Memory Block 6: Abstergo Labs

Desmond is pulled out of the animus because Desmond’s Assassin friends are attacking the research facility. We have to assume this is happening because we don’t see it. Vidic just switches on his desk’s speaker phone and there is gunfire and guys yelling. It makes me think it is just the Templars messing with Desmond. Probably a couple of guys in a cubicle on the tenth floor huddled over a phone making fake explosion noises and death sounds stopping only to cover their mouths and giggle.

The Abstergo’s security was able to stop the siege and kill all the attackers. Vidic says this should be the only resistance they will see because over the past year the Templars have been destroying all Assassin training camps and killing all within.

Worried about what this global Assassin-cleansing campaign, Lucy assures Desmond that his parents should be ok because their camp was deserted when the Templars found it. Desmond then rants about how screwed he is because his only way out was just killed in the lobby of a research facility. Calming him, Lucy says “have a little faith” and places her left hand on her chest. At first I thought she was trying to calm Desmond by doing a variation
on the “pulled off thumb” trick uncles do at Thanksgiving. Not so. You would
have had to watch the developer interviews (fast forward to the 2:50) to know it but assassins cut off their ring finger as an initiation right. By showing him her missing digit she is signaling that she is an assassin who has infiltrated the Templars.

Desmond’s fingers are all intact which is probably because he never became a full-fledged assassin.

It is surprising that with strong women such as Jade Raymond and Elspeth Tory influencing this game’s development the female characters in this game are so underdeveloped. The characters aren’t sexually objectified – standard for most videogames. Instead, in Assassin’s Creed the two strongest women characters (Lucy and that Templar decoy) are both tricksters who hide behind false facades ready to trick the men. This role of female pulling the bait and switch has been seen all the way back in Super Mario Brothers with the classic “our princess is in another castle” Peach. I don’t think we should falsely interpret these “Female Tricksters” as strong roles. I see these female characters as representing a man’s misogynistic viewpoint that at any moment the woman he thought he knew could turn on him and be something completely different. They are like toned down Femme Fatals.

Dr. is very happy and says that this is a very important
day that will be remembered by some anyway.

Memory Block 6: Robert (Jerusalem)

Another big city at Altair’s fingertips (minus one) to fully explore. However, there is nothing fun to do in this sandbox. Why can’t I turn on crowd surfing mode or pick up a barrel and go crowd bowling. They have licensed the havoc engine, do something with it. I want to see bodies being tossed about. Also, what about moshpit mode. I want to build huge barricades in the street trapping a hundred people in a small space and see what happens when I ride my horse through it.  

This is my biggest problem with the game. It is not the repetitive missions or the mindless and endless flag track downs, it’s that the game is a missed opportunity. They have this crowd simulator and they have a beautiful city. I want to play with those two things.

Assassin’s Bureau:

Once again, Altair has to deal with Malik. Luckily he is a whole lot more pleasant now that Altair is following the Creed. Malik tells him that he can find some informers hanging out where all targets in this game hang out: hospitals and churches.

Investigation:

In the Middle District of Jerusalem the various informants are all talking about the finely dressed Knights who are in Jerusalem. The fine dress is because Robert is there to attend a Muslim funeral as a sign of reconciliation between the two cultures. It seems that Robert wants to see
peace between Muslims and Christians and united under the Templar banner.

After the investigation and back at the Bureau, Altair has a sudden Assassin mea culpa. He says that he was such a fool in Solomon’s Temple
and that because of his actions, Malik to lost his arm and his brother, Kadar, lost his life. Malik embraces this apology and remarks how different Altair is now. Altair has rejected his
dickweed ways and fully devotes himself to the creed. See the moral lesson here? Killing seven people has turned a former misanthrope into a empathetic person who contributes to a structured organization. What a great guy.

The Kill:

As Altair comes around the corner of the church, a crowd has gathered around a grave while an Emam gives a eulogy for a fallen Saracen. The speech couldn’t be any more generic and
I wonder if the writer just googled “funeral eulogy” and then copied the first thing he found. One thing I know they didn’t google was “Muslim funeral”
because there are a number of things that aren’t right. Traditionally, there are no speeches (only silent prayer), women aren’t allowed at the burial, here shouldn’t be a gravestone or flowers. You would think someone from their “multi cultural team of various religious faiths” would have pointed out that this isn’t very accurate. Not that I can speak to it as I have never been to one and all this is from a technical outline of a Muslim funeral . If you have attended a Muslim funeral send me a note and let me know what else is off. 

At the end of the speech everyone in the crowd say this slurred “Amen” which is probably because they didn’t know how else to end a prayer, Robert, who is standing next to the Emam whispers in his ear and points to the rest of the troops. The Emam then changes subjects and says that this man was murdered and then in an Agatha Christy-esque reveal yells that the murderer is here in the crowd!

Of course the crowd would break up at such a dramatic reveal and the funeral stops to chase down Altair. Fight off the troops as you normally do but aim for Robert.

Blue Screen of Death:

Altair rips off the Templar’s helmet but instead of finding Robert he finds a woman. Frustrated he asks “what sorcery is this?” The decoy gets a befuddled look on her face as she wonders how cross dressing could be considered witchcraft. Instead of attending the funeral, Robert had fled to find King Richard with hopes of negotiating peace between Saracen and Crusader. Unwittingly, Altair’s seven assassinations have united the former enemies against the Assassin brotherhood.

Altair doesn’t kill her because she is not his target. I guess we don’t consider all those lepers and beggars I slaughtered to get here as targets, lets just call them... environment. The big question though is, why is this decoy female? Wouldn’t it just be easier to dress up one of the endless supply of guards in Templar armor? Methinks the designers got to the end of the game and were like “oh crap guys, we have like three female characters. One caries jugs, the other begs for money, and the third is Lucy. We need to get a strong female in here somewhere. We can’t kill her though because Altair standing over a female corpse would look bad. Don’t worry guys, she can still be
hot.”  

Back at the bureau, Altair reports that Robert knew he was going to be at the funeral and it was a trap. With obvious complications of having the Saracens and the Crusaders aligned against the Assassins, Malik’s idea is to go ask his manager (Al Mualim). Altair says that would be a bad idea because that manager is hiding something. He decides to go hunt down Robert on his own and orders Malik to go spy on Al Mualim in Masyaf.

This confrontation with Robert does not take place in a city but in a place called Arsuf. To get there you have to leave Jerusalem and select “The Kingdom” from the menu. Then, ride south through the Kingdom to the Arsuf icon. Considering the over world was pretty much useless when they implemented the “Select Destination” menu, this last farewell ride through  the Kingdom seems like an apology to the really talented team who designed it.

Memory Block 6: Robert de Sable (Arsuf)

Up until this point Altair was the silent killer who would avoid confrontation so he could silently snipe the target with his secret arm blade before running off to disappear among the crowd or vanish inside a rooftop garden. Forget all that because when he gets to Arsuf, Altair turns
into a one man, twelfth century, panzer-tank-bad-ass who makes a frontal assault on the entire Crusader army. 

To get through the area, climb over the barricades, scale the watch towers and confront all the troops who pour out in combinations of ten. Don’t fret how many are attacking you because whether it is two troops or ten, only one guy attacks you at a time. In fact, their attack pattern is a perfect demonstration of how a radial engine works – they stand around in a circle and only one fires at a time.

At the end of the gauntlet, Altair approaches King Richard’s camp to see him surrounded by his men. Altair retells the whole plot of the game and Robert steps forward to counter this accusation by saying “this assassin is just worried we are going to attack their secret fort.” Then, instead of killing Altair instantly because he is, an assassin, the same race as the Saracens, and responsible for slaughtering more than 30 of his troops on the way in, King Richard just says “this guy makes a fair point.” And then showing great executive decision making, he orders Altair and Robert to fight and the survivor decides the action he should take. Then, it is 10 vs 1 fight against Altair.

Blue Screen of Death:

The fight ends with Robert de Sable dying in Altair’s arms. With the nine Templars and their brain washing scheme done Altair assumes everything has been righted. Robert then reveals the big twist - there were ten men who stole the treasure and know what the Pieces of Eden does. The final one being Al Mualim. Unlike the Templars, Al Mualim does not want to share it with humanity and ordered the other nine dead so that he could have it to himself. The
Basic message to take away from this game: past or the future, don’t trust anyone with a beard.

After emerging from his final words with Robert, Altair finds King Richard is happy, almost grateful, that Altair is so favored this day. Didn’t Richard just watch Altair kill all his comrade-in-arms? Then, nonchalantly standing among the corpses of his best men, Richard asks why Altair came all this way to kill Robert. Was it vengeance? No, says Altair, it was justice so there would be peace in the holy land. This being the climax of the game, the designers thought this would be the perfect time for a very long conversation that touches on the irony of killing for peace, humankind’s predilection to violence, and the possibility of middle east peace. With the waxing on over,

Altair returns to Masyaf.

Before we go on I am just wondering how the heck this game is not more conscious of how it fits into 2007 world politics. You have two nations one from the West, one from the East engaging in a hot conflict. Then, you have a third party of insurgents who operate on the city streets using guerilla tactics to assassinate both sides of a conflict. If this isn’t a perfect retelling of Al-Quida’s role during the Sunni/Shiite/Coalition conflict in Iraq, I don’t know what is. And there is no mention of it. None.

You will probably say, I use games to escape form politics and keep it out of my games. I’m not saying Altair or King Richard should diverge on a 10 minute monologue about the evolution of terrorism and such. All they had to do is have someone call Altair a terrorist to make people think. Think about how strange it is that we are playing as, and are sympathetic to, a character who could be considered a terrorist and works for a terrorist
organization. Other games have been tangentially similar to terrorism but a game like this is almost a perfect retelling of a similar conflict we are experiencing right now.

It seems as if the Assassin’s Creed design team were purposely trying to keep away from this issue and in effect really chickened out content wise. It is as if this game were written in a pre 2001 world. The first screen that preemptively warned us that this game is from a “multi cultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs” was a sign that this team was walking on eggshells. Too bad though, I guess this is just another missed opportunity from Assassin’s Creed.