History is a game – Assassin’s Creed

First “God of War” and it’s sequel took Greek mythology and turned it into a bad ass adventure game with lots of blood, monsters, sex and a Ragnarok storyline (if you’ll let me mix my mythologies). The game was fun to play and the storyline was a great mix, something a talented writer had to think out and execute, and still keep in mind game play and entertainment.

Then I stumbled into “Assassin’s Creed” a game that takes history and turns it into something fascinating and interactive. The game itself takes place during the third Crusade when King Richard of England was facing Saladin with The Holy Land as the prize. With key locales in Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem, the art department worked overtime to create vivid locations, populate them with period accurate characters and costumes and give everything a lived in feel that immerses the player in the medieval world.

You play as an assassin dedicated to a sect of killers that works outside of politics. Their goal is preserve the Holy Land for everyone, not to conquer it. This allows the player to tackle both sides of the war, Christian or Muslim – both become targets. The game forces the player to use stealth, information gathering and deadly fighting skills in combination. You find the target, get close to them and then take them out, before the whole town takes you out. The game was a blast to play, even if it did get a bit repetitive here and there. The atmosphere provided by the graphics, sound effects and music were top notch.

But let’s get back to the story or a minute. I explained the main action of the game, but there is a framing element that provides the game with two important features. This framing story is a 180 from the Crusades – it’s science fiction. You start the game in the near future. Your character is a test subject for a large corporation. He is required to link up to a machine that uses genetic memory to plunge his mind back into past lives. These past lives are etched into his DNA and provide him with the persona of the assassin during the Crusades. Ok, maybe it’s more like science fantasy, but it’s an interesting idea.

Since the time traveler isn’t physically going back into time, it is only a persona traveling along engrained memories, this explains how the assassin can “die” but return to the memory at a certain spot (save point). It also allows the writers to mix history up a little bit. According to the game, the history books are based on perceptions of those who are in power. But the true memories are in the character’s DNA. So who’s to say that a group of Assassin’s wasn’t manipulating events in the past, and made sure that their involvement was never known.

During the game, the player jumps from this future state, learning a little about why he was picked and what the corporation is after, to engaging the dangers of the Crusades. Links between both stories become clearer and clearer and leads to revelations on both stories.

The other reason for the future storyline becomes clear at the end of the game. The Medieval storyline is concluded with a solid climax, but the future storyline ends in a cliff hanger. There may be further need for other memories in the future, so the main character is kept on hand – just in case. This can lead perfectly into a sequel. Guess what “Assassin’s Creed 2” is already out in stores in time for the holidays. This time the memories seem to occur during the times of the Venetian trade empire. A very interesting cut scene is available to view showing the square of San Marco as well as the canals of Venice (not to mention some new weapons and sneaking techniques).

Clever game writers were able to do two things here. They could create a game based on a rich time in Western history. The Crusades provide them with plenty of opportunities for intrigue, combat and colorful settings (even if they seemed to borrow from Ridley Scott’s take on the Crusades in “Kingdom of Heaven”). But they also had a framing story that allowed them to tweak with history in a believable way (at least for the game’s world) but provided the perfect outlet for sequels.

Have you played “Assassin’s Creed”? What did you think of the two storylines and their effectiveness? Is this the type of thing that can only be pulled off in a game, or could this have been done in a book or movie? Ever read a historical fiction that tamped with history? Did it work?

A Writer’s New Home? - God of War

Being a fan of mythology can have strange side effects. I find myself drawn to myths in many of their diverse forms, merely to see what the retelling would be like. This can lead to some strange and unexpected discoveries. For example I found myself picking up a copy of the Playstation 2 game, "God of War". This game is set in a mythological Greek world, where the gods rule, monsters roam and heroes thrive. The main character is a Spartan warrior named Kratos. He is feared by men and cursed by the gods. However, he becomes the only one powerful enough to face Aries, the god of war. Looks like Aries decided that Olympus wasn't good enough and that he wanted to take the whole world. With the other gods guiding Kratos, you control the ghost of Sparta through his quest to find a way to defeat Aries and replace him as the new God of War.

The story was solid, the game play was fun, fast and furious, and the graphics captured a dark, bloody and nightmare version of Greek mythology that was refreshing (even if it was a bit messy. Got gore all over the screen). I especially liked the amoral nature of Kratos. Talk about an anti-hero!

The game did well enough to generate a sequel, and I ended up with that game too. In this story, Kratos finds himself unhappy as the new God of War. Things go really bad when the Olympians deem Kratos too dangerous and sap him of his powers and attempt to kill him. Well, Kratos isn't going to stand for it, so he aligns himself with the Titans (the original gods before the Olympians deposed them). Kratos mission is to take the reigns of fate and change history - this time, the Olympians will fail and the Titans will rule, with Kratos at their side.

It struck me as I having Kratos do battle with classic Greek heroes (Theseus, Jason and Perseus - played by Harry Hamlin no less!) that this revamp of mythology was ingenious and entertaining. It was something that I had been toying with for a while. My approach was not as graphic or bloody as this, but it was more modern than the classic approaches and still delivered the same thrills and themes that makes those stories timeless. To see it done in a game was something of a revelation.

This made me wonder - is this a new avenue for writers to explore? Could a story or series of stories that might not work so well in a novel form or screenplay form be used as a game instead. Suddenly the possibilities seemed very intriguing. God of War showed me that something I thought wouldn't really work so well as a novel, could be very effective if brought into a video game. Of course the flip side to this is that, like the movie industry, the video game industry is very much concerned with profit. It's a business and as such it might not be so open to radical departures. In addition a writer would find their work changed by programmers and graphic artists. But this wouldn't be any different from seeing a movie script changed by a director, actors and special effects. And at the moment it seems that the game industry (at least from my uniformed perspective) seems a bit more open to new ideas and directions than Hollywood.

What do you think of writers for games? Have you had any experiences with that industry? Do you have any ideas that might work for a game? Have you played God of War and what did you think of it?

Narrative? We don’t need no stinking Narrative - The Legend of Zelda

Where would we be without the Nintendo Entertainment System? Don't answer that. Unfortunately for many of us, video games are a wonderful time waster and one of the pastimes we associate with leisure. Some youngsters remember Playstation 1 fondly, as an archaic dinosaur. Others remember their paddle version of Pong with it's black and white graphics. I fall in the middle. I had an old Atari system. My dad rented Atari games right up to the video game crash of 1983 (I just found out about that. Boy did it explain a bunch of strange memories I had of that time). But for me, the good ol' days of gaming was for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the mid 80's. Wow did this thing change a kid's world or what?

I used to wake up anticipating my favorite cartoons, and go to bed dreaming up new stories for "Star Wars" and "Transformers". When the NES hit, it was a whole new ballgame. Now I woke up with the theme from Super Mario in my head and went to sleep dreaming up new stories for "Metroid". It was all we talked about at school, and even when the cartoons of our favorite games came out, we lapped them up like tasty whipped topping. Yeah, I'm waxing nostalgic, but humor me for a minute.

This mania was really odd, because I didn't get an NES till nearly 1990 or so. When it first came out I had to play the stupid thing at friend or relative's houses. Maybe that is why my imagination was fueled by these 8 bit marvels a bit more. I never got to see a whole game beaten. I never knew what the hell happened when Mario finally got to the princess. I never saw Link defeat Gannon and save Zelda. I never got past level 1 of Metroid for God sakes. Instead, I wrote these expansive stories going far deeper than the video games could have gone. I ran into a few of these silly stories not to long ago and was amused by the insanity and joy of them. This kid was hooked.

When I finally got the NES and started to play through the games, I remembered feeling a bit disappointed. The biggy was "The Legend of Zelda", to me the kingpin of the NES games of my youth. It was epic in a way I couldn't imagine for a video game. It was a whole crazy world to explore (with the help of cheat maps and friend's clues), but I remember seriously getting wrapped up in the whole feel of the game. The music would often pop into my head and I wondered what it would be like of John Williams took a nice adaptation to the title theme.

The crazy thing is that the game itself (not including the stuff in the instruction manual) didn't really have a story per se. You were a little block with some features that wandered around a very blocky world attacked by blocky monsters and picking up rupees which looked like gold versions of the tiles we had in our pool. It didn't matter. In my mind, the story of Link, Zelda and Gannon was huge and powerful. It was good vs. evil. It was the saga of a boy becoming a hero. It discovery of powerful magic and paying the price for making bad decisions (why did I choose the red potion instead of the heart container?).

So when I got to the end of the game, and was presented with some text and a flashing screen, I was annoyed. That was it? I went through he whole damn game for that? No blocky animation of Link and Zelda riding off into the sunset. No massive explosion on skull mountain. No parade for the hero who finally figured out how to get out of the Lost Hills? It wasn't right. I felt good about completing the game, but decided the ending needed work. I wrote a new ending, even leaving room open for a sequel (a better one than the second game turned out to be). It was cathartic. But looking back I guess playing the game, and having all the fun I did have was what I ended up remembering fondly, not really the disappointment of the ending.

I'm still a gamer, but a casual one at best. I've got my Playstation 2, and I'm looking into getting Playstation 3 for "Final Fantasy XIII" or "God of War III", but the Nintendo Wii holds a powerful allure. I could play "Legend of Zelda" again. I'm afraid to revisit that old memory and find the 8 bit glory sad and outdated. Or will I find some joy making that little square move around the screen. Who knows?

Do you have any fond memories of early video games? Were you a fellow NES kid, or did you actually have a life? Were video games better without a narrative, or do you think that everything needs a story (even Tetris)?