assassin's creed needs to be more like inception
What I mean by this is that any extended story, especially epic-style stories that span multiple books, games, manga or let's say, 60+ hours of gameplay essentially ought to have three separate, interweaving arcs, studded with moments intended to Amaze the Audience.
Plot
Character Growth
Taking it With You
-----------------------
Plot is plot. For all its seeming complexity (and we'll get back to that later), Inception has a fairly simple plot on both the personal and the story level: Man deals with inner demons. Team accomplishes job.
Assassin's Creed as well, has a fairly simple plot, though by the end of game two I was wondering if they weren't quite paying attention as closely as they needed to:
SPOILERS FOR AC:2
As I said in my last review, until the very, very end of Brotherhood, Desmond has no personal plot, and with his extreme lack of character growth I can't guess where he's going from this point on or how much I should bother caring. The main plot of the game, though, swerved right through a brick wall with the big reveal in AC: 2 that the world, it was in peril, yo.
Up until this point, the big fight/theme of the game was between the forces of free will and Big Brother, even though it's arguable that the Templars honestly believe what they are doing is what the world needs, and it will make things better for everyone, so they're not just MWA HA HA dickheads. Regardless of the particulars of that fight, the overarching "world is ending" problem should have at least put the Assassin/Templar war on the back burner, and the fact that Dr. Badguy from the first game showed up and Desmond didn't immediately say "we need to talk about the shit I just found out about the world ending" confuses me.
We didn't need Dr. Badguy to show up to make shit get real. The minute Minerva tells Desmond the entire world is in peril, shit is indeed real.
If the world is ending, the Templars are just as screwed, since the world is where they keep all their stuff, and they don't seem to even be aware of it. Desmond has no reason whatsoever to keep this information a secret, and given the Templars power and reach, it might be a really good idea to clue them in. At the very least, you would think this is something Desmond, Lucy and the gang would bother to discuss.
So yeah, plot? Not really as clear as it needs to be.
-------------------
Character Growth
Due to the complicated nature of the Amazing the Audience (almost there, promise), Inception sticks with character growth pretty much for one character, although there's quite a bit of it and, because DiCaprio is seriously invested in what's going on, generally the audience is too. The issues he goes through involve all the big emotions - grief, regret, helplessness, shame, longing.
Regret is one of those things you can't really do when your cast is composed of 18-year-olds, which is why you hardly ever see it in video games, which is really a damn shame. It's the balsamic vinegar of emotions - takes a while to age properly, but noticeably improves the intensity of the drama.
Assassin's Creed has no Character Growth. Well, at least Desmond the two-dimensional has zero character growth. Ezio has a bit of character growth through 2 and Brotherhood. Hell, they even give Ezio and his sister a minor arc in Brotherhood to grow and change.
I don't even have a clue what Desmond wants besides 'not getting killed by Templars' and even that's more a guess from me than anything solid from him.
--------------------------
Amazing the Audience
The entire reason Inception was a success is because Christopher Nolan knows how to amaze the audience. Amazing the audience is the reason you're writing. It's that first image that inspires a story, a setpiece or a moment or an emotion that demands a story be built around it. It's that thing you saw in the theater or in the video game or reading a book that made your jaw drop, or made you pass it on to a friend. The Pyramid-Head-Artax-in-the-Swamps-of-Sadness-Beauty-and-the-Beast-ballroom-first-Colossus-in-Shadow-of-the-Colossus-Jessica-Rabbit-riding-the-bomb-down-in-Dr.-Strangelove sort of moment.
It's the moments people yank out of movies and put on YouTube. It's the opening of the first Star Wars movie.
A writer ought to always be thinking of how best to have these moments, and where to put them. Inception works them for all they are worth, from the crumbling skyscrapers to the infinite stair to the folding 3-D city.
Assassin's Creed has its moments. The creators understand the importance of being able to climb to the top of things and look around in silence. Or the fun of climbing from the bottoms of things up to the top, and taking in a view from far, far above the floor.
What the fanficcers get that the writers haven't quite figured out yet is the sheer potential for Amazing the Audience that the Animus has. Naturally, these are fanficcers, so it's mostly used for characters to have sex with each other (or themselves, in odd, historical ways) but still, the Animus is a thing of Awesome and Horror that hasn't really been given the full chance to shine.
Summary: Desmond's not going crazy enough fast enough, or in enough unexpected ways.
-----------------------
Taking It With You
The best stories follow us home. Along with the basic plot and the need for character growth, the story contains a greater idea - not a moral or lesson, but an emotion, a mood. Acquiescing that there are greater mysteries that even a happy ending cannot actually 'end.'
Inception carried the idea of timelessness, that area of limbo that stretched out to eternity, and the butterfly-dreaming-he-was-a-man question of the boundaries of reality.
Nolan's Prestige carried the mystery of the human heart, and the price of illusions, and the drive to pursue them, the beauty and the sorrow it created.
Most of the great tragedies call some notice to the impermanence of life, even for the greatest of kings.
Given the scope of its story and the elements at its disposal, Assassin's Creed has the ability to reach for this sort of feel. The melancholy of a man who has seen lifetimes come and go. The closest any person might know, to what it might feel like to be immortal.
At the moment, it's spinning its wheels through sub-standard video game low expectations. I am holding out hope it will have the guts to reach for more.
Plot
Character Growth
Taking it With You
-----------------------
Plot is plot. For all its seeming complexity (and we'll get back to that later), Inception has a fairly simple plot on both the personal and the story level: Man deals with inner demons. Team accomplishes job.
Assassin's Creed as well, has a fairly simple plot, though by the end of game two I was wondering if they weren't quite paying attention as closely as they needed to:
SPOILERS FOR AC:2
As I said in my last review, until the very, very end of Brotherhood, Desmond has no personal plot, and with his extreme lack of character growth I can't guess where he's going from this point on or how much I should bother caring. The main plot of the game, though, swerved right through a brick wall with the big reveal in AC: 2 that the world, it was in peril, yo.
Up until this point, the big fight/theme of the game was between the forces of free will and Big Brother, even though it's arguable that the Templars honestly believe what they are doing is what the world needs, and it will make things better for everyone, so they're not just MWA HA HA dickheads. Regardless of the particulars of that fight, the overarching "world is ending" problem should have at least put the Assassin/Templar war on the back burner, and the fact that Dr. Badguy from the first game showed up and Desmond didn't immediately say "we need to talk about the shit I just found out about the world ending" confuses me.
We didn't need Dr. Badguy to show up to make shit get real. The minute Minerva tells Desmond the entire world is in peril, shit is indeed real.
If the world is ending, the Templars are just as screwed, since the world is where they keep all their stuff, and they don't seem to even be aware of it. Desmond has no reason whatsoever to keep this information a secret, and given the Templars power and reach, it might be a really good idea to clue them in. At the very least, you would think this is something Desmond, Lucy and the gang would bother to discuss.
So yeah, plot? Not really as clear as it needs to be.
-------------------
Character Growth
Due to the complicated nature of the Amazing the Audience (almost there, promise), Inception sticks with character growth pretty much for one character, although there's quite a bit of it and, because DiCaprio is seriously invested in what's going on, generally the audience is too. The issues he goes through involve all the big emotions - grief, regret, helplessness, shame, longing.
Regret is one of those things you can't really do when your cast is composed of 18-year-olds, which is why you hardly ever see it in video games, which is really a damn shame. It's the balsamic vinegar of emotions - takes a while to age properly, but noticeably improves the intensity of the drama.
Assassin's Creed has no Character Growth. Well, at least Desmond the two-dimensional has zero character growth. Ezio has a bit of character growth through 2 and Brotherhood. Hell, they even give Ezio and his sister a minor arc in Brotherhood to grow and change.
I don't even have a clue what Desmond wants besides 'not getting killed by Templars' and even that's more a guess from me than anything solid from him.
--------------------------
Amazing the Audience
The entire reason Inception was a success is because Christopher Nolan knows how to amaze the audience. Amazing the audience is the reason you're writing. It's that first image that inspires a story, a setpiece or a moment or an emotion that demands a story be built around it. It's that thing you saw in the theater or in the video game or reading a book that made your jaw drop, or made you pass it on to a friend. The Pyramid-Head-Artax-in-the-Swamps-of-Sadness-Beauty-and-the-Beast-ballroom-first-Colossus-in-Shadow-of-the-Colossus-Jessica-Rabbit-riding-the-bomb-down-in-Dr.-Strangelove sort of moment.
It's the moments people yank out of movies and put on YouTube. It's the opening of the first Star Wars movie.
A writer ought to always be thinking of how best to have these moments, and where to put them. Inception works them for all they are worth, from the crumbling skyscrapers to the infinite stair to the folding 3-D city.
Assassin's Creed has its moments. The creators understand the importance of being able to climb to the top of things and look around in silence. Or the fun of climbing from the bottoms of things up to the top, and taking in a view from far, far above the floor.
What the fanficcers get that the writers haven't quite figured out yet is the sheer potential for Amazing the Audience that the Animus has. Naturally, these are fanficcers, so it's mostly used for characters to have sex with each other (or themselves, in odd, historical ways) but still, the Animus is a thing of Awesome and Horror that hasn't really been given the full chance to shine.
Summary: Desmond's not going crazy enough fast enough, or in enough unexpected ways.
-----------------------
Taking It With You
The best stories follow us home. Along with the basic plot and the need for character growth, the story contains a greater idea - not a moral or lesson, but an emotion, a mood. Acquiescing that there are greater mysteries that even a happy ending cannot actually 'end.'
Inception carried the idea of timelessness, that area of limbo that stretched out to eternity, and the butterfly-dreaming-he-was-a-man question of the boundaries of reality.
Nolan's Prestige carried the mystery of the human heart, and the price of illusions, and the drive to pursue them, the beauty and the sorrow it created.
Most of the great tragedies call some notice to the impermanence of life, even for the greatest of kings.
Given the scope of its story and the elements at its disposal, Assassin's Creed has the ability to reach for this sort of feel. The melancholy of a man who has seen lifetimes come and go. The closest any person might know, to what it might feel like to be immortal.
At the moment, it's spinning its wheels through sub-standard video game low expectations. I am holding out hope it will have the guts to reach for more.