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The joy of throwing guards around in Assassin’s Creed 2Renaissance manhandling
Renaissance manhandling
Assassin’s Creed Mirage: Cinematic World Premiere | #UbiForwardWatch on YouTube
Assassin’s Creed Mirage: Cinematic World Premiere | #UbiForward
Enemies in Assassin’s Creed 2 are thrown the way Tom Cruise is ejected from a bar in the new Top Gun movie: with gusto. Though it must be said, the thrown do a lot of the work for you, each time transitioning from a running stumble into a flying faceplant, a truly Olympian performance in the field of slapstick gymnastics. The sheer distance they cover will almost always guarantee a collision, be that with a fellow guard, rickety tower of scaffolding, or sudden realisation that the ground has vanished beneath their feet. It’s the ‘yes, and…’ of improvisational calamity. Venice, in particular, is happy to provide preciptious drops and instakill canals in every conceivable direction you might fling a bloke.
Though the throw is nuanced - allowing you to steer your unfortunates in any direction, in different contexts, to specific ends - it’s also broad and splashy in a way I miss. In the sequels that followed, Assassin’s Creed developers increasingly demanded precision from players. Stealth in Assassin’s Creed Unity felt like playingSplinter Cellin four dimensions - accounting for enemy eyes on multiple planes while manouvering your avatar silently through windows and down ladders. And while I do relish that challenge, it felt like a denial of what we all knew: that controlling a character in the pre-RPG Assassin’s Creed games was a messy business, in which the intent of your key presses was not always reflected on-screen.
The genius of Assassin’s Creed 2 and its grab ‘n’ throw was that it embraced the muddiness of your inputs, turning your mistakes into comedy that could be celebrated, even as your plans turned to pratfalls. It’s a lesson Ubisoft would do well to remember before it chucks its latest soft reboot,Assassin’s Creed Mirage, out over the eaves and into the waiting crowd below.
