Poll: The Latest AC controversy

[lunavixen]

Between Tomb Raider, Mass Effect and this, I really don't care anymore. I got behind the Mass Effect movement, but I am just so sick of controversy in every single game. "Oh this game is xenophobic." "Oh, this game is racist." "Oh this game is sexist" I JUST WANT TO PLAY MY FREAKING VIDEO GAME! God, I am just sick of all the fucking drama.

you've hit the nail on the head, i couldn't have put it any better myself, i, like you got behind the mass effect movement and am extremely sick of people kicking up unjustified amounts of stink over video games (or issues therein).

 

[wooty]

I doesn't matter if there will be bias or not. This is the gaming community we're talking about. If there's something to complain about, valid or not, someone will complain. This is annoying because often valid complaints then get lost in the menagerie of otherwise pointless bitching. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of complaining about complaining thank you.

Took the text right off of my keyboard, more often than not it is the overly sensitive minority that shout the loudest....yet they never get laryngitis.

OT: I'm still fully prepared for a twist. As I said in (yet another) AC thread on this issue, the franchise has always been riddled with betrayal, deceit, mystery and ill-intention, wouldn't surprise me at all if it became the case with ACIII.

Also, anyone whos moaning about "ohhhh your killing the british too much, lolol stoopid patriot americanszzss!!!", remember what god damn period of history we're dealing with here. As I've said before, if it offends you that much then you can always wander into a continental controlled town and murder a few civilians or soldies there to make yourself feel better.

 

[getoffmycloud]

You'll bloody well sit down and learn what's on the curriculum. Refusing to learn about cultures other than your own isn't something to be proud of.

Well he is American so he only knows about countries that have oil.

 

[GenericAmerican]

It is only controversial if we make it. . .so why are we making it controversial?

It's a game, about events that took place several hundred years ago, who gives a shit?

 

[I.Muir]

It won't be depicting real events
The last ad was meant to tug the patriot strings of Americans and there's nothing more patriotic than killing foreigners

That being said all the trailers and gameplay have only shown brits getting a tomahawk in the face and mistreating the general populace so it's biased already.

 

[Grygor]

It's not so much that I dislike the British being painted in bad light, more like I dislike just how 'America fuck yeah!' the trailers have been so far.

Which seems quite strange to me seeing as the Connor assassin type fella is half British half Mohawk.

"Go America go .... as the British guy does all the killing for you".

And why is that strange?

"America" was just a bunch of British colonies at the time - most "Americans" were themselves British.

The American Revolution consisted mostly of British people (with French and Spanish allies) and other British people (with Native American allies) killing one another.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

Oh, England needed to brutally oppress half the world to survive? Is that right? I literally have no idea what to say to that.

And what, the government pays other countries sorry money, so you don't have to give it a second thought?
None of this gives you the right to complain when the British are vilified in games or movies, I'm afraid.

To be honest, yeah, Britain (not just England, thanks) did if we wanted to match up against the major European powers, such as Spain or France - both of which were highly hostile to the Protestant Britain. As an Empire, it was actually quite a moral one:
"Even George Orwell, who had seen colonial dirty work at close quarters in Burma in the 1920s, acknowledged that the British Empire was much better than any other. It was vastly superior, in moral terms, to the French, German, Portuguese and Dutch empires. And it bore no resemblance to the ?vampire empire? created by King Leopold of the Belgians in the Congo, which was responsible for perhaps 10 million deaths, let alone to the genocidal Nazi empire or to Japan?s vicious and corrupt Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

http://www.historytoday.com/piers-brendon/moral-audit-british-empire
So yes, please don't call us Nazis, especially as the Nazi successes were founded upon preparations for war. The Empire was based on trade and development. Yes, it could be brutal, but that was all nations.

I would notice that the colonies underwent economic and social development. They at least had a head start in developing industry, so they are better off today.

Slavery was abolished in 1833, and a Royal Navy task group set up to inhibit the slave trade and rescue slaves - over 150,000 slaves were rescued and 1,600 slaver ships captured. By comparison, the number of slaves in the USA in 1860 was around 4 million. The Americans were no better than Britain, and and actually worse in this regard.

On the subject on money - yes, we pay (unnecessary) reparations. However, at least we pay reparations, unlike a certain nation, when they blew up a medicine factory in Sudan: "the only factory making veterinary drugs in this vast, mostly pastoralist, country. Its speciality was drugs to kill the parasites which pass from herds to herders, one of Sudan's principal causes of infant mortality" How did American make amends? They didn't. They just shrugged, said they might have been chemical weapons and moved on.

The main problem, however, is not that we refuse to admit that we did anything wrong. Its that the Americans are never portrayed as just as grey - it's almost always painted black and white.

 

[AnarchistFish]

It's not so much that I dislike the British being painted in bad light, more like I dislike just how 'America fuck yeah!' the trailers have been so far.

This^^^

Notice how this time there's controversy, the yanks are ridiculing it (not all of them, of course, I'm just a bitter anglofrenchman).

My issue with the trailer is that it is Hollywood History. It tries to reduce fairly complex issues that caused the Revolution to a few snappy, patriotic soundbites.

This too^^

Also don't understand why people are saying "it's just an advert for the 4th of July". Why should Ubisoft be doing that at all? They're not even American.


Will still buy the game, RELUCTANTLY :|

 

[Falseprophet]

Like I said, by the standards of the time, colonialism was standard practice.

We did awful, awful things to native populations, nobody is debating that, but by the standards of that time it was the normal thing to do.

If we're on the subject of the Nazis, their behaviour was deemed unacceptable by the standards of that time.

I know it may sound like a cop out, but that's really the only answer I can give as to why nobody really thinks about the evils of colonialism anymore, but still hates on the Nazis.

Although that doesn't really explain why, for example, the British got away with colonialist massacres [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n05/bernard-porter/how-did-they-get-away-with-it] well after the Second World War.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Well. Now I see silly controversy surrounding...bias game trailers, and anachronistic argumentation.

Early Americans were colossal assholes.
The British Empire were colossal assholes.
Nazis were colossal assholes.

And each group accomplished great things within their society (yes, even the Nazis. Jet aircraft anyone?) even while being colossal assholes.

This is patently silly..
Back to lurking.

 

[FantomOmega]

Don't people get tired of complaining about this?

Hi there!

Oh no you didn't!

Its all pointless, sure you can feel uncomfortable having your country/race shot at or maimed but keep in mind that YOU as a gamer have been doing this to other people (and sentient beings) in video games for YEARS! remember koopas? what if they had rights under the orders of a tyrannical ruler or those thousands upon thousands of people killed online in multilayer?

It's stupid to feel offended these days, there are real world issues out there that doesn't GET as much attention as this nonsense

Oh and the "no Russian" stage in MW2? I saw that as the horrors that terrorist inflict from THERE perspective, see how they calmly walk around taking lives like it was nothing? If you felt disgusted then yes the objective of making you hate the bad guys was a success! They do evil things and that stage was there to imply what could happen because they have no qualms of sacrificing (their own) people to reach their goals. You didn't have to SHOOT anyone either so the massive amount of people bitching at that was uncalled for

 

[Xangba]

Slavery was abolished in 1833, and a Royal Navy task group set up to inhibit the slave trade and rescue slaves - over 150,000 slaves were rescued and 1,600 slaver ships captured. By comparison, the number of slaves in the USA in 1860 was around 4 million. The Americans were no better than Britain, and and actually worse in this regard.

On the subject on money - yes, we pay (unnecessary) reparations. However, at least we pay reparations, unlike a certain nation, when they blew up a medicine factory in Sudan: "the only factory making veterinary drugs in this vast, mostly pastoralist, country. Its speciality was drugs to kill the parasites which pass from herds to herders, one of Sudan's principal causes of infant mortality" How did American make amends? They didn't. They just shrugged, said they might have been chemical weapons and moved on.

The main problem, however, is not that we refuse to admit that we did anything wrong. Its that the Americans are never portrayed as just as grey - it's almost always painted black and white.

Okay, I normally prefer to stay out of these things because I can sympathize with both sides, but bringing up slavery is a low blow. Britain didn't have much need for slaves by that time, so it was easy to gradually ban it. After banning it (and everyone did this after banning slavery) they proceeded to actively fight it. The North of the U.S. did the same thing, a gradual release of slavery. The South had their entire economy based and built on it. It's actually pretty widely thought that slavery was going to become impractical for the South too and they would do the same thing as all the others, gradual release. Then two men had egos too big for themselves.

And of course you're never seen as grey, the winners get to write the history books. Schools teach out of books written to paint us in a good light. Even when it comes to the Civil War, Americans vs. Americans, there was no mercy on making the losers look as bad as possible.

OT: America is a big audience that likes looking good, so pandering to them in trailers for sales is pretty normal. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if it's a combination of that and the other idea being thrown around here about showing the colonials in a good light to surprise us with the revelation they're Templars. It'd hardly be the first time it was done.

Besides, who cares? It's a game. It doesn't claim to be piece of historical accuracy. Let's just drop the drama around a big game for once.

 

[putowtin]

Oh for the love of (enter deity of choice here)

It happened nearly 250 years ago!!!!!

I'm british, trust me, we don't give a shite about it!

 

[sagitel]

historically assassins were not the goody two shoes we see in these games (at least AC II and AC:brotherhood i played)they were religiously fanatic Muslims killing those who their boss said to kill which they believed were sent from the god himself. so from the first it was biased and historically wrong. why ubisoft who never really breaks a style in a series break this one?


and yeah the british were bad evil tyrants (see what they did to indians (from india not indians from america) and africans) but being the world's largest and most powerful empire EVER does result in soldiers who know how to fight.

so yes this series is biased and this game will be biased.

 

[sagitel]

historically assassins were not the goody two shoes we see in these games (at least AC II and AC:brotherhood i played)they were religiously fanatic Muslims killing those who their boss said to kill which they believed were sent from the god himself. so from the first it was biased and historically wrong. why Ubisoft who never really breaks a style in a series break this one?


and yeah the British were bad evil tyrants (see what they did to Indians (from India not Indians from America) and Africans) but being the world's largest and most powerful empire EVER does result in soldiers who know how to fight.


but this game is biased blah blah blah. so??? its A GAME! it is supposed to be fun not unbiased true historical story.


go play instead of thinking about controversies!

 

[lacktheknack]

Sorry, I'm unable to give care until I hear word that you don't have to be online at all times to play.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I'm having a very hard time caring about this to be honest, and so what?

I'm fairly sure we will get to see Connor murdering the hell out of the Americans too that are complete dick heads.

 

[A Distant Star]

Weather or not the game it's self does remains to be seen, but the marketing is totally taping into American jingoism.

 

[Ghonzor]

Of course they will vilify the British. To be honest, it annoys me how the Americans describe British rule as something that was 'Slavery and tyranny'. I certainly expect an American developer to be making an American-centric game. Hell, they'll probably have the rebels as saints while the Redcoats burn children in churches, etc.

Edit: Its a french developer? Ye gods. I did not know that. I acknowledge my mistake, then, but as the primary market is American I still think vilification of the British is doubtlessly going to happen

I, as an American, hope they vilify the Americans in some manner.
As a child, I was taught with an attitude of 'America, fuck yeah!" but after gaining even a rudimentary insight into history, the Revolution was nowhere near as Black and White as text books here want to make it. Hell, half of our "American Heroes" from the Revolution were just rubbish. So please Ubisoft, show us the Grey on both sides. From my understanding, Conner is Mohawk, correct? That should make things incredibly easy.