Video Games and the Circle Theory - Assassins Creed Review

All this can be yours


There's something I've been meaning to write about for a while. Originally it was going to be a review of Assassins Creed, a fairly recent video game released by Ubisoft. However, I kept putting it off until the game went from "fairly recent" to a "distant memory long forgotten." It's a shame because I really had a lot to hate on, and a lot to like on, (but mostly things to hate on).
In a way this passage of time has been a good thing though, because it has given me a chance to further reflect on just how much of a waste of time this experience was.

For those of you who don't know, Assassins Creed was a much hyped video-game title which allowed you to freely roam ancient civilizations and stab anyone you want.

"Did someone order a stabbing?"

If you know me, an opportunity to stab just about anything or anyone is worth my time. I truly looked forward to the prospects of leaping onto a lone soldier from afar and giving him a swift knife to the neck. In all fairness, Assassins Creed as a concept is solid.
It also helps that all this glorious knifing is beautifully rendered with some of the finest graphics and fluid animations I've ever seen in a game.

So there's that.

But there's also a ton of other crap nobody really asked for. Like rooftop races to collect flags and time-based murder missions. These are all good and fine (when they aren't effing impossible), but the problem is the game tries to sell itself as being:

"(somewhat kind of maybe) BASED ON REAL EVENTS."

When really the closest this statement ever comes to reality is:

"ONCE THERE WAS A REAL-LIFE GUY WHO STABBED ANOTHER REAL-LIFE GUY IN THE FACE, I THINK"

The game makes up for the historical inaccuracies (like jumping off of towering Churches into tiny hay barrels) by adding in a twinge of science fiction. They very logically explain this. You see, it's all supposed to be a digital simulation of the main character's ancestors memories, who is being exploited by an evil company, to find an ancient object, that gave Jesus the power of magic.

No, it doesn't make any effing sense whatsoever. At all. In fact, we're all that much dumber for just reading that previous sentence. But that's really what this game was saying.
So imagine how I felt after playing this for numerous hours up to the point where all this information is laid out in front of me.
Yeah, I did lower my head in disappointment and give the television the middle finger.
And no one was there to see it.

Now, I am a Christian, and I will admit the whole "blasphemy" part of the game was a tad insulting to me. Surprisingly, because I usually give a bit of leeway to storytelling. But none of it was nearly as insulting as the utter and complete level of retardedness this game had achieved on it's own.

"I have a LEARNING DISABILITY!"

But whatever, hey, I get to stab people. Right?

Well, yeah. The problem is, not always the RIGHT people. For example, you might be running at a guard, leap off the ground, and then find yourself landing on top of some poor lady and knifing her in the back.
Suddenly you go from hero of the poor and weak, to a downright monster.
I will admit, this did give me an opportunity to lower my controller in a moment of introspection and ask myself what kind of a man I truly was.
In reality it was the game just not working.

But you do get to stab people.

The only other problem with this is what I have been meaning to talk about.
This is a theorem for video-games.

If you don't play video games, or simply don't know how to play video games, this is all you need to know.


1.The Circle Theory - Any enemy or boss, can and will be solved by means of moving your character in circles around said enemy or boss.


That's it.
So do you want to know how I beat Assassins Creed?

I spent a solid twenty minutes running in circles.
I hit the guy once, then back to the circles while my health recharged.
It took so much effing time.
It took so much time that I lied.
It really took an hour.
I died once.
I even ate a sandwich while holding the run button down with my chin.

That's when I realized how bad of a game Assassins Creed is. It doesn't even need me there to play it.
So what's the moral of this story? Stabbing people doesn't always pay and running in circles is the solution to everything. Sounds good to me.