Film Review: Assassin’s Creed

“We Work In The Dark To Serve The Light…”

We begin our descent into the year ahead in film with perhaps the most anticipated live-action video game release in recent memory. Beginning all the way back in 2007, the Assassin’s Creed franchise was a spectacular addition to the gaming world, producing more and more content with each and every new release, resulting in enough worldwide popularity to garner an inevitable film adaptation. Whilst it has almost become clichéd to stamp every video game adaption as utter, utter tripe, the signs for Assassin’s Creed were excitingly upbeat considering the talent on display at the heart of the film’s production, with Snowtown and Macbeth director Justin Kurzel being a subverted, interesting choice to conduct the film’s leading stars, stars which include the likes of Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, both of whom were so superb in Kurzel’s blood-stained Shakespearean adaptation of the Scottish play back in 2015. As a fan of the original video game franchise, something of which I suspect will be the case for the majority of the films’ audience, Kurzel’s live-action adaptation is a solid, if rather grim adaptation of the famous series, one which is undoubtedly his own movie, a rarity in Hollywood these days, but something of which ironically both positively and negatively effects the final cut of his latest cinematic venture.

When convicted murderer Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is sentenced to death by lethal injection, he is swiftly captured by the mysterious Abstergo Industries who reveal themselves as a modern-day incarnation of the religious military order known simply as the Templar Order, a secret organisation who seek the lost Apple of Eden, an object of power which they believe will cure the violent ways of human race. Tutored by the the father and daughter duo of Sophia and Alan Rikkin, portrayed by Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons respectively, Lynch is asked to connect with his ancestor Aguilar, a member of the infamous Assassin’s Creed, who is key to locating the long lost object of which the Templar’s seek. For those privy to the narrative of the games, the storyline of the cinematic adaptation is pretty familiar, and whilst Kurzel’s stamp on the movie is incredibly on-the-nose in terms of how unrelentingly grim and dark it is, both in literal and metaphorical sense, this particular notion does play a major factor in the overall feel of the films’ appeal.

On the one hand, in attempting to create a much darker and less-mainstream movie than other video game adaptations in the past, Kurzel does deserve a level of recognition. yet on the other hand, it does ultimately result in a large portion of the movie being a tough nut to break, particularly I would have thought for an audience of the younger ilk of cinema-goers. What you have therefore with Assassin’s Creed is an admirable if rather flawed adaptation of a fundamentally bonkers video game, particularly in a narrative sense, and whilst the film may seem a feat for those who have played the respective video games, Kurzel’s vision is one of undeniable murkiness, something of which may indeed alienate both the young as well as those who have not previously had the association with the video games that many have had in the past. We start 2017 therefore with an enigma of a movie, but one which at least bears some form of positivity for the future of live-action video game adaptations.

Overall Score: 6/10

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Anything is better than Unity – Xbox One Review!

It’s that time of year again when our wallets and purses are left crying in the corner of the room, vacant and hollow – AKA: The greatest time of year for gamers. Triple A titles are raining down on us and today we start this with the first entry, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.

Follow in on from the resounding success of Unity *cough*, Ubisoft continue the annual outing with Syndicate. Based in London in the late 1800’s we join Jacob and Evie Frye. Assassin twins with no direct connection to those from previous iterations but raised by an assassin family. Their mission is to remove the tyranny of the Templars from London and finish the grand master Starrick for good…So like every other game. In the current time line, we are back with Shaun trying to find another precursor artefact. Just this time we watch them through some floating camera drone cut scene that does nothing to progress the story or add anything vaguely interesting. It seems as if Ubisoft needed some sort of validation about what they were doing so they can keep this train a’rollin’. So, here we have it. A linear story with the same formula, rinse and repeat. Its alright if you ignore the simple changes that have gone into creating it. Like CIA black ops files, there are thick black lines over names and places and then Ubisoft takes it, rolls a dice and there you have it, your characters and location done. We’ve seen as of late that they’re picking up on this and are trying to diversify gameplay to reinvigorate the fan base. We see with Chronicles: China that they’ve been struggling to maintain the hype that was once reserved for their epic Ezio cut scene trailers layered with staggering music by now switching the gameplay dramatically to a stealth based platform/side-scroller. However, Syndicate hasn’t done anything new. In all honesty, its actually removed one of the more popular mechanics which was the sailing (don’t lie, everyone loved sailing the seas and blowing shit up in their OP boats). Understandably boating in London in the late 1800’s isn’t that easy but they have worked on liberation of rival camps and regions with your trusty rope launcher. That’s fun. Liberating an entire borough on London of its Templar/Blighters gang ends with a big brawl between you, your crew, the Blighters/Templars and the areas boss, unless you’ve already chased them down and spread them across the pavement with your carriage. Roughly 10vs10, the fight can end very quickly if you’re quick to catch the leader prior to the fight. Constantly upgrading and crafting new weapons and tools means you’re almost always ahead of them in fire power, most notably gun wise. 

As ever, combat within the AC universe has always been extremely fun and violent. Finishers and multi-kills are now even more brutal which also intelligently use the wider environment to pierce your enemy to the wall or make them into your newest desk accessory. Multi-kills aren’t very often and require a setup so they don’t become tiresome to watch or do and the general assassinations are fantastic. Kicking the shit out of people is just so fun but every action seems to be a some super human speed that is impossible to achieve with such weaponry. However, it seems that every police officer, Templar and gang member knows the main characters. So the super secret assassins of the secret order are known by everyone in London and their hideout is as subtle as a streaker at Sunday Mass. This winds me up to no end. You cannot walk though a neighbourhood without drawing the attention of 20 people, murdering them and moving on rapidly only to get caught out again a few blocks down the road. Any reason to beat the shit out of someone I guess. Yet we do not have a non-lethal way to progress. If an objective says not to kill a police officer, I have to kidnap them individually and knock them out away from all their friends one by one. I’m sure if you have the patience to do it meticulously, you’ll find some way of bullshitting it but if you’re like me, flooding a quarter of London in Templar blood was far more appealing. I tell you what is not appealing though, the shitty boss fight at the end which is a simple sequence motion that is repeated 3 or 4 times with slight variations with an illogical starting point for the character in relation to the cut scenes. Now here is the real kicker, its not too buggy. I had my fair share of bugs the crashed my game, killed me and made progress through zones very difficult. One of those is when you enter combat and all attacks to nothing. You run about trying to get hit but you can’t do anything to stop it. Then we have the various audio bugs that didn’t sync with the on screen animations and the invisible enemies that you’ve managed to morph with the wall. But, nothing game breaking and in regards to Unity, that’s a winner.

Visually the environment was stunning. Landmarks and set pieces looked amazing and a certain WW1 memory sequence created some even more amazing pieces and interactions. Now, I play on an Xbox One, the lower spec of the next gen consoles and I’d presume that my experience is far less than that of the PS4 in comparison. Character variation was good but the city is so big, you see many of the same people hanging around and you’ve probably killed the same guys over and over. My only gripe visually is fluidity. Anything the characters touch that isn’t their uniform is stiff, like cardboard and the hair isn’t even smooth, in fact you can visibly see the pixels that make the strands of Evie’s hair. Its nice to see a female character in the main character slot but other female characters that originated in the gangs that were heads of the groups felt as if they were trying too hard to appeal to that section and really impacted the reality of what women actually had to fight for. The aim to put female characters in the games are fantastic moves, especially in the Creed and the Templars but the general gang populace, it wasn’t that way and feels more like pandering to the extreme voices. We do get a cheeky mention of women’s rights in the bonus WW1 mission which was very amusing and actually addressed the situation in a historical aspect that doesn’t shun the past but brings light to the horrors of the past. By all means, I don’t believe the games to be 100% historically correct but it brushed the social issues of the time under the rug by acting like it never happened and created an idealistic image in a fairly distopian story that still shows children being worked to the bone by factory bosses.

I wouldn’t say I come into the AC universe to see the best voice actors in the industry create art but the script needs to match with facial movements and convey the correct emotions where necessary but often enough Evie’s mouth moved very little and emotion was lacking, but in all fairness, the stories and characters weren’t so engaging that you could immerse yourself into the world and feel for the characters. Some felt rather attached to the sibling disputes while I felt them more of a nuisance and that the relationship wasn’t explored enough to get a solid grasp of who these people are, its only towards the end of the game that we actually hear any mention of their parents real names and a history on them but still nothing on our protagonists apart from the fact that Jacob smashes shit up, Evie fixes it. It felt more like a big blockbuster action movie that priorities excitement and general fun over script, dialogue and character depth and if I’m honest, I’m okay with that. Its been fun and I will certainly be going back to experience some more of the extra missions, potentially more WW1 missions and generally beating the shit out of people. How is that not fun!?

Worth the pick up – 7/10

Let us know in the comments below of what you think of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and head over to our Youtube channel to watch all the shit I do over there!

Assassins Creed Syndicate – Live Reveal & Trailer!

Well, here it is guys. The brand new instalment of the Assassins Creed series has finally arrived, titled Syndicate. Based in London during the Industrial Revolution, we follow our new Assassin, Jacob. Funnily enough, the combat has taken a very personal approach. Its much closer and features a lot of the weaponry used in that period, such as the hidden blades and brass knuckles in giant gang fights! Everything seems very direct, gory and fast paced but its character is what has drawn me in. Every game based in London loves picking up on Jack the Ripper, what will stop these? Could Jacob be Jack? Could those he murdered be spies for the Templars? I’m officially calling it. Jack the Ripper is our Jacob.

Hopefully we will see a return to Assassins Creed that is truly worthy of the next gen consoles that we all deserve!

Soon we will have an official trailer to show everyone who missed out on the live showing so stick around for more information!

Assassins Creed Syndicate will be dropping on the 23rd October for Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC.

Assassin’s Creed Unity – Review – [XBOX ONE] – Spoilers

Reviews and stuff are having to be put on the shelf at the moment due to heavy university load so things will come out when I feel up to doing something other than stare at a blank word document…

Assassin’s Creed Unity was probably one of the biggest draws for users to upgrade to the next generation systems in the last couple of months only to be disappointed by the outpouring of hate on its initial release. Sold by the 4 player co-op, upgraded visual mechanics and streamlining functions among the French Revolution is very appealing, even if you’ve never touched an Assassins Creed game. However, Ubisoft have failed once again. Their huge undertaking with new IPs and the double release of the Assassins series left them at loggerheads with their dedicated audience. The time and budget for all of the recent games has really taken a beating and is suffering from CoD syndrome – The same thing every year, repackaged.

This instalment we follow a young man named Arno. As a child you watch his life falls apart with the assassination of his father and being taken into the care of an elderly man and the parent of the red head (Elise) who you chased about in the prologue. Any self respecting fan knows this story of a young man whose rebellion is typically the better of himself. We are looking at a complete Reskin of Ezio. Due to Ezio’s huge success, trying to create a character like him was always going to end badly. We saw this with Connor and now with Arno. Both with the likeability of an ice cream in Antarctica. A few years soon pass by for Arno to a time where his adopted father is assassinated right in front of him. His mission now is to avenge the death and find the culprit, only to find something far bigger. Its not a story we haven’t seen before but as we have seen in the trailers, the pairing of Elise and Arno from rival factions was something that drew huge attention and criticism. Some wondering why the Assassins have allied with a Templar and others welcoming the change. Although here is the problem, Elise and her Templar upbringing through her father (Arno’s adopted parent) were never really implemented in the game for too long. Often enough it was just Arno on his own while this so called deadly Templar ran around uselessly in the background. Her relationship with Arno was heavily played and did add a few layers to him but its full blown impact did very little. (PS – if you can’t implement women central characters into the series because it takes too much work, why do we have Elise?)… Then you have the Creed. In all honesty, Arno doesn’t need to be there. He plays the central role and everything else does nothing but shout and moan.

The main problems for AC:U don’t lie with the story. The majority of it was Ubisoft’s incompetence. Its unnecessarily bad glitches that would throw you out of the game, the incredible AI’s who would switch between male and female if you walked past them, the AI’s that also stood on each others heads and initiated combat for no reason, because they are a general bunch of ass-hats with the competence of a 2 year old. Perhaps the degradation of controls and mechanics that drove many fans insane on their first experience of AC1! Or finally, probably the biggest problem that Ubisoft have; Uplay. The god awful servers and service that it creates has caused many issues for those wanting to play online with friends, but also the blackmail within the game. You cannot progress, unless you have uplay to access extras and you cannot unlock in-game chests if you don’t have the AC:Unity companion app on your phone or tablet. Although some achievements are dedicated to getting all the chests, such a task may prove impossible for those with a temper shorter than Warren Davies.

The visual quality expected from a next-gen game is typically quite high and rightfully so. For Ubisoft, this should be plain sailing as long as they avoid the awful shading and waxy features of Black Flag, but noooo. Here we are, with another next generation console game, looking as if its been ported for the previous originally. Characters look awful unless they are in a cutscene and anything from the next upwards looks like every character has elephantiasis. More attention was paid to the AI characters cleavage rather than de-swelling her face from the recent bee attack.

Overall, the game was fucked harder than my bank account. Its terrible gameplay functionality leads the game into the record books for one of the biggest fuck ups this year. Its story was half-baked and its relevance to the Order and the overall arch cannot be seen at this moment. Perhaps the DLC will enlighten many as to where Arno will be soon considering the whole WTF ending. Before I close, I would like to point out a enormous issue I had with a particular “bridging” scene. With its release so close to that of the American’s veterans day and the UKs remembrance weekend, climbing the Eifle Tower in occupied France and shooting down Axis forces is far from relateable to the story but also slightly disrespectful at this time of year.

Assassin’s Creed – Rogue – Trailer News – EDIT

EDIT: The trailer has now been removed.

In the last week news of a foreign retailer releasing a pre-order for a previous generation Assassin’s Creed titled “Rogue” – previously under the codename Comet – has gone viral amongst the gaming community.

Riding on the hype of this news, an apparent still leaked (and trailer) from the upcoming trailer has surfaced on the web. Documenting the release for November 11th which follows Unity’s release on October 27th. Demonstrated by the image sources say that we are keeping to the style that made Black Flag such a success. This being a new assassin, a big ass boat and a vast map to play with presumed to be the Arctic. I can’t deny, no confirm the validity of these claims so we simply will have to hold on to see.

What are you hoping for from codename Comet/Rogue and do you feel its too much for one year? Leave your comments down below!

Source – http://kotaku.com/leak-shows-off-rogue-this-years-last-gen-assassins-cre-1616239537

Eurogamer 2013!

A few weeks ago, we travelled 200 miles to London for the UK’s biggest gaming convention. Down below is a video I mixed together of our trip and what we got up too!

The video is on the brand new Youtube channel which will be inundated with a ton of stuff once I finally manage everything else going on.

Be sure to like, subscribe and SHARE! 😀

E3 – My favourite trailers!

Now, by the time this gets out, the whole event will most likely be over. Instead of looking at the consoles and how far Microsoft have screwed their fans, we shall be looking directly at a few games that I’ve been excited about over the past months that have been exhibited during the last week!

First out of the gate is Watch Dogs. Created by Ubisoft, this science fiction thriller looks to be an exciting and creative dimension on sandbox gaming. A big brother world, dominated by high grade electronics and security systems is cracked by a vigilante mastermind who fights crime much like Batman but with little remorse when it comes to his gun.

Secondly, we have the 3rd edition in the Dragon Age series “Inquisition”. Forgetting the truly horrendous acts of the 2nd game, I’m excited about playing this. Clocking up almost 100 hours of game play from Origins, I hope that this instalment can equal the classic in both story and content. It does seem that Bioware pull it back in the 3rd game and lose it in the 2nd. For instance, Mass Effect 2; which was quite a change from the first but the third worked out to be one of the best games I played. Keep it up Bioware!

Now we have another new game on the scene. Ryse: Son of Rome. I know little about what this game is about but by look at the trailer, it involves swords, battles, Romans and lots of blood. All things I enjoy in a good game. So, here you go!

Fourth and finally we have Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag. Following from the triumphs of the navel missions in AC3, the creation of the game gives new light on the overall tale of the assassins order. I’ve posted about this multiple times already and I’m a huge fan boy of this so I shall just pop the trailer here for you guys before I ramble much further!

Thanks for reading guys! I would have put the new Battlefield and Call of Duty but they seem to be getting enough attention at the moment. These are just a few of the games that I’m looking forward too, so be sure to comment about yours!