Wednesday, June 27, 2018
The Assassin Podcast 1: Assassins were never called Hashashins
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Nietzsche was an Assassin
"When the Christian crusaders in the Orient came across that unconquered Order of Assassins, that free-spirited order par excellence, whose lowest ranks lived a life of obedience of the sort no order of monks attained, then they received by some means or other a hint about that symbol and motto, which only the highest ranks kept as their secret, "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." . . . Well now, that was spiritual freedom." -Frederick Nietzche, Genealogy of Morals.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Assassin's Creed Full Unreleased OST: Masyaf Village (Jesper Kyd ft. Mel...
Somehow, I can really imagine this fitting well in a Nizari Ismaili village. Though, the Nizaris forbade music on account of asceticism, so...
Assassin's Creed 2 Unreleased OST: Leonardo's Inventions 3 (by Jesper Kyd)
A beautiful piece from the unreleased music channel on Youtube, check it out for more unreleased AC music.
Jesper Kyd did hitman before he did AC. Appropriate, I think.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Origins is the worst AC and a question to the AC community
Well, here we are.
Assassin’s creed
Origins is the worst Assassin’s creed.
It is the worst game
in the series, EVERYTHING that is wrong with Assassin’s creed can
be seen in Origins.
And so I will show
this.
You may notice, by
the way: that I will not be using Origins footage. That’s because I
cannot bear to play it and have sworn never to give another penny to
such corrupt AAA Corporate entities as Ubisoft, EA or Warner
Brothers.
As a result: Enjoy
some Original Assassin’s creed or whatever I’ve decided to play.
So, to start with
the critique let’s take a look at the setting.
Ancient Egypt. Well,
Hellenistic Egypt. Did you know Cleopatra’s time is closer to the
moon landing than the actual time of the pyramids? Don’t worry,
neither did Ubisoft’s writers.
While I’ve
mentioned Cleopatra, I can say that her depiction in this game is
fucking atrocious. Roman propaganda was used to slander Cleopatra
during her relations with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. It was
due to the Roman fears that Egypt would feminise the rulers of Rome
and hence harm Rome itself. Hollywood picked up on these accounts
throughout the 20th century to produce typically bullshit
movies.
One would expect
better from Assassin’s creed, given their accurate depiction of the
Crusades and Renaissance, but then, the people who made those games
were fired a long time ago.
No, instead we have
Cleopatra the scantily clad seductress with an opium pipe in one hand
and a cock in the other.
Then there’s
Caesar: not bad with the misogyny, Caesar was definitely a dick to
women: especially his wife but then there is the tiny little issue of
him being played by a scotsman.
Now that I mention
it there’s also the issue of Cleopatra being portrayed as English.
Yes, apparently
there was a lot of British colonialism in Hellenistic Egypt.
The traditional
white washing of such important historical figures as the Pharaohs
and Roman politicians was done by the British and American film
industry as a means of projecting their own cultures onto the great
empires of Antiquity.
It was all done as a
means of making themselves feel better when they invade poorer
countries and kill all the people for oil or silk or biscuits or
whatever they want there, sometimes I think it was just because they
like killing.
I’m glad to see
Ubisoft continue this tradition, I imagine it makes them feel better
when they fuck over the fanbase.
To be honest, in all
the famous scenes depicted in Origins (and of course they’re famous
because god forbid we show the common man’s side of history like in
Desilet’s AC) one should take a grain of salt, actually fuck the
salt, one should just naturally assume bullshit.
As a microcosm of
this, take Caesar’s assassination scene: an absolute cavalcade of
lies. When I saw it, I assumed maybe they read Plutarch’s shitty
account but it even contradicts Plutarch. I genuinely think the
writers took Shakespere’s play as a historical account or just went
by a fucking movie (now that I think about it its probably a
hollywood movie because I genuinely can’t picture the writer of
origins reading Shakespeare, if he did we’d get a far better
revenge tragedy then...this.
So, to put it short.
Caesar was not
assassinated in the grand senate building.
Marcus Brutus was
not the ringleader.
Caesar was not
trying to be king.
Caesar did not die
quietly, whispering “You too?” or similar to Brutus, he was a
fucking legionary general for fuck sake, think about it.
Brutus and the gang
did not kill him for liberty, they did it because they were
politicians, this was Rome, Caesar was gaining too much power, and
Caesar fucked Brutus’ mum.
It was the people
and the legionaries that called for the death of the conspirators for
fuck sake, even after the second consul, Marcus Antonius, pardoned
them.
Brutus was an
asshole, he was bribed by Caesar to betray Pompey. Sure he would have
believed in the Republic but only because he was an aristocrat and a
member of senate, he would have lost out if Caesar had reformed the
empire.
Also, Brutus didn’t
stab him last there’s more evidence that was Decimus.
Also, the signal for
killing him was the pulling on his cloak, not a weird hooded Egyptian
lady walking up and sticking him.
Come to think of it,
were women even allowed into the senate houses? I guess I’d need to
look that one up using primary source material. See. that’s what
you do when you don’t know something about history Ubisoft writer,
you don’t just make something up and patronise the audience by
assuming they’re dumber than you.
Then there’s the
portrayal of ancient warfare. Now, I really don’t want to get into
the weaponry and fighting tactics. I get that its a video game and
some suspension of belief is needed but let me just say:
A scythe is not a
weapon. It is a garden implement.
Moving on, we have
naval combat. Ah yes, because naval combat was such a great idea in
Black Flag: actually it was the only good idea in Black Flag.
Actually, it was the only good idea since the firing of Desilets,
perhaps Ubisoft shouldn’t be forcing its development team to remake
Assassin’s creed II over and over and let them make something new
and original: who knows it might be fun and lucrative – isn’t
that how Assassin’s creed came about in the first place?
Anyway, ancient
naval warfare was usually conducted in tight formation with ships
preparing a charge with the aim of inflicting catastrophic damage
with their battering rams. After this, a skirmish would take place
with marines attacking with arrows and even a kind of Roman ballista
before using bridges to storm the enemy ships.
What didn’t happen
was that the ancients basically substituted cannons for arrows:
that’s what happens in a lazy developer’s brain when he doesn’t
want to reinvent Black Flag’s naval combat.
Furthermore, fire
arrows do not exist. They have never existed, only an idiot would
think they could exist. And only an idiot would use them if they did.
Do this experiment
for me: take an arrow and a bow. Put a piece of cotton on the arrow
and light it. Now, shoot the arrow.
Amazingly, the full
force of the arrow flying at high speeds through the air will snuff
out the flame.
Sigh. I don’t even
want to get into it. Just watch Lindybeige’s video on this. Fucking
Christ.
So, Origins is
perfectly historically inaccurate. Big surprise. All Assassin’s
creeds since II have been historically inaccurate to a ludicrous
degree, merely mirroring the common ignorance of people too lazy to
look past wikipedia. Origins is just as bad.
Now, moving on to
the hallmark of all good stories. Character.
Assassin’s creed
has suffered an issue of character since II. Well, its suffered an
issue of everything but nevermind.
The one glistening
bud of hope in that was Edward Kenway but (raspberry noise) he’s
gone, even then I’m sure Captain Eddie the pirate wasn’t just a
slightly shinier turd in a treasure chest filled with shit on shit
island off the coast of a continent of shit.
But is the main
character of Origins a break in this trend of boring characters?
No.
He’s probably one
of the worst, right up there with the Frye twats. If not the worst.
Do this for me:
describe Bayek but without mentioning what he does, who he’s
friends with, his profession or his physical appearance. Just purely
in terms of his personality.
Ok, now try describe
Ezio in the same fashion.
Have you noticed
that as soon as I mentioned Ezio, the personality quirks came to
mind. Whereas with Bayek it took some thought to think of at least
one or two things, even then they are quite generic and may even be
attributable to most characters you can think of?
Now try this:
describe one flaw or weakness and one virtue of Bayek. And both can’t
be the same thing.
Now, Ezio.
Are you noticing
something? You see the reason Ezio passes these tests is because he
was made to be a character in his own story whereas Bayek is simply a
device for a plot.
Bayek has no
character. He is defined only by the fact he is a mejay, he wants to
avenge his son and he is the first Assassin.
Then there’s his
relationship with Aya. Another one dimensional zombie, one that’s
even worse than Bayek.
Bayek and Aya tell
each other how much they love each other but never explain why, they
just bark some made up mystic garbage in a round about way of saying
I miss you or I will miss you and then have sex.
What is their
relationship based on? Why does their personality match each other?
What do they have in common? What made them marry in the first place?
I’ll tell you.
Nothing. They were born when a board of directors decided: Oh yeah,
fans like female protagonists now, I saw it that one time on Tumblr
so tell the slaves down at the dev department to give Bayek a wife or
something.
This lack of any
basis for a relationship between two characters becomes hilarious
when the two break up for no reason. Aya says something along the
lines of “The gods have made clear our love may never be.”
And then they go
their separate ways, almost certainly to give a fucking excuse for
them to get back together over the course of the next game.
What I’m sure the
writers wanted me to think was that Bayek wanted to stay at home and
not be an Assassin and Aya wanted to be an Assassin and go kill loads
of people in Rome but then Bayek is an Assassin anyway in Egypt.
So, they broke up
because Aya wanted to go to rome and kill Caesar? But Aya goes away
for long periods of time anyway, she has her own boat for fuck sake.
I’ve already
explained the reason though, its just a contrived conflict to be
resolved in an equally contrived way. Its because the board of
directors want another game so they told the writers to make up an
excuse, and the writers being really bad writers couldn’t think of
a better way or were too lazy to do so.
Then there’s
Bayek’s reason for founding the hidden ones. He realises rather
suddenly that he’s been killing his son’s killers for no reason
other than to satisfy his rage and so decides he’s going to kill
some more people but this time because it’ll help Egypt because all
those guys are bad. Then he kills his son’s killer for reals but,
he feels kind of bad, even though his son’s killer was a
sociopathic murderer.
Oh, god. That brings
me to the villains. They are REAL villains. Like Snidely Whiplash
style Villains.
Like, is there a
single Templar in this game who hasn’t at least committed
infanticide. Holy shit. They are nuts. At one point I think the
crocodile just goes and drowns a child for no reason. And they all
have their special way of killing and their special names, fucking
god Ubisoft, just give them some spandex and rename the Assassins the
avengers and start selling the lunch boxes already.
I mean its hard for
me to root for Bayek, being the blank rubix cube he is, but at least
when he meets children he doesn’t immediately rape and eat them.
Christ. The Templars aren’t even people. They’re just a dumb
person’s imagining of what evil looks like.
No, evil people
aren’t human beings being viewed from an antagonistic perspective,
they’re monstrous tyrants killing old men and eating babies.
This is the sort of
perspective I expect from a truly monstrous person.
When it comes to
characters I always see a web. The characters are certain points on
the web and the connections are the interactions that character has
with other characters. Everything must be spun properly, the web must
fit in all places and the connections must be real.
Inside the
characters there is another web, that of their psyche. Everything
needs to be balanced and connected, any illogical or nonsensical
thing will destroy the web.
But with this game
there is no web. There are just statements, conventions, these aren’t
characters they’re just puppets being forced by the writer’s
hand.
The writer decided
the course of Bayek’s story rather than let Bayek’s personality
shape the course. Hence, Bayek is not a character. He is just a
puppet to fill a role.
Because we’re
running short on time here, I’ll finish up with one last flaw; one
that is the greatest place where Origins falls short.
The creed.
The theme of
Assassin’s creed has always been this: nothing is true and
everything is permitted.
One should open
their mind and be wary that others will try to control you with their
illusions for their own gain. In order to live life to the fullest
whilst remaining in peace with one’s neighbours one must embrace
the creed. If nothing is true, why raise a hand against your friend
for believing different. And if everything is permitted then why be
ashamed of standing out in the crowd?
Upon realising this
creed, one will find inner peace and that shall lead to peace within
all things.
Now, let me ask you.
In this Assassin’s
creed game about the Origins of the Assassins, those who are defined
by their creed.
How many times do
they mention nothing is true, everything is permitted?
How many?
Oh, they do mention
safeguarding free will. At least once. But never do they mention why
the Assassins safeguard free will. Yes, the Assassin’s value man’s
freedom.
But only because
peace can only be embraced, never forced.
If you force peace,
you would create an illusion that would never find its way into the
hearts of men. It would be a lie.
True peace is
obtained through one’s own free will.
And true peace is
the recognition of the creed.
Therefore to say
nothing is true and everything is permitted is to recognise true
peace through your own free will.
Now, is Bayek the
founder of this creed? How can he be if he hasn’t even mentioned
it?
Bayek and Aya both,
harbour hatred for their enemies and this brings them inner turmoil,
it disrupts inner peace.
One who knows the
creed cannot harbour hatred for anyone. Because why hate your enemy
for their ideas when nothing is true and why hate them for their
actions if everything is permitted.
But let’s take a
break from philosophy and see to judging Bayek and Aya purely from
the standpoint of Assassins in the field.
Three tenants.
Stay your blade.
Hide in plain sight.
Do not compromise
the brotherhood.
Well, they don’t
kill unnecessarily. Unless you count all of those guards, soldiers,
sailors and gladiators that they kill because kur tunk smash the bad
guys kur tunk.
They definitely
don’t hide in plain sight. They constantly run up to their enemies
and battle with them. Or just plain sneak around like Talion from
Shadow of Mordor.
Then there’s the
issue of them putting their allies in danger, leading indirectly to
some of their deaths.
So, by all those
accounts I suppose they’d make great Gondorian soldiers. Wait, did
I forget what they were supposed to be? Oh, that’s Ok, so did
Ubisoft’s writers.
I suppose there’s
the argument that they hadn’t formed the brotherhood at that point.
But it doesn’t matter anyway because the creed had been around for
millennia before Bayek and Aya.
Oh, yeah, didn’t
you already know? Remember when Aya gives Bayek a hidden blade and
Ubisoft expects not to question the existence of Assassin weaponry
pre-Assassins because your’re a good little boy and you’re gonna
shut up now and buy a season pass now like the witless cock sucker
you are.
Well, that belonged
to Darius who Assassinated Xerxes the first, who died about the 5th
century BCE. That is from Assassin’s creed II. And Ubisoft had to
tip toe around that one like they do with almost all the lore they
want to ignore from the Desilets period.
In the original
Assassin’s creed lore, the Assassins weren’t just an Order. They
were a bloodline. The Assassins were born from the union between
Those Who Came Before and man, to what end we don’t know.
The blood gave those
apart of the dynasty the ability to see the intentions of those
around them, to see the truth past illusions and demonstrate amazing
physical agility.
In other words, they
could use eagle vision and free run.
Now, the issue with
Bayek and Aya is that they don’t have eagle vision. Yes, they are
good at free running. But the real tell tale sign is eagle vision.
So, technically they aren’t Assassins.
But that’s the
issue isn’t it. What I’ve just done is applied the lore to
Origins and realised they don’t match.
But Ubisoft don’t
give a shit. They never have. Everything in Assassin’s creed has
just been contradicted whenever Ubisoft’s board see a trend to
chase.
And they chase that
trend because they think it’ll lead them to money.
Meanwhile a fanbase
desperately clings on, deluding itself that the games haven’t
gotten shittier and shittier and the writing progressively worse to
the point that the story is a black and white retelling of the same
old parent/offspring conflict over and over and the villains devious
monsters whose only purpose is to appear evil so the protagonist will
seem comparatively good.
The historical
setting that made this game so fresh has been reduced into a
children’s history lesson taught without the slightest notion of
any historical fact. Any accuracy has been tossed away for the sake
of outlandish fantasy action and the misrepresentations can border on
offensively racist in its depictions of other cultures.
And then there’s
the entire fucking point of the game. The idea that one should open
their eyes and think for themselves.
That idea was tossed
overboard long ago. Any semblance of a possible theme has been cast
aside for the sake of a comfort zone of familiar morals, for fear any
encouragement to think for yourself would cause you to realise the
damage that has been done to a once beloved title by a greed driven
group of old men who pull the strings of the development teams for
the sake of profit alone.
A long time ago,
this title had an artist at the helm and artists worked with him. But
the artists have long been dispatched for more obedient workers.
This is the truth.
Assassin’s creed has become shit. And Origins is the pinnacle of
that shit. No use in denying it.
So now, I come to
the point where I want to ask a question.
To the entire
fanbase of Assassin’s creed. For those Youtubers and bloggers and
mentors and community leaders.
Where were you?
Where were you when
they threw out Desilets and then tried to steal his new IP?
Where were you when
they killed Lucy and hid the reason in a dlc?
Where were you when
they changed the voice actors for Subject 16 and Altair and replaced
them with film actors?
Where were you when
they replaced Jesper Kyd, the original composer, for some hollywood
composer?
Where were you when
they shamelessly started using Ezio’s family as their main theme
even though they had long thrown out Kyd?
Where were you when
they killed Desmond and then named a fucking terrier after him?
Where were you when
they got rid of all the original animations?
Where were you when
they openly mocked the fanbase throughout Syndicate, rolling their
eyes at how stupid Assassin’s creed is and how cool they are for
not taking it seriously?
Where were you when
they buckled to Tumblr lunatics over playable female characters?
Where were you when
they started introducing microtransactions?
Where were you when
they made the hidden blade useless in Origins?
Where were you when
they tried, are trying to sell Monster energy drink by putting game
codes on the can?
Where were you when
they made that god awful movie with Michael Fassbender?
Where were you when
they killed Assassin’s creed?
And why didn’t you
speak out while they were killing it?
I guess, for the
sake of the slower of us I’ll need to explain this.
What I’m basically
asking is. Why did no prominent individuals in the Assassin’s creed
community get up and tell Ubisoft off for what they were doing and
organise some community resistance.
Frankly, I genuinely
doubt I’ll raise an eyebrow with anyone in the community. They’re
all too busy suckling on the corporate teat. Even, then I doubt many
will listen. Mine is a small voice of reason, in an asylum of
screaming idiots.
But, nevertheless, I
think I already know the answer.
Nobody spoke up
because they were too lazy and fat. Things were going good, they had
attention and money; all from feeding the fan-base of a great game
series. So what if it got a little shittier this year. Next year will
be better, no need to cry out and make a fuss when all you need to do
is sit back and make a video about Ezio’s new robes.
It never got bad
fast, it always came slow. A great, lumbering encroachment of
bullshit that engulfed the entire fanbase inch by inch until
everything was submerged.
That’s how it all
ends. All these great ideas; in the games industry especially. With
some greedy bastards taking a big, slow shit on top of everything and
everyone down below just insisting that its ice cream.
I can still enjoy 1
and 2 somewhat, while the series still had some soul. But I’ll be
lying if I said, I’ll someday stop wondering what it could have
been like if Patrice Desilets took the rights to Assassin’s creed
when he left Ubisoft.
Now, I’m sure I’ll
ruffle some feathers with this, that’s what happens when you tell
someone something that puts into question the comfortable little
false-reality they’ve constructed for themselves.
And so because the
likeliest attack I will get will be a redirection of my accusation
back at me, let me handle it.
Why didn’t I stand
up when AC was being destroyed?
Well I guess I could
say I didn’t know what Assassin’s creed was when all this
happened and I was too busy with life to notice.
But I’m not a
coward so I can calmly say I consider all of this to be my fault.
All suffering is the
result of one’s own incompetence.
Were I a stronger,
smarter person I could have stopped it then and I could be stopping
it now. And seeing as I am the only one who is sure that I am real
and have control over my own agency, I can safely say that,
logically, I am solely responsible for all evil.
The only think I can
do is work towards being stronger and resist evil until the day when
I am so strong that all evil may be subdued.
So to answer, I
didn’t stop the destruction of Assassin’s creed because I am too
weak to do so and that is something I regret and am trying to
rectify.
Yep.
Maybe that’s odd,
because society controls what you feel not yourself, but it makes
sense. If it didn’t I wouldn’t think it.
So, that’s that.
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