Randomly Mine: January 10th, 2019

Assassin’s

Through purchases made on Newegg last year, the website gave me a free copy of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, or as I kept calling it, The Witcher 3: Odyssey. However, even if Odyssey was a 7/10 version of Witcher 3, I wouldn’t mind; if you’re going to copy something, might as well be something great.

But that’s not what this is about. I haven’t played the game yet and it might be some time until I do, but there’s a topic I keep revisiting.

In the game you can be the male character Alexios, or the female character, Kassandra. Hardly the first game to do this, but these player characters seem likable enough with good voice acting and motion capture, and I really appreciate that they’re not carbon copies of each other.

Unlike say Commander Shepard who uses the same lines, body-language, and tone of voice (mostly) regardless of gender, Alexios and Kassandra can portray themselves completely differently according to what best suits their character. It’s a subtle but welcome advancement of games featuring two protagonists.

But Odyssey, and other games as of late, have been accused of revising history. That by letting people play a female warrior in a time period where that was at best a rarity, it’s falsely portraying a historical event to score PR.

And I can understand where people are coming from.

When putting so much effort into recreating the atmosphere, visuals, monuments, and world that existed ages ago, not taking the same approach to characters and gender roles seems silly.

Now, I can only understand to a point, as this doesn’t bother me personally. Assassin’s Creed has never been a series that’s immersed me with its insistence on Tron Grids and desynchronization.

But for the same reasons I’m irritated by those things, I do believe there was a missed opportunity with Kassandra, that being to tell a unique story through her fictional origins.

I apologize to historians ahead of time for my potential ignorance, but from my understanding, Spartan Women had the best slice of the small privilege pie for women in Ancient Greece while most were treated like second class citizens.

In this real world, there’s potential to tell a powerful narrative of a Female Mercenary who doesn’t fit into any of the roles this society’s adamant she belongs in. I imagine a story where Kassandra’s respected amongst those who think beyond society’s influences, while constantly pressured by not just Men in power, but other Female Spartans who feel disrespected by Kassandra’s presumed disrespect of their roles in society.

I think it’d be powerful for players to freely explore a world hostile to them simply for the gender they select, and it would certainly evade the “history revision” accusations.

But this does create a problem.

You see, while Odyssey’s unified story regardless of character is seen as political by some (and I wouldn’t argue it’s not), it’s safely political.

When you think about it, the game isn’t challenging anything.

All it’s done is put a Woman where they didn’t exist in the historical setting this game is loosely based upon. It’s not confronting topics like Oppression, Free Will, or Gender Roles, or at least if it does, it’s not through the main character.

This is something Ubisoft does all the time.

They want the attention ($$$) of confronting societal taboos, but without profoundly commenting on them for fear of shunning consumers who disagree, or worse, falsely portraying those depicted and gaining negative PR, the kind which hurts sales rather than simply generate conversation.

It happened with Far Cry 3’s portrayal of a psychopath, Watch Dog’s acknowledgement of sex trafficking, and The Division’s depiction of LGBT people.

And while the lack of depth in all these topics is quite frustrating as an aspiring writer who loves to delve into narratives, Ubisoft are in the place they want to be. 

They kinda irritate a small portion of Conservatives in America with its recent games about slaughtering citizens by the truckload, and they kinda irritate the left with its tokenism, but all that results in is a couple articles and videos lightly criticizing its vapid depictions, and generating conversation.

To tell my earlier idea, you’re going to piss people off, even if you do absolutely everything right (which is a lot harder than it sounds).

While you might not be called “SJW” for historical revisionism, you almost certainly will for dedicating one character to a world where female oppression is an unavoidable obstacle, in a game where most people probably just wanna slice baddies up while leveling up their way up to the top. It’ll frustrate Men who don’t believe these subjects are relevant in today’s society, and it’ll frustrate Woman who find themselves in sexist situations and want to just play a game to escape our world for a few hours.

And that’s not even delving into the logistics and amount of unique content telling a story like this would require, let alone properly.

So while Ubisoft will occasionally make a “political” push no more sophisticated than an 8th grader, I don’t believe it stems from a genuine care for the world or it’s people beyond common courtesy.

Nor do I believe those who’d be satisfied with proper historical accuracy will outnumber the outrage of those who don’t care for AC’s sudden venture beyond its “safe” politics, but while I’d like to see that belief challenged, I don’t think it will…

Because Ubisoft’s doing and mostly getting, exactly what it wants. Actually this PCGamer article pretty much confirms it.

https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-executive-says-its-games-are-not-political/

Well…

That was a mouth full, so to balance it out, here’s some screencaps I took while playing Mass Effect Andromeda.

What Call of Duty Battle Royale Should Be

I actually quite enjoy the Battle Royale concept. I like the idea of casually entering an arena to see how far you can make it, in the same way I’m for the idea of Roguelikes. However, both aren’t as engaging in person as they are on paper.

It’s impossible not to be frustrated by looting eight houses in PUBG only to earn Shotgun pellets and a Tank Top. It’s infuriating to lose at the start of Blackout because your room contained bandages while the enemy's had a Shotgun. It’s especially annoying that Ring of Elysium is a good game but sends your data to China.

But there is a Battle Royale game which has the exact pacing, innovation, and unique gameplay that I’m looking for in a Battle Royale, and it’s…

A 2D Top Down Shooter inspired by the earliest GTA games.

What makes the game unique is its structure and rules. Firstly, the player count is at about 16-20. Not revolutionary, there are smaller Battle Royale modes in things like Warface, but the main appeal is what happens to players when they die. Rather than be left to spectate or quit, they become Zombies who roam the map either killing fellow Zombies to gain more cash for the next round, or kill players and take their place, allowing them to potentially win.

And that is Bad. Fucking. Ass.

It’s hilarious to hunt down friends as a Zombie and rob them of victory, it adds tension to matches when 1v1’s are accompanied by hordes of the undead, and most importantly, it lets you participate at all times.

There isn’t a moment of downtime in Geneshift, which might not be the best for Streamers who use the downtime in PUBG, Fortnite, and Blackout to interact with their audience, it makes for a far more engaging game to play for minutes on end, because there’s always something to pursue in victory.

And what I imagine is this exact ruleset applied to Call of Duty. Blackout’s enjoyable but it simply refines a formula that already existed, one I argue doesn’t suit Call of Duty’s CQC fast-paced combat. Meanwhile it’s got the world, systems, and mechanics to do what Geneshift does. It has Zombies, in-game shops, air-drops, and on the fly healing.

It really does drive the point home that design is not only king, but something you can innovate even in the most "basic" of genres.