schedule a bit, or at the very least double the guard to ensure some extra protection. But in this game, there's none of that. You can kill 50 guards and litter the streets with bodies, but Tamir will still go to that busy marketplace in Damascus. Yes, a couple targets somewhat "trap" you, but there's no consequences for your actions in the city outside of getting killed.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Gabeed said:
Just because the Crusades era was violent doesn't mean there wasn't the basics of law and order in a given city, or the proper reactions to an Assassin attack.
I didn't say it was an anarchy. Simply referring to the fact that while our desires to stab five or so guys to death in a public place in these modern times is kind of hindered by the fact it'd get our face in every news bulletin from here to the next town. In 12th century Jerusalem however, it might be a lot easier to vanish among the million or so other residents after what seems like a random act of kindness. Besides, if a bunch of guards get attacked by a guy in a white robe, how does that give them enough evidence to deduce that he must be there for the Templar Master or whoever?

It's flimsy at best, I know, but fleeing the scene and hitting a hay stack to evade pursuit is still miles more believeable than say, shooting a bunch of cops dead in a GTA game and then have them think "oh, okay, back to the office" five seconds after you hit the spray shop. Though any gamer who actual wishes to enjoy the game eventually learns to shut such leaps in logic out of his mind. Thanks to the setting, AC actually makes it easy.

Gabeed said:
The actual Hashishin were feared because you never knew when they would strike. They actually used disguises, which is why they managed to weave their way into the immediate vicinity of their targets, despite the number of guards.
Isn't this what you're pretty much doing over the story missions? Perhaps excluding the disguises, but still.

Gabeed said:
But on the other hand, in the game, we have a character who openly wears tons of weapons (as you said), but in addition seems to immediately be recognized as soon as he gets into a fight, with the guards yelling about their being an Assassin attack. Given this, no doubt the targets would change their schedule a bit, or at the very least double the guard to ensure some extra protection. But in this game, there's none of that. You can kill 50 guards and litter the streets with bodies, but Tamir will still go to that busy marketplace in Damascus. Yes, a couple targets somewhat "trap" you, but there's no consequences for your actions in the city outside of getting killed.
The setting of AC actually amends this as well since you're not actually playing as Altair or Ezio per se, but as Desmond exploring his ancestors' memories. Which means that in between the key missions you're not in fact following a linear sequence, but simply traversing between points of hitting the next memory. So even if you decide to kill those fifty guards in free-roam mode, it's not what actually happened.

Besides, have you forgotten, while Tamir or those other early targets don't avoid the souk or close the hospital even if there is a guy in white pulling a murder spree in the city, later in the game you actually have to kill a guy who is truly paranoid and seeing assassins everywhere, wondering if his number is coming up next (which it is). So it's not like they completely avoid Altair gaining notoriety either.

Still, it's a game, and one that has you do tons of crazy stuff like those leaps of faith, any of which would if not kill you then at least break your back if you tried them in reality. The plot in itself has ancient conspiracies and ancestral memories. It never even tries to act like it falls on 'mundane' in the Sliding Scale of Realistic vs. Fantastic. (Yeah, that really is a great site.)
 

Gabeed

New member
Finn said:
I didn't say it was an anarchy. Simply referring to the fact that while our desires to stab five or so guys to death in a public place in these modern times is kind of hindered by the fact it'd get our face in every news bulletin from here to the next town. In 12th century Jerusalem however, it might be a lot easier to vanish among the million or so other residents after what seems like a random act of kindness. Besides, if a bunch of guards get attacked by a guy in a white robe, how does that give them enough evidence to deduce that he must be there for the Templar Master or whoever?

It's flimsy at best, I know, but fleeing the scene and hitting a hay stack to evade pursuit is still miles more believeable than say, shooting a bunch of cops dead in a GTA game and then have them think "oh, okay, back to the office" five seconds after you hit the spray shop. Though any gamer who actual wishes to enjoy the game eventually learns to shut such leaps in logic out of his mind. Thanks to the setting, AC actually makes it easy.


The only reason AC makes it easy is because you don't actually have to do the silly missions where you rescue some pushed-around woman from a couple of guards. In any case, though, the Assassins are a recognizable faction in the game, and you are recognized as an Assassin (not an assassin/common murderer) when you **** off the guards in some way. While perhaps the target himself would not know of his impending doom, an Assassin sighting, historically, was a big deal, which is precisely why we have accounts of Assassin attacks, and know which attacks were done by Assassins and not just some disgruntled guy. These guys were feared, and it's not unreasonable to expect some kind of response to such a sighting.

Finn said:
Isn't this what you're pretty much doing over the story missions? Perhaps excluding the disguises, but still.

What I'm trying to say is that historically, they didn't kill anyone until they got to their target. Then they would commonly fight the guards to the death after stabbing said target. I realize for gameplay purposes it's better to fight some guards beforehand, a big part of being an assassin is stealth, and killing a bunch of guards in a marketplace for the awkwardly chivalric notion of saving some poor soul is off-mark. One could take the finale of the AC1, where you're just straight-on swordfighting a bunch of guys, as another example of the devs shoehorning in more "parryparryparryparryparry counter-attack parryparryparryparry counter-attack" fight scenes rather than some actual stealth.

Finn said:
The setting of AC actually amends this as well since you're not actually playing as Altair or Ezio per se, but as Desmond exploring his ancestors' memories. Which means that in between the key missions you're not in fact following a linear sequence, but simply traversing between points of hitting the next memory. So even if you decide to kill those fifty guards in free-roam mode, it's not what actually happened.

While its true that an undetermined amount of time occurs between your information-gathering memory and your actual assassination memory, you can still, in the assassination memory, kill a bunch of guards in the street en route and your target (and other guards) will be none the wiser. City watches were a bit more coherent than that. They weren't just armed bullies aimlessly roving the street. While means of communication were slower, the paradigm of "oh, it was violent then" just isn't an appropriate explanation in a city and market that has been functioning for several thousands of years like Damascus.

I think what I'm essentially getting at (besides that Altair's costume needed to hide those weapons better) is that Assassin's Creed could have used an alarm system a la Splinter Cell or the Thief series, so while killing an archer on a isolated roof or tower is fine, if you kill some guards in the middle of a crowded street, and if some other, nearby guards are warned, a bell would be rung or something and it would be harder to succeed at your task (guards would be doubled, or whatnot). I don't know if this concept is in AC2 or not, but it would be something for Eidos to really consider for the future.
 
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Montana Smith

Active member
Are these the assassins inspired by Hasan i Sabah, the Old Man of the Mountain? Those young men whom he convinced, under the influence of hashish, to undertake assassinations (in which they themselves were expected to die), in return for a place in Heaven?
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Gabeed said:
The only reason AC makes it easy is because you don't actually have to do the silly missions where you rescue some pushed-around woman from a couple of guards. In any case, though, the Assassins are a recognizable faction in the game, and you are recognized as an Assassin (not an assassin/common murderer) when you **** off the guards in some way. While perhaps the target himself would not know of his impending doom, an Assassin sighting, historically, was a big deal, which is precisely why we have accounts of Assassin attacks, and know which attacks were done by Assassins and not just some disgruntled guy. These guys were feared, and it's not unreasonable to expect some kind of response to such a sighting.

What I'm trying to say is that historically, they didn't kill anyone until they got to their target. Then they would commonly fight the guards to the death after stabbing said target. I realize for gameplay purposes it's better to fight some guards beforehand, a big part of being an assassin is stealth, and killing a bunch of guards in a marketplace for the awkwardly chivalric notion of saving some poor soul is off-mark. One could take the finale of the AC1, where you're just straight-on swordfighting a bunch of guys, as another example of the devs shoehorning in more "parryparryparryparryparry counter-attack parryparryparryparry counter-attack" fight scenes rather than some actual stealth.
I agree with these two points. The game certainly could be better in these (and many other) areas, and I think I did call it flawed goods. And while the game could be historically more accurate (it sports even some anachronisms with the cityscapes - for example the Great Mosque of Jerusalem or the main cathedral in Acre were not finished by the time game takes place), I, as a gamer, still tend to treat these things as Acceptable Breaks from Reality (yes, you can find an article about that too in... you-know-where) especially since the game has tons of other fantastical stuff.

And even if you stop to help a random beggar unlucky enough to get caught, I can personally still suspend my disbelief while knowing that in reality, perhaps this pile of bodies here would kind of hinder a future stage of my operation. But as I said... it's still a game.


Gabeed said:
While its true that an undetermined amount of time occurs between your information-gathering memory and your actual assassination memory, you can still, in the assassination memory, kill a bunch of guards in the street en route and your target (and other guards) will be none the wiser. City watches were a bit more coherent than that. They weren't just armed bullies aimlessly roving the street. While means of communication were slower, the paradigm of "oh, it was violent then" just isn't an appropriate explanation in a city and market that has been functioning for several thousands of years like Damascus.
Actually, any time you spend traversing the city is considered as Desmond's iteration of what happened to Altair/Ezio. Yes, even the times when you leave the Bureau after receiving the feather and head for the mission location is considered this. You're only "in synch" with your ancestor when the actual assassination memory starts (read: cutscene kicks in). Now when I think of it, the first game might have been a little vague with that. The second makes this clear, it's actually stated out loud. Your controllers outside the Animus can and will actually speak to you (or Desmond) as long as you're outside an actual mission/memory. And those main missions, in both games, are usually built in a way that encourages you to be stealthy and assassin-like 'til you get to your target. Sure, it also allows you to enter a huge swordfight with the target, all guards and their uncles involved, but it's simply the choice given to you as a gamer.

Of course, this whole concept can be seen as a justification and Lampshade Hanging (trope it) for these very game mechanics that are being griped about. Desmond actually quips in one secquence in the second game that he appreciates the subtitle option they added to the updated Animus (the first game didn't have any).

Gabeed said:
I don't know if this concept is in AC2 or not, but it would be something for Eidos to really consider for the future.
It's not, and I doubt Eidos could do very little for it, since the series developer is Ubisoft.


And heh... who said we couldn't get into a lengthy debate about games without a dedicated video game section?
 

Gabeed

New member
Yeah, I can handle the few historical inaccuracies as long as the game has the feel of historicity--which it largely succeeds at despite my small gripes above.

Oh, I forgot the thus far unmentioned gripe that Acre completely lacks the cosmopolitan feel of Jerusalem and is almost completely European-looking. That was a bit irksome, but I'm just nitpicking.

Finn said:
It's not, and I doubt Eidos could do very little for it, since the series developer is Ubisoft.

Bah, of course, Eidos is the maker of the Thief series, not AC.

Finn said:
And heh... who said we couldn't get into a lengthy debate about games without a dedicated video game section?


:hat:
 

DiscoLad

New member
Finn said:
And heh... who said we couldn't get into a lengthy debate about games without a dedicated video game section?

Im still looking for that smilie that isn't smiling with the rolling eyes...:)
 

DiscoLad

New member
Just No man. Dead Rising can't touch anything...

Wait you meant 2. Eh... I don't know, but they definately make that look much more appealing than AC3.(y)

Oh and guys.... Fable III in 3 days!
 

DiscoLad

New member
Lonsome_Drifter said:
I'd rather play the old-school Resident Evil games.
I'm not a fan of sandbox games with time limits.

I love sandbox but putting a time limit on something the way DR did was such a cut down...
Really did hurt the game...
But Yeah RE4 for life. (y)
 

Nurhachi1991

Well-known member
Well sorry the military was coming in 72 hours..... I liked the time limit it made it feel alot more realistic cause you were like oh *** am I gonna make it?!
 

Gabeed

New member
The best survival horror game I've played is probably Amnesia: the Dark Descent. It's a game that actually remembers that the "horror" part of "survival horror" is important and doesn't mean just killing zombies with a large array of weapons.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
All I can conclude from the film adaption is producer Frank Marshall was nostalgic for his Airbender adaptation and wanted to again make something expensive, pointless and forgettable.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Moedred said:
All I can conclude from the film adaption is producer Frank Marshall was nostalgic for his Airbender adaptation and wanted to again make something expensive, pointless and forgettable.
If you wish to know why, I just recently broke down the reason for that.

Basically, it's a movie adaptation that's in direct continuity with the game series and entirely faithful to it... and that's why it's nothing to write home about.


The backstory and lore in this particular series is down right asinine. The first game alone had people wondering what was the point of those present-day segments, and since then said backstory has done nothing but jumped a procession of sharks - and nuked a few fridges on top of that, for good measure.

At this point, the whole larger story is nothing but an excuse plot to have the player playing a virtual, albeit more stab-happy-than-usual tourist in whatever city the devs have chosen to recreate in a seemingly randomly selected historical period.

But hey, as long as it lets me do exactly that... I'm game.


Take that away, however, and just leave me to contend with that sorry excuse of a plot, and nothing but... then, well, checking the result out is going to be just a couple of ranks above "having sex with a cheese grater" on my things-to-do list.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Full disclosure, as a Mason I'm probably not the target audience for this of From Hell. (Sadly The Lost Symbol will never take a different approach on screen.)

Plotwise though, he mostly seeks the MacGuffin in VR, facing no conflict except from the many anti-Assassins who freely roam the complex living at their hosts' great expense. All claims about what the MacGuffin does and what each side wants are purely theoretical. When he gets it, the film abruptly cuts to 15 minutes of credits.
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
I haven't seen the film, but I just went and read a plot synopsis on Wikipedia.


First, it's not really VR, it's... complicated.

Second, that MacGuffin really is bad news. The... games... have shown that plenty of times.

Oh, lordy. So, the movie really doesn't even try to be a standalone? In order to make any sense of it, it simply assumes the viewer has played the games... which at this point means six or seven huge open-world titles that can be serious time sinks. Seriously. Even if the lore behind the story wasn't as bad as it is, that'd still be pretty gosh darn infuriating film-making.


I just began to feel plenty sorry for everyone who's seen this in theater and is not a fan of the franchise, for the wasted time and money. And slightly less sorry for those who just saw it somewhere else, for the wasted time. Sounds like this thing should wear a warning label at the top of the titles and on the posters. Something like, "ATTN: Only watch this if you're a fan of the games and have played them all. If you are not, there are better things you can do with this time. Like playing those games. Or having sex with a cheese grater."
 
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