What is the significance of this date?
That depends on who you are. It happens to be the release date in North America of "Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag," the latest in the Assassin's Creed game franchise by Ubisoft.
I am looking forward to this release with cautious excitement. Cautious because I fell in love with the original "Assassin's Creed" and "Assassin's Creed II, but was disappointed in the next major installment of the franchise.
Let me preface this by saying that I am not a hardcore gamer. My introduction to video gaming came back in the days before there were video game systems and I played on a (gasp) desktop computer. My game of choice in those days was the Thief franchise, initially by Looking Glass Studios, continued by Ion Storm, and then purchased by Eidos Montreal. That game was set in a mythical city called, unimaginatively, "The City" with the technological level that was pseudo-medieval--sort of like steam punk meets the Dark Ages. But despite it's shortcomings (the graphics were atrocious, even for then) the game was heavily story-driven and well-crafted. And hey, I like stealth games. It's sequel, "Thief II," did not disappoint, although "Thief III," the first one to be released on a gaming system platform, had an interface I didn't like very much and, even more damning, a story that seemed sketchy and ad-hoc.
After "Thief," nothing really came along to excite me until "Assassin's Creed." I'm not going to give spoilers to the game here, just in case someone who's been off the grid isn't familiar with it, but the game's premise is based on an invention called the Animus, which allows an individual to relive ancestral memories in virtual reality. The most intensive action sequences of the game take place in The Holy Lands during the Crusades circa 1191-1192. The game proceeds to blend history and fantasy in a world brought to life by incredibly vibrant and realistic graphics. No one knows what the backstreets of Acre or Jerusalem or Damascus actually looked like, but the developers' imaginations have created a pretty credible environment, all things considered. Now throw in English, French and Teutonic crusaders. The villains of the piece are, not unpredictably, the Knights Templar. The hero, Desmond/Altair is an assassin who belongs to an order whose sole existence seems to be to thwart the Templars.
The developers neatly sidestep religious controversy by avoiding making religion the crux of the conflict. What does serve as the conflict is power--and an artifact capable of giving whoever controls it almost unlimited power.
I truly enjoyed the hours I spent immersed in cities such as Jerusalem, complete with landmarks and buildings that existed at the time. It was fascinating to get to eavesdrop on such historical figures as King Richard. It's no surprise, then, that when Ubisoft released the sequel, "Assassin's Creed II," I greeted it with great enthusiasm.
The villain is still the same, the Templar organization, set this time in Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Again, the graphics are eye-popping, and the mix of historical detail with fantasy is done with enough finesse that the atmosphere is absorbing. What fan of the Middle Ages could resist getting to interact with such historical figures as Cesare Borgia, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Leonardo DaVinci? Or to walk the streets of Rome or Venice as Ezio, the disenfranchised son of a powerful family that belongs to the same order of Assassins that has been battling the Templars since 1191?
But time in the gaming world marches on, just as it does in real life. The next major release (a pair of sub-sequels to "Assassin's Creed II" were released that both continued Ezio's story), "Assassin's Creed III," moves us to the New World in 1775. And for me, this release was a departure. With the Templars supposedly mixed up in the American Revolution, the game seemed to lack the cohesiveness of a solid story line that held the play together. The real storyline was taking place in the present, while most of the action as a player was taking place in the past. For me this created a disconnect that was not easily overcome.
Now we come to the upcoming release of "Assassin's Creed IV." Set in Nassau and the West Indies in 1715, our hero is now a pirate fighting against--naturally--the power-and-control-hungry Templars. If the game is story-driven, it will be another triumph of immersion in a pseudo-historical world. If it the story is weak, the game will degrade to a yet another hack-and-slash action game.
See you on the other side....
No comments:
Post a Comment