GEEK’S WAD
Details on the Upcoming “Assassin’s Creed” Movie, Reviews of the “Assassin’s Creed” Video Games, GameStop is Awesome! And Why Best Buy SUCKS.
Reviews by Justin T. Bowler
The popular video game series, Assassin’s Creed, is finally becoming a movie! There have been a couple of attempts previously to make it, but, finally, it is coming to fruition with the lead character being played by Michael Fassbender. Here is the synopsis:
Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Steve Jobs, Inglourious Basterds)), a descendant of the mysterious secret society, the Assassins, must use his deadly skills to battle the powerful Templar organization. Just like in the game series, Lynch is connected to a machine in modern day that lets him relive the glory days of his agile ancestor, free-running around 15th-Century Spain.
(BTW, the language of this synopsis is “borrowed” from some website)
The movie co-stars Marion Cottilard (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Public Enemies) and Jeremy Irons (he has been in a ton of movies you have seen, Google him if you don’t know). It is written by Bill Collage (Exodus: Gods and Kings, Accepted, Allegiant).
(This information was “provided” by some website called… IMDb)
The production has been kept mostly under wraps (this basically means I didn’t do any research), however, if you are tech savvy (i.e. you know how to Google), you can find a few pictures from the set. Also, it was announced recently that it has already been greenlit for a sequel (a cursory search of entertainment headlines will prove this pretty quickly). While the synopsis seems to follow the basic premise of the games, there are no reports that it will follow any actual storylines from the game series (just to reiterate, I did very little research for this article). So, with so much mystery surrounding the film, I thought it would be important to take a look at the video game series. Perhaps it will give us more insight into the upcoming movie.
You probably already know (by the way, these facts are “stolen” from Wikipedia) Assassin’s Creed is an action-adventure video game series that consists of almost a dozen main games and a number of supporting materials. The games have appeared on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, iOS, HP webOS, [1] Android, Nokia, Symbian & Windows Phone platforms, and the Wii U (frankly, I’ve never even heard of one or two of those platforms, but it only proves that this series is very popular). Now, let’s take a few minutes to review a couple of the actual games.
In 2007, Ubisoft released the first Assassin’s Creed game. The advertisements for it were phenomenal. The gameplay looked awesome! While it was a bestseller, and very popular…
DOES IT LIVE UP TO ITS POTENTIAL OR DOES IT DISAPPOINT?
Assassin’s Creed could easily have been one of the best games of 2007. It is, without question, impressive on several fronts. But developer Ubisoft Montreal took some missteps along the way and squandered the immense potential of its pseudo-stealth action title. A bad story, repetitive gameplay elements, and poor AI lead to the downfall of one of the more promising games in recent memory. Assassin’s Creed could have been one of the great games of this generation. Instead, it turned into just another action title (that review was completely “plagiarized” from IGN) (I placed “plagiarized” in quotes because, as long as I give them credit, then I’m not actually plagiarizing them. Crazy, RIGHT?) (I KNOW!)
I disagree with this review. When I first played this game, I loved it. Start to finish. Sure it was repetitive, and many of the things that they mentioned were true. But, I still had a phenomenal time. I equate it to my very first experience with Best Buy (yes, I am comparing a video game to an electronic store). My first Best Buy experience was very pleasant, mostly because I was so excited at the idea of this new store. There was so much that they got right, it was so much better than so many of the other stores I had been using to purchase video games and game systems. Was it perfect? Not at all. Was I excited about it? Absolutely. The potential was there and I was ready to embrace the phenomenal potential. In short, I was instantly a fan of Best Buy! It became my go-to store for all electronics (see what I did there? I drew a complete parallel between the game and the store). Furthermore, I was instantly a fan of Assassin’s Creed! I anxiously awaited each sequel in the series. It became my go-to game series, mirroring my journey with Best Buy. Oh, how I loved them both.
Four years later, Assassins Creed – Revelations came out. By this time, the series began to feel stale. There wasn’t any life or innovation in the games anymore. They added stuff we didn’t want or need, like a mini-game with battles that made no sense. And bomb-making? It was absolutely pointless.
“What? Other games have mini-games. Let’s put one in ours too.” (I don’t know if anyone at Ubisoft actually ever said those words, but I put them in quotes to demonstrate the lack of innovation and idiocy of the people behind the game). And at this point, sadly, Best Buy was no longer a good place to buy video games. In order to get DLC’s, you had to become a member of the Best Buy club, which cost money. “What? Other stores have gamer clubs? We should do that too. And we will charge for it!” (Once again, I don’t KNOW that anyone actually ever said those lines, but I’m pretty sure someone could have). Well, I say, thumbs down. Nay, brother NAY! I bought a game for a Best Buy exclusive free DLC, but, in order to download the free DLC, I actually had to join their club. Joining the club cost more than the DLC elsewhere! Hence, no savings at all!
Assassin’s Creed 3…
Wow. How far this series has fallen. I had previously loved this game series because of the awesome architecture, the giant buildings we got to scale, etc. But, in this particular version, all of the buildings are only two stories tall (or should I say two stories SHORT?). Furthermore, there aren’t that many buildings. It takes place in cities that are all brand-new in the early Americas. Oh, by the way, you don’t start assassination missions until hours into the game. Yes, I said HOURS. They completely disregarded what the customer wanted.
In addition, furthering my parallel, Best Buy customer service had gone way downhill as well. An employee of Best Buy tried to con money out of a family member of mine. Yes, that’s right, I said con. They tried to charge a family member for a service they had already paid for (why would installation not be covered as part of “Delivery and Installation”?). When I brought it to the manager’s attention, Damien, he did not care (but, really, I shouldn’t have expected much from him. According to the internet, his name is synonymous with “Spawn of Satan”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Thorn). He said he would call me back, and never did (would you expect anything else from the prince of the underworld?). I called corporate (888) 237-8289, hoping to speak with Damien’s boss, Lucifer. Instead, I got a guy named Larry. Sadly, he did very little as well. So we have now gone from something that was awesome and something the people wanted, to… “What? There are bugs in the system? It doesn’t matter. People will buy it anyway. We have a lot of customers.” Or “What? One of our employees broke the law? We will do the absolute bare minimum to make this right.” And that’s what they did. Best Buy manager Damien did very little. Well, guess what, Best Buy and Assassin’s Creed? Though I WAS very passionate once about you and your product, and bought everything from you, I am not going to buy anymore until you start caring about your customer base.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate!
THEY DID IT!!! This is a phenomenal game! It is a lot of fun! They clearly listened to what the people wanted, and gave it to them. They built on what has worked for them in the past, and gave us something even better. I can’t say enough good things about how fun it is. How much care was put into this game, and how much they obviously listened to their customer base.
On the other side of things, I no longer shop at Best Buy. If I need something that Best Buy carries, I go anywhere else to find it… Amazon, Costco, and I do all of my game shopping at GAMESTOP. Gamestop is not so big that it disregards it’s customer base. We are gamers, and they listen to us. When they stop listening to us, we will leave. Plus, their gamer club doesn’t cost any money. When I had a problem with something I bought, they took care of it immediately. I had a three-month-old receipt that faded. You could no longer read the download code that was printed on it (basically, their printer sucks) (So, don’t go there if you want them to print something). They admitted their printers are bad, and they apologized for it. But the best part is, they accepted responsibility, and they fixed the problem. They have in place a way to pull up all of the download codes that you have purchased. They did it for me, and I was able to get the season pass code that I had purchased three months earlier. Basically, shopping at Gamestop is like being in a relationship with Chris Rock. It’s fun, enjoyable and time well spent. Shopping at Best Buy is like being in a relationship with Chris Brown. There is a lot of flash, but basically, it’s unpleasant, and abusive.
To sum up…
Assassin’s Creed, the movie, looks awesome! Star rating coming.
Assassin’s Creed, the game series, is still awesome after all of this time. 3.5 out of 4 stars
BEST BUY BLOWS. 0 out of 4 stars
Gamestop is awesome. 3.5 out of 4 stars
Justin Bowler
Twitter: @JustinTBowler
Instagram: @IndyFilmTwittic and @JustinTBowler
This actually answered my drawback, thank you!