Assassin's Creed Devs Don't Hate the British

[duchaked]

lol John Funk had to have known he was setting the forums up for extended um...conversations xD comments galore!

but all in all I'm not gonna bother discussing with folk too much myself. I am 110% American fo sho, but my ancestral presence in the US of A only goes back as far as to...my dad heh

 

[BristolBerserker]

As long as at some point I get to bury my tomahawk into an american's head I'm happy. It's just strange that Conner is half-english/half-mohawk and fighting for the colonists while his mohawk brethren are allied with the British. Maybe it is a ploy so he can get close to a high ranking colonist general who was a stonemason, nudge nudge wink wink.

 

[HouseOfSyn]

Ordinarily, I would see this as nothing different as killing the English crusaders in Assassin's Creed 1. In the country for dickish reasons because Britain, as everyone knows, is the bad guy of the world because we did so many bad things in the past. That's why we make the best movie villains, because British people are naturally evil. I have accepted that once my face hair sorts itself out I will be twirling my moustache as I feed another servant to my pet piranhas.Calumon: Please do, he won't be quiet otherwise. >.<

The crusaders during the three crusades were mostly continental Europeans (German, Polish, Russian etc) paid by the church and King Richard to fight the heretics for the Holy Land. I'm perfectly fine with slaughtering them.

I never thought of the War of Independence to be a British civil war, it's not really my area of history so I excuse myself. Yes. That's how British I am.

I hope Ubisoft Montreal don't wuss out or I'll make it my personal agenda to never kill redcoats and wipe out the 'Americans'.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Spoiler

That's a picture of our AC3 Assassin riding horseback with George Washington.

Not about Britain vs. Colonies. Totally you guys.

Considering that Washington is likely the head of the Assassins (one of the previous games set him as possessing the Apple, so he's either that or a high Templar) it's not surprising to see him being a major player in the game.

However, that doesn't mean it's going to be a purely Brit-slaughter. There's plenty of room for a storyline where the Templars are both trying to fan the flames of war and also insinuate themselves into the brand-new America. Early America was full of traitors, cowards, skulks and genuinely bad dudes ripe for the stabbing.

For example: you might have to do a mission where Washington actually has you assassinate one of his subordinates, who he discovered is a Templar plant. This doubles the necessity of stealth, because Connor won't want to kill people he is technically allied to.

I actually think that would be just as bad as straight up redcoat slaughter, because then you've basically got the righteous and infallible George Washington calling upon his good assassin buddy to cleanse the ranks of his glorious army from the filthy corrupt spies in cahoots with the scummy redcoats, so his fledgling country can rise as an unspoilt, holy phoenix of Good and Charity from the evil Templar infested ranks of the British Empire.

I mean, we have very little to go on to know how the plot will exactly play out in this game, it could be just as impartial as the first one, but from everything we've seen so far it is patriotic to America which is cringe-worthy in any other game, but particuarly dissappointing in an Ass Creed game.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Good grief... Some people are just offended by things that aren't even remotely-offensive... It's a historical videogame, people! What did you think was going to happen!? Why whine about it in a videogame, and not in history books, motion pictures, and History Channel documentaries? Honestly...

Strangely, I haven't really been seeing people whining about how the Call of Duty games seem to "hate" Russians. And, I hear Black Ops II is supposed to have "evil Chinese people"! ...I think. Oh, horrors!

 

[Jammy2003]

Good grief... Some people are just offended by things that aren't even remotely-offensive... It's a historical videogame, people! What did you think was going to happen!? Why whine about it in a videogame, and not in history books, motion pictures, and History Channel documentaries? Honestly...

Strangely, I haven't really been seeing people whining about how the Call of Duty games seem to "hate" Russians. And, I hear Black Ops II is supposed to have "evil Chinese people"! ...I think. Oh, horrors!

Difference is, this historically (and in the game universe) doesn't seem to make sense. If it made sense I'd have no problem with it, in fact I didn't even think about it from that angle until it was brought up and I was reminded/educated as to reasons it makes no sense. Mohawks allied with the british, except this one, Washington shown using a piece of Eden in previous games, and concept art with a great big american flag flying behind the guy just make it seem a bit one sided.

If my country has been historically bad (at least from the other person's side of view, because there is always 2 sides to every war and nobody goes to war thinking "Yeah, they are right, but I don't like it!", but we have done bad shit), then let it be portrayed as bad. But if it's just going to be a fangasm, sloshing it's juices onto the screen of how awesome America is, and it doesn't even make sense in the context of the story/history, then I have issue with it.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Seeing it explored as a British civil war would be interesting.

It would be, but everything shown about it so far just points to a bunch of heroic Americans and a man in pyjamas versus a bunch of comically evil Brits. Ubisoft may state there's no bias, but until they show it to be different from the current released footage, that bias is still implicit. They want to prove there's no bias, release footage of the player having to American Templars as well - and not just a couple of token Templars; show him actually having to divide his time between defending America from the historical villainy of the British, having to deal with the British Templars and having to deal with the American Templars.

 

[DirtyJunkieScum]

What's more, says May, is that the actual historical backdrop was rarely so cut and dry as "Americans vs. British." "It occurs against the backdrop of the Revolutionary war. Everyone back then was a Brit, this was not Americans against British - this was a British civil war.

That is one thing that I've always thought of it as but rarely gets mentioned. There were of course a lot of colonists from other European backgrounds but the majority of them were British. They saw an opportunity to get away from the current ruling parties and strike out on their own. It's not as if there hadn't been British civil wars before, the previous one (although in this case primarily English) just over 100 years earlier did away with the king and turned England into a Republic, it's just that having taken place on the mainland there was no opportunity to break away.
Over 200 years of being seperate nations tends to give us a view of "American vs British" when it was more a case of "Revolutionary British and European colonists and the French vs Loyalist British colonists (and maybe some Europeans) and British Crown forces". The fact that the British army lost more soldiers to desertion than battle should tell you something.

 

[Bertylicious]

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

Wait, what about Dunkirk? What was left of the French army provided cover for the British. Pretty sure we allied with them during our recent misadventures in the middle east to.

Edit: Really we should have let them have their own MP. Not doing so was unreasonable.

 

[The Lunatic]

It does come across as very Pro-America.

At least some balance really wouldn't hurt, but, that seems to be beyond the capabilities of a video game plot.

 

[Aesir23]

Irish eh? Well both of my countries have screwed yours

The facts remain

#1 People love the irish
#2 People don't like the french or english

I think that's a clear win for me.

Not a lot of people like Americans either. Let's just all hate each other.

 

[TheLoneTerran]

Just what was needed. Another game going 'MURICA F**K YEAH!! This gives me the feeling that its going to be another cliche riddled form of entertainment where Americans are selfless, virtuous paragons while anyone who didn't have the decency to be born in America are all flawed by some stereotypical hindrance based on their respective culture. It gets old. And before people scream I hate American, I am America and generally enjoy living here. Formulaic, predictable characterization is what bugs me.

 

[MyNameIsNowNotMyName]

Don't mind at all, it's only natural to fear your superiors somewhat, which makes the British being the bad guys in nigh on everything an inevitability.

I hope that is a joke, the British are not superior to anyone else.

 

[MyNameIsNowNotMyName]

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

This. We only backed down from the war because:
1. We never expected it to last more than a year or so; and

2. We had to save resources on a impending war with closer nations, such as the French, Dutch and Spanish - which ended up happening so lucky us.

The colonists wouldn't have stood a chance against the entire might of the British military. We owned a third of the known world at the time. But I'm glad we didn't win, I sort-of like the USA (When your not all being patriotic, fundamental-Christian or just downright stupid).

I still laugh at Pizza being a vegetable because of the tomato purée, though tomato's a fruit and purée is rarely even organic.

[hr]
Back OT: I'm a little annoyed that Connor isn't killing Templars on both sides, but meh - it doesn't hurt to be the bad guys every once in a while. The Russians bit the bullet for a while as the main antagonists, so why not step it up a notch to the best nation on the planet?

...What? Pizza is considered a vegetable anywhere? Mind=Blown

 

[Blatherscythe]

From what I hear about the trailer it seems that Assassin's Creed 3 is to British people as the Russian portion of World at War was for Germans.

 

[The Pinray]

All the British butthurt in this thread is delicious! Nice change of pace around here.

Also, I can't wait for this game. Looks way better than the last three. I can't stand the Renaissance.

 

[Bvenged]

Why oh Why is John Funks quote not appearing so I can snip it?!?!!?

snip snip

snippidy

I still laugh at Pizza being a vegetable because of the tomato purée, though tomato's a fruit and purée is rarely even organic.

[hr]
snip snip

...What? Pizza is considered a vegetable anywhere? Mind=Blown

You haven't heard? Back in November, in order to make their schools look healthier (rather than, oh I don't know, make the menus healthier like the rest of the world), the US Congress declared Pizza to be a vegetable if it contained so much tomato sauce (purée) on its base.

That's ignoring the fact that tomato sauce has so much sugar in it that some countries like the UK, shops can legally sell it as a desert; or the fact that tomato is actually a fruit in the first place... It's the most recent example of stupidity from over the sea, and it comes straight from their govt.

 

[Mr_Jellyfish]

There are no badguys and goodguys, life isn't really split into those categories. What did the settlers do, piss all over the native Americans so they could have their independence? Nothing really heroic about that, or about the British either. War is never as simple as good guys and badguys, even World War 2, we went over there expecting to kill evil Nazis but most of the time we were just killing German boys.

That said, I'm a Brit and I have no problem with Assassins Creed 3, it's actually the first Assassins Creed I like the look of!

 

[Toby Kitching]

Good grief... Some people are just offended by things that aren't even remotely-offensive... It's a historical videogame, people! What did you think was going to happen!? Why whine about it in a videogame, and not in history books, motion pictures, and History Channel documentaries? Honestly...

Strangely, I haven't really been seeing people whining about how the Call of Duty games seem to "hate" Russians. And, I hear Black Ops II is supposed to have "evil Chinese people"! ...I think. Oh, horrors!

Right, have to address this now. The CoD thing. Two reasons why this comparison is hilariously irrelevant (haven't played BlOps so I'll be taking MW1 as an example):

1. However you twist it, you cannot possibly say that the arab terrorists from the first game or the russian ultranationalists are good people. You don't find yourself hosing down russians and UAE soldiers, just some nice, easily-deniable nutjobs. When Bad Company II came out, I remember a lot of people being really pissed that they threw this out the window and just made the russians evil instead.
This is different: they are taking sides in a war between two legitimate countries. Neither side were terrorists (well, arguably the colonists, but shut up) and the morality issue is much more murky than it was in CoD.

2. Besides, that was CoD. It's not exactly well known for historical accuracy or a lack of "RAH RAH 'MURRICA" bias; nobody takes it seriously. AC games have traditionally tried to stay neutral in terms of combatants; you killed plenty of british soldiers in ACI, but it was okay because you also killed saracens, so it wasn't taking sides at all. Ubi keep saying that they're not taking sides this time round either, but I don't believe a word of it. I think this is just going to turn out to be The Patriot with a hidden blade.

Also, whilst I'm here...
All the Americans saying 'you're just not used to being the bad guys, stop bitching': think about this for a second. Have the Americans ever really been the bad guys in anything? Nope. If the US government are the bad guys in something, it's always some renegade US soldier or some shit who turns out to be the good guy.


And finally, someone earlier mentioned an article on Cracked:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18442_5-reasons-founding-fathers-were-kind-dicks.html

 

[MyNameIsNowNotMyName]

Why oh Why is John Funks quote not appearing so I can snip it?!?!!?

snip snip

snippidy

I still laugh at Pizza being a vegetable because of the tomato purée, though tomato's a fruit and purée is rarely even organic.

[hr]
snip snip

...What? Pizza is considered a vegetable anywhere? Mind=Blown

You haven't heard? Back in November, in order to make their schools look healthier (rather than, oh I don't know, make the menus healthier like the rest of the world), the US Congress declared Pizza to be a vegetable if it contained so much tomato sauce (purée) on its base.

That's ignoring the fact that tomato sauce has so much sugar in it that some countries like the UK, shops can legally sell it as a desert; or the fact that tomato is actually a fruit in the first place... It's the most recent example of stupidity from over the sea, and it comes straight from their govt.

Well, as a resident of the United States, I for one have haven't even heard of this, and I can ALMOST guarantee you that not a single person here who isn't in congress considers pizza a vegetable...