Assassin's Creed II story... Oh come on! (Verbose ranting and spoilers within.)

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Zhukov

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Dec 29, 2009
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So... recently played Assassin's Creed II. It was pretty good.

And to my surprise I found myself actually enjoying the storyline.

Don't get me wrong, it certainly wasn't great, we're not talking Bioshock caliber here. But on the whole it was fairly solid and did a good job of drawing me in and keeping me interested. Also, the characters were a reasonably well conceived bunch. Once again, they weren't great, this isn't Bioware or Valve after all, but perfectly acceptable.

So overall I was enjoying it. Because hey, not every game has to be a mind-blowing experience of perfectly crafted narrative. I can settle for plain old "good" every now and again, right? Right. And this was good.

And then I decoded my first piece of "The Truth." It revealed a brief glimpse of a naked man and woman running in a very agile manner through some sort of futuristic garden.
My very first thought was, "Oh hey, that's supposed to be Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden isn't it? Huh. Okay. That could be interesting I suppose. But why are they so agile? And why does Eden look kinda sci-fi?"

...

"Oh fuck. They're going to pull the old humans-are-monkeys-genetically-altered-by-aliens stunt aren't they?"
"Nah, don't be silly. The standard of writing has been pretty good so far. They wouldn't do something that stupid. Have a little faith."
"Okay okay, maybe it's just a red herring..."

My fears thus assuaged, I continued on.

And then I got to the end.

Yup, turns out that humans are apes that were genetically altered by an alien race. Jesus fucking Christ.

And just to put the cherry on top, they go and sideline all the interesting stuff. Ezio, his family, the Medici, Machiavelli... all that was meaningless. An alien (sorta) turns up and says, "Stand aside you greasy little Italian you, I'm just here to talk to Desmond, your exceedingly boring relative from the future. So shut up and stay out of the camera, we're done with you."

Yeah, I wish I was kidding.

So... what were other people's reactions to this shenanigans? Am I preaching to the choir here? Or does someone have something to say in defence of this travesty? Am I perhaps missing something?
 

fenderstrat

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Aug 9, 2009
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since when bioshock had so amazing storyline? it was good, but not excellent. as for assassins creed, its pretty good, i just dont like the whole 2012 thing going on...
 

zombiestrangler

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Sep 3, 2009
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I thought it was neat. Personally, I just went along with it. Like you said, it wasn't bad and I just like climbing over sh*t and assassinating folks.
 

Danzaivar

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fenderstrat said:
since when bioshock had so amazing storyline? it was good, but not excellent.
Took the words out of my mouth.

- - - -

And they're not aliens, they just came before. Also the game has two totally separate plots, the ending is just sort of there to cross them together a bit and weird you the hell out.
 

Nerf Ninja

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Dec 20, 2008
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Personally I didn't get the humans are apes thing, I saw it as Altair, Ezio and Desmond were part of a lineage of people that led back to Adam and Eve being aliens that had interbred with humans and that they were basically superhuman.

The ending was a little annoying. especially when you read the novelisation which has completely omitted Desmond and any mention of Abstergo right up until the end, if you hadn't already played the game you'd be seriously confused, plus the game would have been massivley spoiled because it essentially was the games plot.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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fenderstrat said:
since when bioshock had so amazing storyline?
Since it was released. But I'm not here to argue about the merits of Bioshock. If you disagree then simply substitute a game that you regard as having a good story.

Danzaivar said:
And they're not aliens, they just came before.
Semantics. You know what I mean.

Danzaivar said:
Also the game has two totally separate plots, the ending is just sort of there to cross them together a bit and weird you the hell out.
Yup. One of those plots is good. The other is crap.

The ending kicks the good plot in the head and slaps the player in the face with the crappy one.

Nerf Ninja said:
Personally I didn't get the humans are apes thing...
The lady at the end straight out says that her species created humans. Also, the final puzzle involves a sequence where you turn an ape skeleton into a human one.
 

ConnorCool

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Apr 23, 2009
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Meh, I guess. I love the Assasin's Creed story line, I find it neither boring or unoriginal, it is just using a popular theory as the basis of a story. Sorry that you found it duff though.
 

Kimarous

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Sep 23, 2009
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I was in agreement with Desmond's reaction to the situation at first, but overall, the revelation doesn't really bother me. The various hints and foreshadows throughout the game were, in my opinion, very well done and it almost made sense.

As for the whole "Ezio's story got sidelined for this crap" thing, didn't Altair get the same treatment? "My boss is the villain behind it all; die now! ...Alien orb, wut?" Granted, it wasn't nearly so blatant that time around, but it happened there as well.

In any case, I don't mind the future stuff and I can't get my knickers in a twist about Ezio's story getting the shaft, what with an immediate sequel to his story coming out in a few weeks.
 

DiscoLenin

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Jun 8, 2010
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i really didn't like the ending or the finished glyph cutscene, however my friend kept telling me they were both really "make-you-think" endings.

of course the moment he told me that, it was ruined for me
 

Deguasser

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Feb 18, 2009
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Zhukov said:
Yeah, I wish I was kidding.
So do I, but nice job on being about 6 months late.

And I agree with just about everything you said but the Bioshock thing.
 

GodsAndFishes

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Mar 22, 2009
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I just wish that the end of the game didn't have the Desmond vs Templars bit, just so that the last line in the game would be "What the fuck?"
 

latenightapplepie

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Nov 9, 2008
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Wait, you didn't like the whole plot of aliens creating humanity, but you thought Ezio's generic revenge journey, being the 'Prophet' was perfectly acceptable?

If we're talking purely about originality, then the latter is much less original, at least from my personal experience. Though perhaps aliens creating humans from apes is more prevalent in fictional works than I've noticed...

And complain though you may about a change of focus from Ezio to Desmond, it's not like you couldn't have seen it coming. If you have played and know about the original Assassin's Creed, I mean.
 

Sampsa

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May 8, 2008
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"Desmond, who's Desmond?" made me laugh so much I almost broke the 4th wall. It was good game stuff you mentioned didn't bother me and was fun. What bothered me was how easy killing the pope was.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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Kimarous said:
As for the whole "Ezio's story got sidelined for this crap" thing, didn't Altair get the same treatment? "My boss is the villain behind it all; die now! ...Alien orb, wut?" Granted, it wasn't nearly so blatant that time around, but it happened there as well.
Very true. But Altair was dull as ditchwater. And the story of the original Assassin's Creed was a bit of a cluster-fuck right from the beginning. So I didn't particularly care when it went and shat itself inside out at the end.

Sampsa said:
What bothered me was how easy killing the pope was.
Heh. Yeah, I remember that. They forgot to give him the defend-against-being-grabbed move. So you can just grab him and head-butt him into submission. I killed him so fast that he didn't get half his monologue out before "dying".

latenightapplepie said:
Wait, you didn't like the whole plot of aliens creating humanity, but you thought Ezio's generic revenge journey, being the 'Prophet' was perfectly acceptable?
Like I said, the Ezio story wasn't great or original. But it was reasonably well done.

As for the Prophet business, I'm including that under the crappy alien conspiracy story.

latenightapplepie said:
And complain though you may about a change of focus from Ezio to Desmond, it's not like you couldn't have seen it coming. If you have played and know about the original Assassin's Creed, I mean.
Oh don't worry, I saw it coming.

I just expected the transition to be a bit more elegant then having an alien pop her head in and say, "Get out of my face vaguely-interesting-fellow, I'm here to speak to the painfully boring man in your head."

Deguasser said:
And I agree with just about everything you said but the Bioshock thing.
Huh. Seems that there are a few of you who weren't so keen on Bioshock.

Oh well, each their own and all that. Like I said to the other guy, feel free to substitute the title of a game that you think had a good story.
 

Crowser

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Feb 13, 2009
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You got to beat the shit out of the pope... I can never complain about the end of that game.
 

Keava

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Mar 1, 2010
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I always thought Assassin's Creed would be much better if they would cut the whole future/animus stuff out and just leave us to jumping the roofs of cities in the past, but i guess they wanted a 'coherent' story instead just random fun.
With hat said however, i didn't mind the whole back story, i just ignored it halfway through, did the puzzles only as puzzles and not as part of what was going on and went to make myself another cup of coffee during the whole alien revelation thing.
 

JWRosser

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Jul 4, 2006
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Admittedly when I reached the end and found myself talking to a Goddess I was a bit like ehh? (What's quite funny is in the novel adaptation of the game, Ezio is solely the main character - Desmond isn't even mentioned in it. Apart from at the end. When Minerva addresses him....which if you were reading the book alone makes NO sense whatsoever. Anyway....)

Saying that, I enjoyed uncovering the Truth. Also, if you check sites like the AssCred wiki, the backstory is extremely well developed. I've said this before and I sound like a broken record, but the amount of detail is quite extraordinary; they've gone as far to include historic figures such as Hitler, Henry Ford, Tesla etc in the Knights Templars or the Assassins. It's been a while since I read it, but if I remember correctly there was an article on how Operation: Barbarossa in WWII was all a fake due to both Stalin and Hitler being members of the Knights Templar. I also remember reading that Hitler didn't actually commit suicide in his bunker; he was fleeing as was then assassinated. Interesting stuff - it's kind of like one big conspiracy theory.
 

Appleshampoo

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Sep 27, 2010
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I actually really liked the ending. Party because after you actually got to do something Desmond instead of him sitting there letting a woman fight his battles for him.

Ezio was a good character, the start was good, but after that I pretty much guessed what was going to happen with him. He kills bad guy, bad guy turns out to be a henchmen, rinse and repeat until you punch a fat bloke and win the day. The ending really threw me off though.

The truth videos were strange though, but made me want to collect them all just to see what was going on.

I hope they wrap it up well with Assassins creed 3, although if they make it set in World war 1 or 2, I quit the series.