Assassin's Creed II story... Oh come on! (Verbose ranting and spoilers within.)
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If I remember correctly the whole of WWII was a fake, not just operation Barbarossa.JWRosser said:
I thought it was rather brilliant. I mean, if the Animus is just a recording of your Desmond's memories, how could he, the descendant and user, be directly addressed by someone in the memory? That kind of crazy breaking of the 4th wall of the story within the story, bringing them together I thought was remarkably bold. And the way she says it, directly at the camera, is so obviously addressing not only Desmond but also the player.Zhukov said:
One could say it was perhaps inelegant, but I would say it was definitely powerful.
As an aside, the more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to think that Desmond is devoid of strong characterisation so as the player can imagine themselves as him. A bit like Gordon Freeman, Master Chief and some other faceless, silent protagonists. (Yeah, I'm aware Chief talks and Freeman has a face, but you know what I mean).
Goddamn it, can someone explain to me what's so great about Bioshock's story? It was good, but fuck, it wasn't that good. Assassin's Creed's story was better in my opinion.
OT, I liked it personally. Except for the whole 2012 bullshit. That's just annoying at this point, but I can't complain. I love conspiracy stories.
OT, I liked it personally. Except for the whole 2012 bullshit. That's just annoying at this point, but I can't complain. I love conspiracy stories.
Ezio gets "his" ending. He beats up Rodrigo Borgia and decides to spare him, saying that he's done with killing and all that. It's fairly obvious that whatever was in the vault was going to be stuff for Desmond and the gang, because the map at the end of 1 was a map for Abstergo. The pieces of Eden are parts of the history plots, but their outcomes always relevant to the present day plot.Zhukov said:
Unless you mean the credits ending, where the modern day assassins get under attack and Desmond shows off his new skills. Then Vidic shows up, gets his ass kicked, then they leg it to a new safe house? Cos that was pretty nifty if you ask me.
Unless you mean "Why didn't Ezio just kill Rodrigo and be done with it?", which is a fair enough point. But then we wouldn't be getting Brotherhood. And Brotherhood looks f'in badass.
A game that is based on a premise like the existence of the Animus machine already screams sci-fi, so this shouldn't really be that surprising.
Also, I don't think they are "aliens" so much as a species that came before. They wouldn't have died off if they had a spacefaring capability, which, imho, makes it more interesting.
Also, I don't think they are "aliens" so much as a species that came before. They wouldn't have died off if they had a spacefaring capability, which, imho, makes it more interesting.
I reacted in an identical fashion. I even decoded the binary bit at the end of the truth, hoping that it'd say something other than "EDEN." Suffice to say, people three counties over herd a strange noise that day, like a man saying "DER" loud enough to shatter glass.
As far as why they seemed so agile, they actually didn't seem that agile in the context of everything ezio and altair had been doing the entire series.
Basically "Holy shit. Aliens bred humans as slave labor that eventually revolted, creating the first ASSASSINS. Wow, so deep brah. The aliens, of course, left and decided to leave messages for Blandy McBlanderson by the most convoluted of means that isn't actually possible. All while their toys passed through the hands of everyone responsible for any big advancement of technology or had any amount of power. So technology is evil too. Wow, thats not hypocritical at all ubisoft. Oh, by the way, thanks for cutting all of the interesting bits out of the game to sell to us later. I was really looking forward to slap-fighting a pope for 15 minutes."
As far as why they seemed so agile, they actually didn't seem that agile in the context of everything ezio and altair had been doing the entire series.
Basically "Holy shit. Aliens bred humans as slave labor that eventually revolted, creating the first ASSASSINS. Wow, so deep brah. The aliens, of course, left and decided to leave messages for Blandy McBlanderson by the most convoluted of means that isn't actually possible. All while their toys passed through the hands of everyone responsible for any big advancement of technology or had any amount of power. So technology is evil too. Wow, thats not hypocritical at all ubisoft. Oh, by the way, thanks for cutting all of the interesting bits out of the game to sell to us later. I was really looking forward to slap-fighting a pope for 15 minutes."
That would be because the race which came before humans created them as slaves, IIRC. Not aliens, just the original inhabitants of the earth. Which, incidentally, does a fairly neat job of explain why Desmond's ancestors are all assassins, and why they appear augmented and have greater strength, speed etc than normal humans. Plus, eagle vision, though I get the feeling that was added in the first game (despite being useless) and then retconned in the second into being one of the ancestral traits.Zhukov said:
Nope!Zhukov said:
Again, nope.Zhukov said:
Wait, you took the reveal of the metaplot to completely invalidate the main plot? Huh. The Big Reveal with Minerva lasted, what, two minutes? Three? It hardly "sidelined" Ezio's storyline, it just put it aside for a moment as part of the ongoing (and frankly far more interesting) overarching story. Not that I disliked Ezio's story, but I never forgot that Ezio was not the player character: he was just Desmond's avatar.Zhukov said:
Frankly, nothing needs to be said to defend it. It defends itself perfectly well. Assassin's Creed is Desmond's story, of Assassins vs Templars, and we only visit certain historical periods because the modern day combatants need to see them or to gain information from them. Does that make playing as Altair or Ezio any less fun? Certainly not. Does it make us care about their stories less? Nope. However, it should be kept in mind that the series' major plotline is not about these characters. It's actually an incredibly deep story that incorporates historical figures from every era, assigning them to one team or other and interpreting their actions with that in mind.Zhukov said:
It remains an excellent game, and manages to attach a sequel hook that will bring players back to find out the truth even if the game is set hundreds of years after the plotlines from Ezio's story are dead and buried. Now that's clever writing.
I agree with you. BioShock did have a pretty cool backstory and all, I loved hearing about the downfall of Rapture, but the game's plot left me pretty cold.Julianking93 said:
What puzzles me is, if Ezio is "done with killing", why does he then spend Brotherhood (or the intervening time, I don't recall) rebuilding an order of assassins?!Danzaivar said:
Missed the point a little there, didn't ya?Cynical skeptic said:
No, they didn't seem agile compared to Ezio and Altair. They did seem agile compared to, say, guards or beggars or merchants or any other non-assassin human. Maybe this is because the assassins are people who retain some of the special abilities of the couple we see in the video? Hence it, y'know, running in families and them all having special abilities?
Though Ezio's story was certainly less original, I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than the meta narrative. I thought it was an acceptable framing device, but that was it. However the end didn't bother me too much, because I got Ezio's story nicely wrapped up for the most part. I'm quite looking forward to Brotherhood actually, he was a pretty good character. Desmond was boring as hell.
Have you seen the gameplay trailer for the first 10 minutes or so of Brotherhood?SonicWaffle said:
The popes private army shows up and sacks Monterrigoni, killing Uncle Mario in the process. He also gets shot through the shoulder, which I assume has him out of order for a while.
This next bit is conjecture, but I'd wager his thought process at this point is "Okay yeah that was a mistake, I'm going to rebuild the order and kick these guys arses now".
Maybe if any "assassin" did something beyond intermediate gymnastics or parkour, sure. I'd agree.SonicWaffle said:
But instead, "running and jumping" are genetic traits? Please.
Hell, even the bit at the end, where Blandy McBlanderson started hand to hand fighting like ezio (or not being conveniently blind, like altair(??)) just further proves theres nothing special about any "assassin's" abilities. They're simply training.
Exactly. The backstory and setting of Rapture was great. I loved the underwater utopia idea that went horribly wrong and thatSonicWaffle said:
you were actually from there
Everything in the game fit into the story. It seemed as if the game was designed, from the ground up, to build upon or expand upon the situation.Julianking93 said:
Of course, later we find out it was just random bullshit that just happened to come together all nice, so whatever.
I actually liked the story more when I thought about it afterwards. At the time I said "What the fuck?" pretty much exactly alongside Desmond. I think you might have slightly misread the story though. I don't think our evolution has come from the God-race but we did wage war on them and win (somehow? Through sheer numbers?).
The way Ezio is so bluntly dismissed is MEANT to make you feel shafted, just as Ezio does. I actually felt heartbroken for Ezio at the end there as he is so coldly dismissed by Minerva after so many years of searching for answers. I think that's part of the attraction of Brotherhood. We get to see Ezio's longterm reaction to what happened in the vault, I hope. Assassin's Creed 2 is one of my favourite stories in gaming and was really only surpassed when Mass Effect 2 was released. The world Ubisoft recreated is wonderful. Hats off to them.
The way Ezio is so bluntly dismissed is MEANT to make you feel shafted, just as Ezio does. I actually felt heartbroken for Ezio at the end there as he is so coldly dismissed by Minerva after so many years of searching for answers. I think that's part of the attraction of Brotherhood. We get to see Ezio's longterm reaction to what happened in the vault, I hope. Assassin's Creed 2 is one of my favourite stories in gaming and was really only surpassed when Mass Effect 2 was released. The world Ubisoft recreated is wonderful. Hats off to them.
I was expected something sacrilegious, with the whole disclaimer at the beginning of the game. I feel as if the disclaimer makes it worse. What if they put a disclaimer at the start of RE5, "Some of the dudes on our writing team are black. So we're cool, right?"Daxter343 said: