{"id":381,"date":"2011-01-19T09:30:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhing.com\/?p=381"},"modified":"2011-01-18T23:47:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T23:47:20","slug":"assassins-creed-brotherhood-a-pope-punching-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhing.com\/chaotic-tortoise\/2011\/01\/assassins-creed-brotherhood-a-pope-punching-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: A Pope Punching Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time I scribbled about Assassin’s Creed, it was with Assassin’s Creed II, whereby I did a post-completion double-take when I realised I had just been manoeuvred into an in-context fist fight with the Pop<\/a>e.<\/p>\n

I may have just found my equivalent double-take moment in this follow up title.\u00a0 As it could be considered spoilery, I’ll hide it behind the jump.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I like to imagine that there were quite a few conversations held where the designers thought about ways they could one-up Assassin’s Creed II with new features or expanding out on existing ones.\u00a0 I would like to believe the conversation went something like this:<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Right, you know how we wrapped up the last game into a nice self contained story?<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, the good news is, Assassin’s Creed II sold rather well and went down well with critics and gamers alike.<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 There’s a “but” in there isn’t there?<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 ….but, that means the higher ups want us to do a follow up that’s basically the same.\u00a0 They want more renaissance Italy.<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 Will renaissance Italy become the new First Person Shooter in gaming?<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 ….I….no….maybe…..it doesn’t matter, what we have here is a situation whereby we need to do a full release that is essentially the same as our last title but doesn’t feel like an expansion pack…<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 No, you have to call it “Downloadable Content” now!<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Sorry, downloadable content.\u00a0 I suggest we take what we did with Assassin’s Creed II and dial it up as much as possible.<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, you know how “Alien” had one alien, and “Aliens” had lots of them?<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 Yeah, and they did the same with the new “Predators” film, by putting lots of predators in instead of one!<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, we could make it “Assassins” and have lots of assassins in the game!<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Ok, not a bad idea. \u00a0Maybe call it a “brotherhood of assassins” or something. \u00a0Maybe we could have lots of assassins that help you…and we’ll let the player level them up and give them different uniforms like…..<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 A football management sim?<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 The Sims?<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Sort of.\u00a0 Both.\u00a0 But with assassinations.<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 That seems a bit tenuous.<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 I think I’d still like to play it though.<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Ok, that’s a good start, now what about some other things.\u00a0 What about vehicle sections?\u00a0 Those are good.\u00a0 What have we got?<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 Well, we’ve done some horse-and-cart things before.<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 And just horses.\u00a0 Horses have been in it since the beginning!<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 How can we make that a bit more…for want of a better word…extreme?<\/p>\n

[Pause]<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 We could stick a cannon on it?<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 On a horse?<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 It would make it more extreme!<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 But also a bit stupid.<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Ok, what about something else.\u00a0 What else do we have?<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 We’ve got gondolas.\u00a0 They were introduced for the levels in Venice.<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Gondolas.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 And how do we dial them up to eleven exactly?<\/p>\n

[Pause]<\/p>\n

Developer 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 We could stick a cannon on it?<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 That’s…<\/p>\n

Developer 2<\/strong>:\u00a0 …Actually…<\/p>\n

Developer 1<\/strong>:\u00a0 Yeah, we’ll write that down.<\/p>\n

I have just finished a mission which involved piloting what I like to call “Ezio Auditore da Firenze’s War Gondola”, a Gondola with a renaissance style missile launcher attached to the front that you have to sink a bunch of ships with, switching between firing and calmly rowing using the oar at the back.\u00a0 As justification for this war machine, it is a prototype that has been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci that has fallen in to enemy hands.<\/p>\n

This was my Pope-punching-moment so far in the game, but I have high hopes that I might find a few more before it’s over.<\/p>\n

Let me just stress:\u00a0 I really like these moments.\u00a0 I love that a game that treats its audience as intelligently as the Assassin’s Creed series does never forgets that you’re supposed to be having fun.\u00a0 Also, the mini game of managing a handful of assassins recruited from the streets is little more than a simple browser based game, yet it is strangely compelling to the point that I have devised a series of ranks denoted by the colour of the armour that I give to them.<\/p>\n

I would like to write about this game a bit more in the future, so I might do so, but for anyone on the fence about picking it up, I would really recommend it.\u00a0 I am of course a massive fan of the series and am at this point a damaged-goods-critic on the matter, but regardless of this, the multiplayer aspect which I have not mentioned is worth a look on its own and that is something I am definitely going to talk about soon.<\/p>\n

Additional Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Pope-punching moment” sounds quite good.\u00a0 I might use that again.\u00a0 I’d say it’s definitely a type of Fridge logic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After re-reading this, I’m sure “Gondola of War” is already a thing. \u00a0Maybe I’m getting confused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time I scribbled about Assassin’s Creed, it was with Assassin’s Creed II, whereby I did a post-completion double-take when I realised I had just been manoeuvred into an in-context fist fight with the Pope. I may have just found my equivalent double-take moment in this follow up title.\u00a0 As it could be considered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[31,58,240,18],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer_games","tag-assassins-creed","tag-brotherhood","tag-computer_games","tag-games"],"yoast_head":"\nAssassin's Creed's pope punching moment | Chaotic Tortoise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.davidhing.com\/chaotic-tortoise\/2011\/01\/assassins-creed-brotherhood-a-pope-punching-moment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Assassin's Creed's pope punching moment | Chaotic Tortoise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The last time I scribbled about Assassin’s Creed, it was with Assassin’s Creed II, whereby I did a post-completion double-take when I realised I had just been manoeuvred into an in-context fist fight with the Pope. 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