Review: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Hey, guys.

So it's come to my attention that I totally spaced and forgot to post something the past two update days. I feel like... well, I don't know what I feel like, but I'll get back to you on that. Meanwhile, I wanted to talk about something besides NaNo today, for once. I know, I know, such a shock and a travesty, and all sorts of other things, right?

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of games recently. Mostly just Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, though. That seems like a good enough topic to begin on, eh?

If you pay any attention at all to the world of video games and the like, you've probably heard mention of the AC franchise before. When the original was released it was a breath of fresh air, a new concept, and most importantly, FUN. The story was amazing, the action was absolutely awesome, and the fact that you could climb walls at your leisure was simply friggen' stunning. Flash forward a few years and now we have three console games, two hand-held games, a Facebook app, and one or two cellphone adaptations. Brotherhood happens to be the former of the three.

It picks up where you left off after the events of AC2, understandably, and immediately you're thrust into the world of Desmond Miles and Ezio Auditore de Firenze, his ancestor. If you haven't played and/or heard about Assassin's Creed, then you may want to shut your eyes, place your hands over your ears and yell "la la la, I can't hear you," at the top of your lungs, unless you're privy to spoilers and important plot points.

So basically, if you haven't a clue as to why Desmond is able to see, hear, act and think as his ancestor did, it's all due to a fun little device called the Animus. The Animus allows the user to essentially use their DNA to relive the memories of those that came before him or her. Now Desmond's ancestors happen to belong to an ancient order of assassins who fight against the Templar order, trying to keep them from assuming control of mystical and mysterious devices known as 'Pieces of Eden', and therefore taking control of the world at large.

Long story short, Desmond is taken in by the Templars, due to his illustrious ancestry, to track down these Pieces of Eden in their modern day holdings. He is soon rescued by an undercover agent of the assassins and spirited away to learn more about who he is and what he can do, and in the process, find the missing Pieces for the assassins. Anyway, at the start of Brotherhood, Ezio has defeated the big bad and had one such object in his possession, after which he was alerted of a doomsday prophecy and all of that fun stuff.

So Ezio is now in possession of the particular PoE the assassins of the modern world are looking for and it's only a matter of finding where he put it, right? Wrong. Something big happens, protagonist loses all of his armor, weapons, and some of his abilities (sad face, Metroid, sad face.) and we the player are forced to do it all again.

But, in order to stave away further spoilers, I'll leave it at that.

If I were to review Brotherhood properly, I'd say something like, "A good game, true to its predecessors, very stylish and polished. Story is up to par, and indeed, a fairly unexpected plot twist occurs at the end, causing a cliffhanger and a hook for the next installment (because there's almost a 100% chance of it happening - the series is much too successful for Ubisoft to call it quits here. Being milked like the cash cow it just so happens to be...)."

My judgment on AC: Brotherhood? Buy it, at the least for its replayability, but more than that, because it stands up to those that came before it and adds to the experience without bogging it all down.

Next update should be something more novel-ish. Or maybe turkeyish. I don't know, but I swear!

A Short Post About Stuff

Hey guys. Didn't do much in terms of writing over the past week, simply lying back and enjoying my relatively stress-free November. I know, it may seem like I'm gloating to others who may not have the same luxury, but I'm definitely not. I sympathize with all of you guys.

Anyway, I was one of the lucky hundred thousand or so across America who got to go attend a midnight showing of HP: Deathly Hallows: Part One last night/this morning, and I am... wowed. To keep it short and full of brevity, I can't wait for the second part to come out. Anyway, I'm sorry for such a short update, but it seems as though I have little time right at the moment. Perhaps later I'll try and expand on something or other.

Should Characters be Treated as Real People?

Yesterday, I came across a post on the Fantasy Genre Lounge on the NaNo forums that regarded the topic of character "realness". For the past few years that I've known about the National Novel Writing Month, I've maintained that even though I may outline and plan, bordering on obsessively, my characters actually have the final say on plot outliers and the like. You know the deal, really interesting tangent that you figure you can fit into the main narrative to explain a little bit of one of your character's motivation and background? I generally chalk that up to the character in question begging to be explored a little more.

But, in keeping with topic, the author of the post brings up good points to the contrary of a character's life and reality (in the figurative sense, not the literal).

Writing a novel requires that you take mastery over the facets of your novel the way a skilled painter would the pigments on his or her palette. Your characters, plot, theme, setting, and dialogue are all under your exclusive control. No external force, no magical muse, is taking your hand and making you do anything. That's why I tend to feel frustration when I see a would-be author blaming one of the aforementioned for hijacking the tale.

I both agree and disagree with their sentiments here. Yes, you have direct control over what your characters say, think, do, and like. But sometimes there are points in which your mind begins to think as if it was the character. Your mind says, "hey, this would be something extremely cool to put in the story, because it explores a what-if situation you hadn't planned on". That's what I speak about when I say that my character set off on a tangent. I don't go out of my way and say that my character is writing the story using me as a vessel to set his words on paper (or screen).

You are telling the tale, and should be consciously making use of your novel's elements to do so. The lion's share of misplaced blame for novel derailment gets heaped on characters. When you're saying "My character refuses to do this!" what you're really telling us is that you've failed to give the character proper motivations in the story up to this point, and now your mind does not feel that it would be logical for the character to move on to your desired course.

Now this is something I definitely agree with the post's author on. Character motivations are a tricky business, but are absolutely essential to a good tale. Sometimes you as a writer forget to add something essential that would cause a character to do something or to think some particular way. That's the beginning of a pretty big plot hole just waiting to happen. Your inner editor stops you before you make the plunge into this plot hole, and that's when you run into issues in your will to write. That's when irrelevant tangents take over your story and it begins to act in a different way than you want. And if you don't want it that way, the readers likely won't either. To use a cooking analogy and try and warp it into a writing one, don't use a wine that you wouldn't drink to cook with. In writing, that becomes, if you don't like writing it, your reader won't like to read it.

One method is to go on the new logical route and see where it takes you. If you are a discovery writer, as opposed to someone who outlines, this can be a healthy process. If it's going to leave your story in shambles instead, or destroy all of the carefully laid plans for your plot, then you need to step back and rewind. Find out where you failed to give your characters proper motivation, and make the necessary changes. Take ownership of your characters as tools to tell your tale.

Of course, pantsers are allowed, and in fact celebrated. But here's another part where I agree with the post. If you don't directly control your characters when you're outlining, things can become very messy, very quickly; unless of course some of these subplots would actually work well with the main plot (see my original blurb).

The big pitfall of believing your characters are actual, sentient beings is that you lose the ability to tell the best possible story with them. Grow too attached and you'll always find a way to keep bad things from happening to the character. You'll enhance their traits until they're the embodiment of everything you want to be. You'll give them unrealistic rewards, or become blind to their faults. You'll stop using them to serve the needs of the story, and they will become a parody of excellence that you may adore, but no one else will want to read.

Sometimes, bad things need to happen to great characters to facilitate the best possible outcome. If you behave as if you're the characters' kind and loving creator, instead of an artist who is using a tool to shape your tale, you're always going to be tempted to mitigate any disasters that occur to your imaginary friends. 

Here, they make another very valid argument in why falling too "in love" with your characters is a massive mistake. In fact, to correlate their point, I'm going to pull an example from one of my favorite video games to show exactly what they mean. In Mass Effect, you play a character called Commander Shepard. In the most basic terms I can afford to use, they are a bad ass (trying to avoid pronouns because it's up to you whether they're male or female). But at the start of Mass Effect 2, the developers, BioWare decide to throw you a big 'ole curveball (you only need to watch 'till 2:49 for full effect). They aren't afraid to destroy what they've built in the first game in order to provide a richer storytelling experience. Many writers would do well to heed this advice, and don't grow too attached to their characters. Of course, just a little is necessary for believability, but as it is in almost all things, moderation is key.

So, what do you think about the issue? Are characters real entities, entitled to their own opinions apart from what you have set out for them? Or are they tools with awesome personalities and weird quirks that make you love them?

I'm Richard, and I'm a Bungie Fanboy

So, I've finally got in touch (again) with the hiring manager at the place I'm trying to get a job at, and now I have to wait longer for this potential job to either come to fruition or be cast into oblivion. I hate the real world, sometimes. If only things would just work out, how easy would that be? Too easy, likely, but all the same, all of this run-around just makes me want to hurt something.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I'm obviously still sitting out on the release of Halo: Reach, while looking in. I've been trying not to even look at videos beyond the trailers for the game so I don't spoil it for myself. I'm basically willing to sell my soul for a copy of this game, although not so dramatically.

But, while we're on the topic of Reach, I don't think many people who play it will realize what a momentous occasion this truly is for the franchise. And I'm not just talking about it being the precursor to everything that's happened in the series so far; no, this is based solely on the developer, Bungie. Halo: Reach marks the final game that Bungie is making for the series before moving on to their next IP - which is undoubtedly going to be a smash hit, best-selling game. This means, that whatever comes next for the series is more than likely going to feel... well, different somehow. Not the same, at the very least.

Halo was Bungie's baby, from day one. The original RTS version of the game that got transformed into one of the best first-person shooters of this generation (last generation, if you're speaking consoles), that was the catalyst for arguably the best gaming series of the day and age; all of it came on the back of Bungie's excellent core of programmers and writers. The fact that they were able to take their project from real-time strategy and turn it into a workable (read: great) FPS is a testament to their flexibility, which has served them well. But, now it's all over. The trilogy's done, and now, even the prequel has been realized. I, for one, look forward to the next great Bungie game.