The last time I scribbled about Assassin’s Creed, it was with Assassin’s Creed II, whereby I did a post-completion double-take when I realised I had just been manoeuvred into an in-context fist fight with the Pope.

I may have just found my equivalent double-take moment in this follow up title.  As it could be considered spoilery, I’ll hide it behind the jump.

I like to imagine that there were quite a few conversations held where the designers thought about ways they could one-up Assassin’s Creed II with new features or expanding out on existing ones.  I would like to believe the conversation went something like this:

Developer 1:  Right, you know how we wrapped up the last game into a nice self contained story?

Developer 2:  Right.

Developer 3:  Right.

Developer 1:  Well, the good news is, Assassin’s Creed II sold rather well and went down well with critics and gamers alike.

Developer 2:  There’s a “but” in there isn’t there?

Developer 1:  ….but, that means the higher ups want us to do a follow up that’s basically the same.  They want more renaissance Italy.

Developer 3:  Will renaissance Italy become the new First Person Shooter in gaming?

Developer 1:  ….I….no….maybe…..it doesn’t matter, what we have here is a situation whereby we need to do a full release that is essentially the same as our last title but doesn’t feel like an expansion pack…

Developer 2:  No, you have to call it “Downloadable Content” now!

Developer 1:  Sorry, downloadable content.  I suggest we take what we did with Assassin’s Creed II and dial it up as much as possible.

Developer 2:  Well, you know how “Alien” had one alien, and “Aliens” had lots of them?

Developer 3:  Yeah, and they did the same with the new “Predators” film, by putting lots of predators in instead of one!

Developer 2:  Well, we could make it “Assassins” and have lots of assassins in the game!

Developer 1:  Ok, not a bad idea.  Maybe call it a “brotherhood of assassins” or something.  Maybe we could have lots of assassins that help you…and we’ll let the player level them up and give them different uniforms like…..

Developer 2:  A football management sim?

Developer 3:  The Sims?

Developer 1:  Sort of.  Both.  But with assassinations.

Developer 2:  That seems a bit tenuous.

Developer 3:  I think I’d still like to play it though.

Developer 1:  Ok, that’s a good start, now what about some other things.  What about vehicle sections?  Those are good.  What have we got?

Developer 2:  Well, we’ve done some horse-and-cart things before.

Developer 3:  And just horses.  Horses have been in it since the beginning!

Developer 1:  How can we make that a bit more…for want of a better word…extreme?

[Pause]

Developer 3:  We could stick a cannon on it?

Developer 1:  On a horse?

Developer 3:  It would make it more extreme!

Developer 2:  But also a bit stupid.

Developer 1:  Ok, what about something else.  What else do we have?

Developer 2:  We’ve got gondolas.  They were introduced for the levels in Venice.

Developer 1:  Gondolas.  Right.  And how do we dial them up to eleven exactly?

[Pause]

Developer 3:  We could stick a cannon on it?

Developer 1:  That’s…

Developer 2:  …Actually…

Developer 1:  Yeah, we’ll write that down.

I have just finished a mission which involved piloting what I like to call “Ezio Auditore da Firenze’s War Gondola”, a Gondola with a renaissance style missile launcher attached to the front that you have to sink a bunch of ships with, switching between firing and calmly rowing using the oar at the back.  As justification for this war machine, it is a prototype that has been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci that has fallen in to enemy hands.

This was my Pope-punching-moment so far in the game, but I have high hopes that I might find a few more before it’s over.

Let me just stress:  I really like these moments.  I love that a game that treats its audience as intelligently as the Assassin’s Creed series does never forgets that you’re supposed to be having fun.  Also, the mini game of managing a handful of assassins recruited from the streets is little more than a simple browser based game, yet it is strangely compelling to the point that I have devised a series of ranks denoted by the colour of the armour that I give to them.

I would like to write about this game a bit more in the future, so I might do so, but for anyone on the fence about picking it up, I would really recommend it.  I am of course a massive fan of the series and am at this point a damaged-goods-critic on the matter, but regardless of this, the multiplayer aspect which I have not mentioned is worth a look on its own and that is something I am definitely going to talk about soon.

Additional Notes:

“Pope-punching moment” sounds quite good.  I might use that again.  I’d say it’s definitely a type of Fridge logic.

After re-reading this, I’m sure “Gondola of War” is already a thing.  Maybe I’m getting confused.