(Untitled)

[wazira_sharira]

Amazing article on video game (and a little bit on movie) depictions of Muslims and Arabs. By someone who has a fantasy novel coming out soon, too. So now I'll have to 1. pick that up when it's out 2. go back to the Saladin campaign of Age of Empires and kick ass in it, since I failed badly at Civ 4 and can't play Assassin's Creed because my

Comments

[seiberwing]

AC's wonderful, although I've only played it on a console. Aside the freerunning funtimes the cities are gorgeous and (as far as I know) pretty historically accurate. Jerusalem actually looks like the place I touristed about when I went to Israel. The assassination targets are a pretty even split between Arab and European and it's made clear they're not doing their evil shit for religious reasons but rather for their own united agenda. And of course all the random soldier mooks dogpile you and call you an infidel at every available opportunity but that's also very interracial.

And I swear it's not just because, as a guy named Saladin, I get an ego-boost every time Altair passes by the rabble-rousing street preacher who says "We must be strong, my brothers! Strong like Saladin!"

It's interesting. We never see Saladin in the games, and thus unlike most of the other characters/historical figures he never had a chance to be a ridiculous jerk to everyone around him.

[wazira_sharira]

I want to play it, but like I said, I've only got a PS2 and I think it's a PS3 game. I'd love if a version for computers existed, but I'm not sure it does.

(...yeah I don't know if he would have been a jerk even if he did show up. Apart from the time I had to remove Saladin from the Evil Vizier page on TV Tropes, most people concede that he was a pretty cool guy. It'd probably be hard at this point to try to give him a Historical Villain Upgrade without anyone noticing.)

[seiberwing]

I played it for the XBox 360 on a friend's console, so I don't know. I think a PC version exists but you'd need a way better computer than I've got.

You do get to see King Richard, though, and he's quite the dick. They make it very clear that there's no good or bad side in this war--Altair's not even fighting in it or rooting for one side (son of a Christian and a Muslim who's settled on apathetic agnostic as far as I can tell), just trying to take out some pretty nasty people.