The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

The featured member for the month of September is Double McStab with Cheese, who demonstrated his crazy assassin-tracking skills by recently winning the Where in the World is Stabguy? game. You might know him as "Double McStab w..." Here is what he had to say in the interview:

Tell me about the first time you played AC.
I covered it briefly here... But I can expand. I had never played many sandbox/open-world-type games. The games I played growing up were primarily level based (Sonic, Mario, Starfox, and the like), sports based (football, basketball, etc), or racing games (Mariokart, F-Zero, Burnout, etc). On the newer consoles (of my friends), it was primarily football or FPS (Ghost Recon, Halo, etc). So Assassin's Creed was an all new experience for me.

Growing up, and still today, the only multiplayer games I truly enjoy are racing games (Mariokart Wii!) or football games. It's what I enjoy. (I should mention, that when I say Football, I mean American Football - and primarily the NCAA Football series by EA). Even in the FPS, I enjoy the story modes MUCH more than multiplayer. That said, I knew NOTHING of Assassin's Creed before I began. Of course, I read the manual first (because games still came with manuals when AC was published...) and was hooked. The manual was great... you were a subject in a new program, and the story was set. I was ready to get in the Animus and find out about my ancestors!

Actually playing the game, well... when you read the manuals, the in-game tutorials are even MORE boring... but life goes on. Like I said, I enjoy single player stories in games. I had never been given the freedom to come and go as I was with Assassin's Creed. Because of its gameplay setup, you hit checkpoints all the time, and there were no levels. Go at your own pace. Explore as you want. Go to bed when you want (not "after this level!"). It was freedom in how and WHEN I played the game that was great. I could throw it in for 5 minutes and accomplish something, or play for 2 hours and accomplish nothing. The game was controlled by me, not the other way around.

What do you like most about the games?
As you can tell from the above answer... the single player story. The writers have done a great job so far (even if there have been a couple misses) keeping me interested and wanting more.

What AC accomplishments are you most proud of?
There are 3 things that instantly come to mind (except becoming a featured member in less than 6 months).
1 - As you can guess, I don't play much multiplayer. I didn't play any live games with Brotherhood's multiplayer, but I did fire up some Revelations multiplayer once I beat the game. I had no idea what I was doing, but managed to get the "First Blood" achievement in my first live online game ever. I wasn't even sure I was killing the right person. I just saw the color green and mashed the attack button. It wasn't until 30 seconds later when I realized that it actually was the right person.
2 - Winning the Where in the World is Stabguy? game. Come on, now. I said a long time ago when I first joined that I liked the Featured Member columns because it allowed me to gather information on my adversaries more easily (a la Altaïr). Then, in the one chance to use Assassin puzzle-solving skills, I won. Boom! (But now that I've been profiled, someone will find me...)
3 - Probably my favorite accomplishment is getting my other friend hooked on the series after he, too, had never heard about it. He plays mostly FPS games. But I was always talking about Altaïr and Ezio... and he was intrigued. He bought AC and was enthralled by Altaïr. A month ago, he was playing through AC2 for the first time, and when I told him only 80 days to go before AC3 that he better catch up, he said "I'm behind in the games as is... I'll probably wait a while to get the next two, let alone the final one. I’ll probably be a couple years behind. My buddy will give me Brotherhood anyway." ... Two weeks passed with me talking about Ezio and mostly answering his questions through the end of AC2 (gameplay and story)... and now he caught the fire again, he bought Brotherhood (even though he was going to get it 2 weeks later from his buddy) and is half way through it and has purchased Revelations. haha. Got him hooked again.

What is your favorite style of assassination?
The Double McStab, obviously.

I'll use this space to talk about my screenname on this site. My usual screenname you'll see everywhere else is scottishduck88. I saw this forum was international and had a strong presence from across the pond, and decided I should use something else, as I'm not Scottish (my high school mascot was the Royal Scotsmen, and my university mascot was the Ducks... hence scottishduck). So I thought to myself, Self: what would make you sound bona fide A-murr-can? Nothing is known as being American more than fast food... and no fast food more than McDonalds. What's more American to the global audience than a double quarter-pounder with cheese? Anyway, I love the double hidden-blade (Double Stab), a Mc in front of something makes it from McDonalds (Double McStab), and I love cheese. Like, a lot. My roommate and I in college had a cheese party, where (among other tasty treats) we dipped cubes of cheese into a fountain of nacho cheese dip (... we broke the chocolate fountain, but it was so worth it). Put it all together, and what do you get? Double McStab with Cheese.

So what do you call me? Whatever you want. I'll answer to Cheese, Duck, McStab, scottishduck, Tyler, Double McStab, etc... dealer's choice.

What is your favorite quote from the games?
Too many good ones to choose from... so I'll go with one I find hilarious. When Antonio and Ezio are about to scout the Palazzo Ducale for a way in, and Ezio says "I assume the front door is out?" Antonio responds, "Va bene, we'll try the front door as well, saputello (wise ass)." I think this line captures Ezio's jovial nature and his relationship with Antonio pretty well. He knows the front door won't work, but they're just busting each other’s chops. Plus, it made me laugh, so that's got to count for something.

Which Assassin's Creed game is your favorite: AC1, AC2, AC:B or AC:R? Why?
I postpone answering this question for 94 days (one month after release of AC3). AC3 looks to be the best. I can better relate with the locations having never traveled to Europe or the Middle East and living in the exact area of AC3. The gameplay improvements look good, and I'm sure the story will blow me away.

Out of the 4 games to date, they all have their pluses and minuses (which I'll comment on later). I'll say AC2 was my favorite to date. Not because of anything IN the Animus, but because it's where the story OUTSIDE the Animus picked up: the glyphs, the Templars running the world, the world ending and all that. Plus, none of the other games have made me literally drop my jaw like the end of AC2. (And I don't use literally lightly. When people use the word literally lightly, I literally want to punch them in the mouth).

What is your opinion on Ubisoft making the series a yearly title?
Eh. As long as it's not incremental changes and it makes sense with the story OUTSIDE the Animus I'm fine. If it's just a new skin on an old player, what's the point? I don't understand all the hype every year over the next COD or Madden football game when they don't change gameplay elements to make it feel like a new game. Just save your money and play the old version. Granted, Ubisoft has set the bar for sequels being revolutionary to their predecessors (pun intended) and they will forever be judged on the difference made between AC1 and AC2 (even though that was more than 1 year) right or wrong.

To answer the question directly, I'd rather have completely solid games every 2 years than hastily thrown together incremental changes every 1 year.

Who is your favorite Assassin's Creed character (main or secondary)?
(You may need spoiler tags for this answer).
Without a doubt, it's Yusuf Tazim (da Istanbul, haha). Love that guy. He teaches Ezio so much from the point-of-view of "Come on, Ezio. You're better than that." He's more of a contemporary mentor than an elder, which makes sense because Ezio is so old. For example, Where's your hookblade? You can't do shit without a hookblade, Ezio.

That said, I was so incredibly shocked when Yusuf was killed. I don't know why I was though. I am shocked that I was shocked. Ezio loses a loved one/father figure in every game. I just really liked Yusuf, and was more enraged than Ezio was when he was killed.

What time and place would you like the animus to go to in AC3?
The Revolutionary War.

Lots of people pick their favorite time period, or one they know details about. I'm the opposite. I want Ubi to teach me something. I would like to see an AC game set somewhere I know next to nothing about... somewhere like Japan with the ninjas. (Bring in the foot-blade from Embers). There's got to be somewhere in Africa too. Enough for a whole new present day assassin even... early stuff under the Pharaohs in Egypt, more recently things in a diamond mine run economy of central and southern Africa... Like I said, somewhere I know nothing or little about, but there are surely a couple games there.

When you're not playing Assassin's Creed, what other games or activities do you enjoy?
Being in graduate school, I don't have a lot of time for activities, haha. Hence the "Assassin's Creed lets me play on my own schedule" comments above.

I'm getting my PhD in Chemistry, so that takes a lot of my time away. Somewhat related, I'm a huge fan of AMC's Breaking Bad. I love Bryan Cranston. The science they show is usually pretty sound. Plus, it shows that no matter how bad the economy gets, there will still be jobs for chemists... you just have to be willing to take them.

I'm a big sports fan, especially college football. Much of my time in the fall is spent watching college football, playing NCAA Football on Xbox, or monitoring my fantasy football teams... the wife loves that last one.

I love to travel and see things. My wife and I are both from the west coast, so we spend most of our travel budget travelling back from the east coast to see family in CA (her) or OR (me). That leaves little time or money to do much else on the travelling front. We do try to do something fun once a year travel wise though. Last year we went to Barbados for a long, but still too short, 4 day weekend. The year before that we went on our honeymoon to Fiji (which is a LONG day of travel from CT -- Stabguy can probably relate, as Hawaii to Europe can't be much fun either). This year we've taken lots of short travel days... some of which I've chronicled on this site already.

This summer has been non-stop sports for me though: US Olympic Trials, Tour de France, Wimbledon, Olympics, LLWS, and now, one week off before College Football.

Is there a question that you would like me to ask the next featured member?
What one thing did each game get right? Wrong?

I'll even answer my own question:
- AC1 was great at making you question your motives. Altaïr wanted to understand what he was doing and why he was doing it. It made the player think about who was right and wrong. On the flip-side, the investigations became very tedious near the end of the game. Not the information gleaned from them... just the act of pickpocketing a guy for the 37th time.
- AC2 finally let me live if I touched water. haha. The outside the Animus story was very well integrated. It really picked up here as I've mentioned earlier. I didn't think I would like the economy system (because I just want to play a game for the game and not to build an empire), but ended up getting attached to it all. On the poor execution side... not a gameplay thing, but not being able to (easily) replay story missions sucks. That's all I got.
- ACB allowed you to feel totally in control of the guild, which was cool. It made it easier to accomplish some things, but not if you didn't use your recruits. However, it was more of a "haha, the Borgia are bad" game... the opposite of AC1s good vs evil plot.
- ACR you can tell was somewhat thrown together. I liked the ability to craft bombs... I liked that as the game went on, the enemies on the whole map got harder to beat. On the poor side... uh, Den Defense? okay.... And I'm still not a fan of sending your assassins off to level up via pigeon. It can get so tedious. I'd rather need to train them all by using them myself... but I guess there aren't enough opportunities for that in the game story.

Here are some additional questions from previous Featured Members:
PatrickDeneny asks: If you could add anything to a previous or future AC game (weapon, assassination, technique, target, city/location etc.) what would it be?
Maybe the blending from AC2+ to be in AC1. But I think it works okay.
How about save citizens in AC2? Caterina with the boat tutorial doesn't count.
Or worthwhile assassination targets in ACB/ACR? Moreso, the targets in AC1 had great final dialog that made you think. This is not so much the case in the later games.

Arrrogance asks: Do you think Assassin's Creed should be further pursued beyond gaming, such as a novel series or movie? (With the right writer/director of course)
Even with the movie rumors being floated, I would say no. Absolutely not. How would you have the "free to explore and climb on everything" aspect in a scripted sense? A movie MIGHT work, but they'd have to do it with a new present day Assassin to be truly beneficial to the series. Poorly regurgitating Desmond for a mass audience will fail spectacularly. His character is too deep as is, as we're about to engage in the 5th game of him, all of which are longer than movies. They might be successful with a different character, and this might even add to the series, but I don't think it will be nearly as successful if they try to do Desmond's stories.

Vesferatu asks: How did you find this forum?
Honestly, I was looking for AC2 feathers.

EzioAltair17 asks: Do you think AC should become an animated series?
I like my animated series to be comedies (Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, etc), so I don't think it would work for me.

ROB_88 asks: If there was a crossover with any other story, what would you choose?
This is the best question, but I have no initial answer for it.

After thinking a bit, I'm going to go with the defunct sitcom Better Off Ted, with Veridian Dynamics playing the part of Abstergo Industries. It would be a satirical comedy of errors with the development of the Animus Project and all the other scientific mishaps that make that 2 season series worth watching. The Assassins wouldn't even need to be involved, except to thwart some ill-conceived plans along the way, maybe once a year.

Quite ironic, given my answer to the previous question about AC not working as a comedy, huh?

Slembroccoli asks: If Abstergo was real, what company would it be? Motivate!
We all know the answer to this already... Ubisoft. They've been training us for 5 years now.

It would have to be a technology company. I'm going to ignore the obvious two choices (Microsoft and Apple) and go outside the box a bit. How about Nike? They do endless testing on the best athletes in the world to build better equipment... why? What is the end-goal? World domination, no doubt.

1001Human asks: If you could take one music album, one game, one book, and an endless supply of one food item to a deserted island for two years, what would they be?
If it's a deserted island, I'm choosing one with vegetation and a coconut tree or two. (Deserted, not desert, right?). The coconut tree is so versatile. You can build almost anything out of the frawns and bark. For my food source, assuming the island already has coconuts, I'm taking a few live chickens, if that's allowed, to provide me with eggs daily... and maybe a few more chickens if I can bring the rooster. For a book, I'd like to have something that would either keep me entertained for a while, or take a while to comprehend. I've always wanted to give Ulysses by James Joyce a shot. Maybe a long Choose Your Own Adventure, the dictionary or a survival guide would be better options, but I'll go with Joyce. One game: a deck of cards to play solitaire and to teach myself to count cards (so I have a worthwhile skill when I get back). Surprisingly - given that I was in concert and jazz bands all through my education up through college - I don't listen to much music. I just listen to what's on the radio or what other people are playing at work. On a whim, I'll take Rush 2112.

Is there anything else you'd like to add or promote?
Meh. Keep doing what you're doing. The people that run this site do a great job. The people that contribute content are so creative. And the people who contribute their opinions and conversation are fun as well. Best forum I've been a part of (if you pardon my improper grammar).

Oh, I know! I don’t know how I didn’t think of this first‽ I would like to promote the interrobang as a punctuation mark. As in, why don’t more people know about the interrobang‽ Why is the interrobang not standard punctuation‽ And why won't facebook let me post the interrobang symbol at all‽ (It shows up as an empty box meaning, roughly, What is this, I don't even...)