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?
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?