Cracked.com continues to rule
So I missed the boat on Assassin's Creed. It came out in 2007, while I was probably still being obsessed with the Fallout franchise. And the more I heard about it, the more annoyed I became, thinking that there was no way a game centered on just going out and murdering people would hold my interest. It seemed, by title alone (judging book by cover), to have taken the worst parts of games, and centered on that.Years passed by. Then I see this video from Cracked. (if you want to skip to the parts concerning AC, skip to 3:05)
Now I haven't played the majority of the games Michael Swaim's talking about, but I have played many of the Prime Games: Super Mario 64, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Fallout, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Call of Duty, and Portal.
King's Quest, Michael. Yes. Thank you.
Incidentally, I also missed the boat on Batman: Arkham Asylum, Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,
So I bought Assassin's Creed. Played it for the first time last night. It is indeed a prime game.
The first thing the game teaches you in the opening tutorial, and the first thing you quickly learn to have to work around, is how to move around the people, the NPCs (non-player-characters). If you're running full speed, you'll smack into someone, and hard. It makes a really uncomfortable sound, and you and the NPC go tumbling. Not only can you not interfere with them, you have to follow social custom. If one of the many, many villagers in the opening game environment see you climbing on buildings and running around too fast, they'll comment on it. "What's wrong with him?" And you have a sort of gauge like the GTA star system indicating your "wanted level," but in AC it's more like a "how weird and dangerous you're seeming to the general public and the guards" level.
Right away, I saw that I had been carrying the wrong impression about AC. Ubisoft took what worked about Grand Theft Auto III—and I say GTAIII because that was the first in-public, open-world game I ever played, where you could actually interact with random NPCs, though it usually involved straight up murdering (talking to them became a thing with GTA:SA)—Ubisoft took one big thing that worked for the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and put you in a public space.
That feels cool to me. I like RPGs because going into towns and talking to people makes the game feel more like real life. In AC, they amped that up to 11, and it's what makes the game immediately exhilarating and immersive.
Your PC (player character) is set in a Middle Eastern city during the Crusades. There is a steady stream of NPCs walking through every alley and walkway, and if you don't hold a certain button, you'll end up pushing some of them and causing a ruckus. Social custom plays a big part in how you must interact with the people. You must follow their creed, hence the title. You're also a part of a guild of soldier assassins, and you must also follow their creed. The main character has a lot to learn in this area. At least if I'm playing him. Maybe I didn't have to try to kill that dude? It set off a string of bad stuff.
When the game starts off, there's a sort of disclaimer that says the game was made by a series of developers from differing backgrounds, religious and otherwise. It's a smart way to say, 'This game is going to deal with some sensitive subjects, but we were careful to treat them all respectfully.'
And that's what you get from AC, an experience respectful to culture, history, and the player.
