For those of you who have completed AC can agree with me that Ubisoft is going to release a follow-up (keeping in mind on how it all ends) to one of their most important games of this year. However, I keep asking myself what they have in mind. I thought of the game as nothing less of a masterpiece, but my biggest fear is what Ubisoft are planning for the series. No offense, but when it comes to making a sequel for a really good game that takes place a long long time ago, Ubisoft tends to modify the game so everyone who didn't like it the first time will like it now.
An example for this is the Prince of Persia series. In the first Prince of Persia you played in an abandoned, zombie-infested yet beautiful castle, the nameless prince talked in a polite british accent and the plot was simple; Kill the evil old man and save the sexy princess. I loved the game because it was fun to play. It had great combat with the best animation I had seen in a game back then, it had perplexing puzzles that were hard but never frustrating and the platforming was always breathtaking. Ubisoft had made a great job reviving the old forgotten PoP-series, and I begged every night for a sequel. Which I got.
However, I got something I wasn't quite expecting. The Prince now had changed his nice looking blue persian army uniform to this "cool" red armor, he talked with an american accent which confused me completly, you played in this dark, scary "cool" castle and the guy you had to kill now was Fate itself. The soundtrack had been swapped from an original mix of middle-east instrument and wailing guitars to a band called "Godsmack" And Ubisoft decided to add combos in the combat, so instead of slick animations I got hacky slashy gameplay that belongs in (insert random bad Offical Game of The Movie here).
You might wonder why I am talking about this and not AC, but I have to mention the PoP-fiasco the Ubisoft produced a few years ago. Why you might ask, and I will tell you now. It's because I fear that Ubisoft will make the same mistake with AC.
My dream version of AC2 is that Ubisoft will keep spinning the long long time ago wheel, because the gameplay is much better that way. You can't be a really cool assasin with swords and hidden blades in the year 2007, because everyone would have guns. Imagine that you are playing AC, you are being chased by a few guards, only that they don't have any swords, they have guns blazing and are aiming them at you. I mean, the whole gameplay would have been ruined. And now in 2007, we don't have two-storey buildings made out of clay, we have scyscrapers which would also ruin AC, I mean there wouldn't be that much freerunning when there is a 30 ft. gap between each building.
So my dream version of AC2 would (spoiler alert) be following: Desmond has been rescued by the Assassins, only they need to find something too in his genetic memory. So they use their DIY Animus to look at Altairs great great great great grandson, who perhaps lives in Europe during the 16th-17th century. Imagine how great the would be; You could play in Venice, Paris, and maybe London, at a time when the city guards still used swords instead of guns because it took 15 minutes to reload those damn things, the buildings would be about the same size, and keeping in mind about the number of events back in those days, you have loads of inspiration as a scriptwriter to write an intresting storyline, one that can be compared with the high standards of AC.
Maybe it sounds a bit naive to write your dream sequel, but for me, it's a wake up call to Ubisoft, or maybe a threat. Don't mess AC2 up, it has huge potential. But I want to know what you think. Will Ubisoft cock things up? What will happen to the storyline? Do you even care? What do you want to see in the next AC?
An example for this is the Prince of Persia series. In the first Prince of Persia you played in an abandoned, zombie-infested yet beautiful castle, the nameless prince talked in a polite british accent and the plot was simple; Kill the evil old man and save the sexy princess. I loved the game because it was fun to play. It had great combat with the best animation I had seen in a game back then, it had perplexing puzzles that were hard but never frustrating and the platforming was always breathtaking. Ubisoft had made a great job reviving the old forgotten PoP-series, and I begged every night for a sequel. Which I got.
However, I got something I wasn't quite expecting. The Prince now had changed his nice looking blue persian army uniform to this "cool" red armor, he talked with an american accent which confused me completly, you played in this dark, scary "cool" castle and the guy you had to kill now was Fate itself. The soundtrack had been swapped from an original mix of middle-east instrument and wailing guitars to a band called "Godsmack" And Ubisoft decided to add combos in the combat, so instead of slick animations I got hacky slashy gameplay that belongs in (insert random bad Offical Game of The Movie here).
You might wonder why I am talking about this and not AC, but I have to mention the PoP-fiasco the Ubisoft produced a few years ago. Why you might ask, and I will tell you now. It's because I fear that Ubisoft will make the same mistake with AC.
My dream version of AC2 is that Ubisoft will keep spinning the long long time ago wheel, because the gameplay is much better that way. You can't be a really cool assasin with swords and hidden blades in the year 2007, because everyone would have guns. Imagine that you are playing AC, you are being chased by a few guards, only that they don't have any swords, they have guns blazing and are aiming them at you. I mean, the whole gameplay would have been ruined. And now in 2007, we don't have two-storey buildings made out of clay, we have scyscrapers which would also ruin AC, I mean there wouldn't be that much freerunning when there is a 30 ft. gap between each building.
So my dream version of AC2 would (spoiler alert) be following: Desmond has been rescued by the Assassins, only they need to find something too in his genetic memory. So they use their DIY Animus to look at Altairs great great great great grandson, who perhaps lives in Europe during the 16th-17th century. Imagine how great the would be; You could play in Venice, Paris, and maybe London, at a time when the city guards still used swords instead of guns because it took 15 minutes to reload those damn things, the buildings would be about the same size, and keeping in mind about the number of events back in those days, you have loads of inspiration as a scriptwriter to write an intresting storyline, one that can be compared with the high standards of AC.
Maybe it sounds a bit naive to write your dream sequel, but for me, it's a wake up call to Ubisoft, or maybe a threat. Don't mess AC2 up, it has huge potential. But I want to know what you think. Will Ubisoft cock things up? What will happen to the storyline? Do you even care? What do you want to see in the next AC?
