Assassin's Creed 3: Again, Ubisoft?

[Alandoril]

we are now getting angry about the out of character behaviour of a character from a novel that doesn't exist yet based on a videogame that doesn't exist yet.

No sane individual is angry about whether or not the behavior is "in character" for Connor. The discussion here is about the portrayal of the British in the game. Watch the Independence Day (American Independence day, that is, July 4) trailer to see what we mean.

[sup]Although the discussion has quickly deteriorated into a debate about the morality of the use of atomic weapons in WWII, which I will be withholding comment on for fear of making a fool of myself.[/sup]

The point still stands though, no one knows how that will turn out since the game and book aren't out yet.

Also, I'm just guessing, but the trailer was trying to stay with the theme of fight of independence for the US since it was released on the 4th of July, a little appropriate, no?

I happen to agree with you. I don't think the advertising so far is necessarily indicative of the ultimate game, but (as I said in a previous post) it does make me nervous.

I still hate that trailer though. "Refusing to learn the history of a country you will never see" doesn't make that kid a patriot. It makes him a willfully ignorant jackass.

I just took that line to mean, 'why should I care about learning about these guys since they're being such dicks to me?' I mean, that's typically the attitude of people when people from other countries and the like do that sort of crap, and besides, hindsight is 20/20, and we may know that, but they probably didn't. Plus, it's a kid, probably like a 10 year old, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to him since they would probably have that sort of attitude if something like that is happening to them.

I'm more concerned about the whole 2012 thing that they've made a big deal about from the previous games than this.

Except it isn't a ten year old, it's a writer putting those words into a ten year old's mouth.

 

[Wargamer]

Let me stop you right there. The game is made by the French. The only real case of them painting Americans as the "heroes", was the revolution trailer they released on July 4th. Other than that, it's just showed our Assassin killing Brits, and being passive towards the Americans.

Yes... and let's look how every other Assassin has behaved...

ALTAIR:
Altair is a Muslim, as far as we can tell. He spent most of his time killing Templars, and their predominently Christian allies. Same situation, right?
Wrong. Altair was not 'Muslim'. He was from a Muslim nation. He was not fighting Christians, he was fighting Templars - an organisation that used the Christian faith to its advantage, but had Muslim members as well.

Let's go ahead and look at the intro to AC1 again for confirmation: Altair appears at a public execution, kills several men in Templar uniform, and then runs off. He escapes by losing himself amidst a crowd of Christian monks. During this fight scene we see something that we haven't since, but is very important - Altair closes the eyes of the Templar commander he executes. That is a sign of respect, and tells us a great deal about Altair and his beliefs.

Nothing about this source material suggests the game is actively trying to paint Christains in a bad light.

EZIO:
On the most bland level, AC2 (and Brotherhood) is a game about Italians killing Italians. Hence why nobody cries foul of racism.

On a more complex level, the game is a house fued taken to the extreme. In his quest to crush the Borgias, Ezio (a Florentine) winds up fighting just about everyone; other Florentines, Venitians, Romans and even some foreign mercenaries.

At no point does AC2 try to claim "everyone from here is an asshole!" or "all members of the Catholic Church are evil!".

Once again, let's talk trailers. AC2 has a clear motive; Ezio is tracking two Borgia family members, kills one, kills the guards who try to stop him, and then hunts down and kills the second. There is no sense that he is just getting stab-happy because "fuck these inferior races!"

Brotherhood? More or less the same; Ezio wants to kill another Borgia, and only kills other people when they're likely to get in the way.

Finally, Revelations. One last trailer for us all... Ezio goes on a journey, turns up at Altair's old place, and gets ambushed. Epic fight, epic ending, epic trailer all the way.

All round, it keeps the theme and tone AC1 set - this is a game series about hunting down specific enemies and taking them out.

CONNOR:
Roll up, roll up! Let's commit indescriminate slaughter in the name of the Greatest (and/or only) Nation on Earth!

Instead of showing us what being an Assassin is all about, we get minutes of Pro-American propaganda speech, including that classic "it's my right as a Yank to be ignorant!" line.
We then end with a shot of Connor stood in the middle of a group of British soldiers, all dead or dying, and the Americans rushing to his aid.

This is hardly a trait unique to that trailer; most of the source material thus far can be described as either "America! Fuck yeah!" or "Hi, I'm Connor and I love killing Brits!"

It is a radical shift in tone compared to what they have done previously, and it's a shift in entirely the wrong direction.

Addendum: I did find a proper AC3 trailer whilst writing this. I will share it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pUhraVG7Ow
Again, note the very clear theme that has been so utterly lacking in the rest of their bullshit promotional material. We establish a mark - a British officer. We see Connor enter play, ignoring the Americans (note that he doesn't treat them as allies - merely bystanders). He then rushes the British line in a rather ludicrous display of "this should never have worked", kills the soldiers between him and his target, confirms the Templar allegiance of the officer, and kills the bastard. Then he buggers off and leaves both sides to carry on their unimportant little war.

Great trailer. Fair, impartial, inkeeping with the series. Why the fuck do they let this kind of thing go under the radar in favour of racist Pro-American bullshit?

And I'll go ahead and throw this out there as an American. The majority of us are sick and tired of people claiming we think that we're "morally flawless". Wanna go check out that approval rating on that war we have right now? Hell, we all sure as shit loved that Vietnam, didn't we?

You have a constitution that was written after the Revolution that embodies the ideals of why you rebelled from British rule.
You have a government that ignores that constitution, or else rewrites it to suit corporate agendas and those of the rich elite.
You have guns.

Do what your fuckng laws demand, then we'll stop with the Team America crap.

 

[Da Orky Man]

"I just want them to go one way or the other. " I sorta don't, I want there to be a moral dilemma on his part. Would make the story much more interesting.

By that I meant that they should make up their minds of whether or not he's neutral or a revolutionary. The devs are saying he's neutral, marketing is saying he's revolutionary.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Just a reminder, the American Revolution is a vastly neglected period of time in the gaming industry, as are many great historical conflicts, but it's just nice to see something other than WWII or modern day combat make its way into the mainstream. Making it into a controversy like this is the reason it gets ignored. Ever think of that?

Assassin's creed has been very good about historical accuracy, people. Calm the hell down.

 

[BNguyen]

But this is the Rev war. This isn't America during Vietnam and the Middle East. Honestly you would have really stretch it to make America be evil and the Brits being good during this war. Imo it was basically as black and white as World War II was.

"History is written by the victor" has never been more relevant. No war is black and white, the revolutionary war was certainly far from a simple battle of good vs evil. Both sides did things we'd sooner rather erase from history. Hell, WW2 certainty wasn't black and white. I mean, there was that whole thing with American nuking those civilians and the bombing of Dresden.

yeah, the Japanese didn't do anything bad, just bombed and killed hundreds of civilians and invaded China, committed genocide in numerous areas, and supposedly conducted numerous inhumane experiments, but what was bad about that? the Japanese just wanted an empire of their own.
(I don't hate today's Japanese, just what their ancestors did in the name of nationality and pride)
when you do bad, expect bad things to be done unto you
the British wanted the colonials to pay taxes for British expenditures in war, something the American colonials weren't involved with, so the colonials rebelled, then the British imposed numerous laws to force the colonials to pay and later on, shot into a crowd of protestors, killing 6

 

[Nami nom noms]

I still hate that trailer though. "Refusing to learn the history of a country you will never see" doesn't make that kid a patriot. It makes him a willfully ignorant jackass.

Isn't that the definition of a patriotic American?


Joke!

OT: I'm still on the fence about this. I don't think I could stand an overtly glorified setting, but at the same time I really like the AC games... Guess I'll have to wait and see.

(at least RE6 will keep me going until I hear the first reports on AC3)

 

[robhop]

Half-British is a rather imprecise description. This could mean half-English, half-Scottish, half-Welsh, or even, given the political realities of the revolutionary period, half-Irish. Connor is an Irish name and if the character's antecedents came from an Irish republican background that could explain his proclivity for dissecting unfortunate redcoats with a tomahawk.

 

[BNguyen]

we are now getting angry about the out of character behaviour of a character from a novel that doesn't exist yet based on a videogame that doesn't exist yet.

No sane individual is angry about whether or not the behavior is "in character" for Connor. The discussion here is about the portrayal of the British in the game. Watch the Independence Day (American Independence day, that is, July 4) trailer to see what we mean.

[sup]Although the discussion has quickly deteriorated into a debate about the morality of the use of atomic weapons in WWII, which I will be withholding comment on for fear of making a fool of myself.[/sup]

The point still stands though, no one knows how that will turn out since the game and book aren't out yet.

Also, I'm just guessing, but the trailer was trying to stay with the theme of fight of independence for the US since it was released on the 4th of July, a little appropriate, no?

I happen to agree with you. I don't think the advertising so far is necessarily indicative of the ultimate game, but (as I said in a previous post) it does make me nervous.

I still hate that trailer though. "Refusing to learn the history of a country you will never see" doesn't make that kid a patriot. It makes him a willfully ignorant jackass.

I just took that line to mean, 'why should I care about learning about these guys since they're being such dicks to me?' I mean, that's typically the attitude of people when people from other countries and the like do that sort of crap, and besides, hindsight is 20/20, and we may know that, but they probably didn't. Plus, it's a kid, probably like a 10 year old, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to him since they would probably have that sort of attitude if something like that is happening to them.

I'm more concerned about the whole 2012 thing that they've made a big deal about from the previous games than this.

or the whole thing could have been like: "You'll learn this or you will be punished" route.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Half-British is a rather imprecise description. This could mean half-English, half-Scottish, half-Welsh, or even, given the political realities of the revolutionary period, half-Irish. Connor is an Irish name and if the character's antecedents came from an Irish republican background that could explain his proclivity for dissecting unfortunate redcoats with a tomahawk.

Well, his name is Connor because he adopted the name to move around more easily. His actual name is Ratonhnhaké:ton, according to the AC wiki. All it describe is that his father was British, and his mother Mohawk.

 

[spartandude]

But this is the Rev war. This isn't America during Vietnam and the Middle East. Honestly you would have really stretch it to make America be evil and the Brits being good during this war. Imo it was basically as black and white as World War II was.

"History is written by the victor" has never been more relevant. No war is black and white, the revolutionary war was certainly far from a simple battle of good vs evil. Both sides did things we'd sooner rather erase from history. Hell, WW2 certainty wasn't black and white. I mean, there was that whole thing with American nuking those civilians and the bombing of Dresden.

yeah, the Japanese didn't do anything bad, just bombed and killed hundreds of civilians and invaded China, committed genocide in numerous areas, and supposedly conducted numerous inhumane experiments, but what was bad about that? the Japanese just wanted an empire of their own.
(I don't hate today's Japanese, just what their ancestors did in the name of nationality and pride)
when you do bad, expect bad things to be done unto you
the British wanted the colonials to pay taxes for British expenditures in war, something the American colonials weren't involved with, so the colonials rebelled, then the British imposed numerous laws to force the colonials to pay and later on, shot into a crowd of protestors, killing 6

actually in the case of the American Revolution the british raised taxes to fund an army at the request of the colonials

 

[BNguyen]

What I think will end up happening hill ally with the rebels because he believes for some reason they can help his people and after the war is won, they don't keep their promise.

-THAT- is when the slaughter of American's begins...I also think Washington is a templar. Just...calling it right now.

or, maybe there are templars on both sides with the founding fathers being assassins as well as Conner and the Mohawks that allied with the British were inducted into the templars, which could explain why the Mohawks and native Americans (for the most part) conducted raids on colonial civilian areas under the pretense of searching for a piece of eden hidden there while the British were busy fighting the French and Spanish, so when the US gained independence it started taking land and resources from the native Americans that aided the templars, but maybe since the templars were defeated in that area, they hid their identities which caused the US to enforce relocation laws on all of them since they couldn't just take someone's word for it on the matter.
but this is all merely speculation on the subject

 

[BNguyen]

But this is the Rev war. This isn't America during Vietnam and the Middle East. Honestly you would have really stretch it to make America be evil and the Brits being good during this war. Imo it was basically as black and white as World War II was.

"History is written by the victor" has never been more relevant. No war is black and white, the revolutionary war was certainly far from a simple battle of good vs evil. Both sides did things we'd sooner rather erase from history. Hell, WW2 certainty wasn't black and white. I mean, there was that whole thing with American nuking those civilians and the bombing of Dresden.

yeah, the Japanese didn't do anything bad, just bombed and killed hundreds of civilians and invaded China, committed genocide in numerous areas, and supposedly conducted numerous inhumane experiments, but what was bad about that? the Japanese just wanted an empire of their own.
(I don't hate today's Japanese, just what their ancestors did in the name of nationality and pride)
when you do bad, expect bad things to be done unto you
the British wanted the colonials to pay taxes for British expenditures in war, something the American colonials weren't involved with, so the colonials rebelled, then the British imposed numerous laws to force the colonials to pay and later on, shot into a crowd of protestors, killing 6

actually in the case of the American Revolution the british raised taxes to fund an army at the request of the colonials

I can understand that, but it wasn't always the case for every colony that the British controlled, like many areas of the world they took control for the resources and man power that these areas possessed, take for example Africa and how it was divided by pretty much every major European nation - that situation was mostly for resources and land-grabbing.
The American colonials were all essentially British or at least Africans that had earned freedom in some form or fashion, so by that standing, they should be able to vote on how funds are spent by the Empire. And while I won't argue some funds were used to secure the American front, a lot was spent on things that the colonials were not involved with and as such, the Americans did not want to pay for it.
It'd be the same as you having a job while being separate from your parents, but then your parents start spending money on things you aren't involved with - ex. gambling debts, so just by being your parent,s they feel that they can and should take money from you to help pay, not exactly a fair thing don't you think?

 

[Lethos]

This game seems to be causing Brits and Americans to hate each other. Can't we all just get a long?

Anyway, I'm going with the belief that it's just marketing. There will be a plot twist somewhere in the game, but considering that the asscreed games are known for their plot twists, they're going for the nationalistic approach to try and make it more of a surprise.

and yet another person who doesnt understand why the bombs were used, ok heres the thing Japan did actually offer a conditional surrender, America rejected it and then later accepted a surrender allowing US troops to be stationed in Japan, but the main reason however was not to make Japan submissive, it was to show the USSR that america has rather large boom machines

and heres one thing i ask you, if it were to make Japan surrender, surely bombing military bases rather than civillian centres would have had just as much impact

There's also the fact that the US wanted to be sole nation to liberate Japan. The Western Front had already been won by this point and the USSR had it's boots all over Eastern Europe so allowing the USSR to help with Japan may have meant that communist influence would expand to Japan.

You're right though, people underestimate how terrified the US gov was of the USSR then.

 

[Nickolai77]

Finally, Revelations. One last trailer for us all... Ezio goes on a journey, turns up at Altair's old place, and gets ambushed. Epic fight, epic ending, epic trailer all the way.

All round, it keeps the theme and tone AC1 set - this is a game series about hunting down specific enemies and taking them out.

Actually, i think a degree of national demonisation in Assassins Creed might have started to set in with Revelations. I thought the Byzantines were portrayed in an unfair light, especially given that their city/civilisation had been violently conquered by foreign invaders. The Ottomans may have been relatively virtuous historically speaking, but i'd rather have have fought alongside the Byzantines trying to take their city back. I realise that this is all because the Byzantine's happened to side with the Templars, but if Revelations is half the intelligent game it makes itself out to be then it would have at least made an attempt to appreciate Byzantine culture or at least their situation (through gameplay and narrative). Instead the game happily adored Ottoman culture whilst allowing the Byzantines to be the "bad guys".

The marketing for AC3 does make me worry that the franchise has gone more historically black and white, but i'm going to reserve final judgement until the full story behind the game is revealed. Again, if Assassins Creed is an intelligent as it strives to be, there will be a plot twist which undermines the American jingostic overtones in the adverts. If not, then i might conclude that the writing for AC has declined in it's quality. Writing historical material in black and white merely reveals to me that the writer doesn't understand history- and i'd expect the writers of AC to be better than that.

 

[Allar]

"History is written by the victor" has never been more relevant. No war is black and white, the revolutionary war was certainly far from a simple battle of good vs evil. Both sides did things we'd sooner rather erase from history. Hell, WW2 certainty wasn't black and white. I mean, there was that whole thing with American nuking those civilians and the bombing of Dresden.

yeah, the Japanese didn't do anything bad, just bombed and killed hundreds of civilians and invaded China, committed genocide in numerous areas, and supposedly conducted numerous inhumane experiments, but what was bad about that? the Japanese just wanted an empire of their own.
(I don't hate today's Japanese, just what their ancestors did in the name of nationality and pride)
when you do bad, expect bad things to be done unto you
the British wanted the colonials to pay taxes for British expenditures in war, something the American colonials weren't involved with, so the colonials rebelled, then the British imposed numerous laws to force the colonials to pay and later on, shot into a crowd of protestors, killing 6

In fairness they never said that the Japanese hadn't done anything wrong, quite the contrary, they just said that the war couldn't be seen in black and white terms because BOTH sides had done atrocious things. Also, the British raised taxes in large part to recover the costs associated with the 7 Years War which definitely involved defending the colonies in North America from other European powers operating in America at the time. Should the colonists have had a say in the imposition of the taxes? Definitely but that's hardly the same as saying that the taxes were paying for things that had nothing to do with them.

Also, it wasn't only taxes that the Americans rebelled over. One of the "Intolerable Acts" was the Quebec Act which angered the Americans for, among other things, allowing the free practice of Catholicism which they feared owing to their strong Protestantism. If that's not an intolerant and indefensible stance I don't what is.

It also had to do with allocating land to Quebec that had already been promised to other colonies so that was more reasonable. The point is that it can hardly be said that there were good guys and bad guys in the Revolution (in my mind anyway). The Americans overreacted to a tax that was only necessary to repay the costs of protecting them and the British overreacted by governing with a far heavier hand than they should have.

Nobody should have come out of this smelling like roses, all war is dirty and both sides should have their merits and flaws exposed rather than being monolithic entities operating entirely one way or the other. As for the game, I'll reserve judgment until it's actually released and we can see exactly what they've done.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

CONNOR:
Roll up, roll up! Let's commit indescriminate slaughter in the name of the Greatest (and/or only) Nation on Earth!

Instead of showing us what being an Assassin is all about, we get minutes of Pro-American propaganda speech, including that classic "it's my right as a Yank to be ignorant!" line.
We then end with a shot of Connor stood in the middle of a group of British soldiers, all dead or dying, and the Americans rushing to his aid.

This is hardly a trait unique to that trailer; most of the source material thus far can be described as either "America! Fuck yeah!" or "Hi, I'm Connor and I love killing Brits!"

It is a radical shift in tone compared to what they have done previously, and it's a shift in entirely the wrong direction.

And none of the other Assassins took a side? You don't seem to remember Ezio fighting on behalf of any certain group? Or how they made the Borgias the enemies?

Make no mistake, Assassin's Creed has had it's moments of being rather Black and White. The only reason we haven't hear many complaints from the series is because they've pretty much dealt only in the relatively obscure history of people long passed, and even took place in a few countries that don't even exist anymore.

Great trailer. Fair, impartial, inkeeping with the series. Why the fuck do they let this kind of thing go under the radar in favour of racist Pro-American bullshit?

Racist? American is not a race. Neither is British. Are you perhaps referring to the Indian portrayal in this? To which I respond... no, there hasn't been a single instance of racism against the Mohawk tribe distributed in this game yet. The only Native American they've shown is Connor, and he's been relatively bland so far.

You have a constitution that was written after the Revolution that embodies the ideals of why you rebelled from British rule.
You have a government that ignores that constitution, or else rewrites it to suit corporate agendas and those of the rich elite.
You have guns.

Do what your fuckng laws demand, then we'll stop with the Team America crap.

We are not our government. In case you missed it, we're actually beginning to see quite a bit of civil unrest because of this very point.

 

[Wargamer]

And none of the other Assassins took a side? You don't seem to remember Ezio fighting on behalf of any certain group? Or how they made the Borgias the enemies?

AC1 was very good at making Assassin and Templar appear very similar. The game was morally grey because of that - by the end, I was not entirely sure I'd been playing the good guy...

AC2's "Auditore vs Borgia" is just that - a family fued. Ezio doesn't persecute the Borgia for being Italian, or Non-Italian, or even for being Templars; they murdered his family, so he's murdering their family. Assassin motivations come later.

Racist? American is not a race. Neither is British. Are you perhaps referring to the Indian portrayal in this? To which I respond... no, there hasn't been a single instance of racism against the Mohawk tribe distributed in this game yet. The only Native American they've shown is Connor, and he's been relatively bland so far.

Then what should I use? "Culturalist"? That sounds like someone who sips overpriced wine in a French cafe and buys paintings with names like "three random drops of ink, plus canvas."

I use 'Racist' to mean that a certain group of people are being demonised for no good reason [the British] whilst another, supposedly superior people [the "Americans"] are being portrayed in a vastly superior light.

Was that really so hard to understand? Or did you choose the style over substance fallacy because you can't actually counter the point?

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Then what should I use? "Culturalist"? That sounds like someone who sips overpriced wine in a French cafe and buys paintings with names like "three random drops of ink, plus canvas."

I use 'Racist' to mean that a certain group of people are being demonised for no good reason [the British] whilst another, supposedly superior people [the "Americans"] are being portrayed in a vastly superior light.

Was that really so hard to understand? Or did you choose the style over substance fallacy because you can't actually counter the point?

The closest you're going to get is "xenophobic". And that word still doesn't really work in this case.

And no, it was the fact that you used a word that didn't at all fit into the situation, and I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt by assuming you were talking about the Native American portrayal in this game. And that wasn't a point, because you hadn't really backed it up with anything. You just randomly called this game racist out of the blue. Forgive me for not catching onto the wrong definition that you meant.

 

[HouseOfSyn]

SNIP

SNIP

These two get it. Learn your history before you comment on something you have little understanding of. The French and Spanish supported the Revolution in order to stretch the effectiveness of British forces across the World and the British effectively knew they had no option but to let the Revolutionaries win to focus on fighting a bigger war on the European continent. The British were stretched to their limit and didn't want the problem of keeping hold of a strip of land on the East coast of America when they were fighting to control far more important and richer colonies in Africa and India. Not to mention defending their homeland.


Lets wait until release to see how the Revolution is portrayed and which 'side' Conner (Ridiculous surname for a half-cast native/British by the way) is on. It could have been released for this very reason: To see how it would be received. The next one could very well show Conner stalking and assassinating a Revolutionary leader.

Also, Why on earth are you talking about the morality of the use of atomic bombs in this thread? You're off topic. Go somewhere else.

 

[ZeroMachine]

I presumed that "his people" and "his nation" mean the Mohawks when I first read that. If it was referring to America that would be tragically ironic given the fact that Native Americans originally weren't allowed to be US citizens after America was founded.

This.

Seriously, guys.

Think about it.