Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of production'

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Yeah, thinking about it in those terms, adapting a movie almost precisely in tone and effect, but condensed for running time, from a game's story would be about the same as adapting a movie from a novel. If you've read the novel, and the movie adaptation is fairly faithful, you know what's going to happen to whom, and roughly about when.

But, adaptations will usually take a few (conservatively put in some cases) liberties to try and make the movie as enjoyable as the source material (be it a novel, comic, or game). That's a fine, creative line to walk too.

Now, I've rarely seen movies that have disappointed me if they were adapted from novels. (Ok...The Running Man...that was a Stephen King -- as pseudonym Richard Bachman-- novel turned into a typical 80's Schwarzenegger flick...with little to do with the source material, other than a few character names, and the very....very...general idea that folks fight for their lives to win freedom wrongly taken from them by a dystopian government/society...or in the case of the novel....Ben Richards was participating to try and help his critically ill child, I believe. Taken as a Schwarzie flick, it's mildly enjoyable. Taken as an adaptation of a King/Bachman book....it's horrendous.).

Peter Jackson did a good job of adapting the Lord of the Rings movies, apparently (I never read the books, so I'll have to take more experienced folks' word at it). He's also taking quite a few creative liberties with The Hobbit (a novel that barely warranted two movies, let alone three, according to my room mate) to get a trilogy out of it. Now, my room mate says that the creative liberties he is taking are well within the logic and setting of the story, and are still turning out quite well.

Can you imagine if the latter Harry Potter books (say, Goblet of Fire, onward) were all done as two parters? (like The Deathly Hallows was). The books from GoF onward themselves could easily warrant two parters. We would've probably gotten more of the subplots that were sorely missing from the movies....like Hermione's efforts to free house elves from servitude, and such.) I loved the movies, having only read Prisoner of Azkaban onward. I guess I came to admire the HP stories from the bassackward approach, watching the first couple of movies first, and then reading the novels.

I don't do a lot of reading as it is.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Probably a wise idea. I'll just say this. While it wasn't a great movie, it was at least passable as a videogame movie. And I know people like to criticize the Prince of Persia movie, but I quite liked that one.

Yeah, you're right. The easy thing to do would be to adapt Uncharted 2 into a movie, but then like you say you'd have the problem of knowing everything, but it's not so bad in the way of a novel adaptation like the Harry Potter movies. The series though does have strong enough characters that you could make a movie with a unique story that stands well on its own and be considered as an addition to the franchise. Already, I feel the series has some characters that resemble real-life counterparts, such as Marlowe resembling Helen Mirren and Ellie from TLOU resembling Ellen Page, so their games are already almost cast

Agreed on the Superman games. With Rocksteady's success with the Arkham games, it really has made me wonder whether they could do the same for Superman. Before the Arkham games, it had been a long time since there'd been a really good superhero game.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

I remember for quite a while, everyone thought that Ellen Page (whom I lu-- er-- love dearly ) was actually digitized and mocapped for the role of Ellie. The devs changed up Ellie's appearance a bit, and stated that they just wanted to make a few more aesthetic changes in Ellie. Ellen Page wasn't even really fazed by this until she did start doing mocap and voice work for another video game....Beyond: Two Souls. Then she became mildly irate at the notion that people thought she was in TLOU.

I used to have the game Superman Returns for the 360. It was a sort of open world game for Metropolis...but it seemed rather repetitive. I never finished it. In fact, I think I took it back a few days after I bought it. I think it was the second or third game I got for my first 360, years ago. (The very first game I bought for 360 was a game I stll have and play to this day: Elder Scrolls Iv: Oblivion. . )

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

That's an interesting story about Ellen Page And hell, the Beyond devs do like the photorealistic, so I'd count it as a compliment that people thought she was in TLOU with another dev I wonder if she's played it.

You know, the first time I saw the Uncharted 3 trailer and saw Marlowe, my first thought was, holy wow, they've got Helen Mirren, because it sounded and looked a lot like her and even seemed a perfect role for her, but I see another actress was in her place. Could be they had hopes of getting her for the gig.

Heh yeah, that's the Superman game I had in mind. Never played it, mind you, but remember seeing many reviews extolling how terrible it was, and I don't think nobody's tried to make one since? Quite a stigma attached to it and it would take one hell of a game to make people forget about it.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Yeah, I often wonder if the devs to try to create likenesses of certain actors/actresses, in the hopes of getting said actor/actress to voice or even mocap the role.

I remember when Ronald D. Moore wrote the miniseries for the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, they wrote President Roslin with Mary McDonell in mind for the role, thinking "wouldn't it be great if we could actually GET her?" Well, turns out, she was interested, loved the role, and ate it up.

Yeah, I'd say Naughty Dog and Quantic Games are tops when it comes to cinematic styled games. There were a couple of cutscenes in Beyond: Two Souls where it almost looked like full motion video...even though I knew it wasn't. Same thing with Naughty Dog's Uncharted and Last of Us.

I wonder if Rockstar Games could create a good Superman game in the vein of the Batman Arkham series, we might actually, finally have some quality Superman games.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti





https://twitter.com/AndrastesTits/status/499985081319309313

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

^If only they weren't crying so loudly then they'd be able to hear this teeny tiny violin playing...

While that would be great...being able to make fantastic Batman games doesn't necessarily mean they'd be able to do the same for Superman. The two characters have totally different skill sets and power levels that would require *vastly* different gameplay design and mechanics. It would be an entirely different animal from the ground up. That they both feature comic book characters is merely a cosmetic issue.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Oh, believe me, I'm aware of the skillset differences being a factor.

It's definitely a matter of translating Superman's powers into a way that doesn't make the game boring or unplayable.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

^Which is not as nearly simple as you make it sound. It'd require a totally different style of game.

The free flowing melee combat, the stealthy take downs, the grapple line and glide transit method, the metroidvania semi-open word design--basically every mechanic that has become the hallmark of the Arkham games--none of them would work for a Superman game.

About the only thing they could keep more or less intact is something akin to detective, thanks to Superman's 50 different kinds of vision.

Basically saying that the people that made the Arkham games are the best people to make a Superman game on the basis that they're both superhero characters makes no sense. It'd be like saying the 'Call of Duty' would make a great Mass Effect game on the basis that they've made some really popular games that have guns in them. Or that Valve should have made 'The Walking Dead' instead of Telltale on the basis that they already made several games with zombies in them.

It's essentially the same conceptual mistake comic book movies made for years prior to the latest crop of Marvel movies. That being that "comic book" is a genre. It is not, it's a medium. Marvel caught onto this fact which is why the Captain America movies weren't "comic strip movies" they were a period, 40's pulp adventure and a modern political espionage movie respectively. Now if you compare the Ang Lee 'Hulk' to the more recent Norton TIH you'll see that the former is very much trying to be "comic booky" to it's utter detriment. While the Norton movie, while by no means perfect is a much more cohesive film with a better grip on it's characters because the filmakers knew it needed to be a fugitive thriller with some classic monster movie sensibilities.

Likewise a *good* Superman game cannot be like Arkham games. It just wouldn't work. So what one shoudl do instead is ask "what *would* a good Superman game look like?" and figure out from there who has the best chance (and experience) in pulling off that kind of game.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Yeah, you're likely right. I've only thought about the idea of Rocksteady making a Superman game because they were really good at making a good Batman game based on their skillset, and you're right that it would be insanely difficult to make something good out of Superman. It's kind of ironic given that he's one of the most popular comic book characters, but that his character and skillset don't translate well to a game. It's both a blessing and a curse.

It would have to be a heavily plot-oriented game, like an adventure-game where you both use Clark Kent and Superman, both with different skillsets to solve puzzles and to advance the plot.

I dunno, I think a good Superman game could be done properly. The main problem with the terrible N64 game was that it focused on all the wrong things, for the wrong reasons, essentially making it a flying obstacle course which made it frustrating and disappointing, both in terms of gameplay and license use.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Hmmm....a Telltale style Superman game could work as there's a number of good stories they could adapt ('For the Man Who Has Everything' leaps to mind)....but I feel that might feel like a cheep way of avoiding the problem. People are going to want a Superman game to be at least partially open world.

The closest thing to a good Superman game so far has been the DCUO MMO. You don't play as Supes, but you can make a character that's basically a lower powered knock-off. At least they got the flight mechanics down pretty solid. Surprisingly Saints Row 4 isn't far off either.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

I think a Superman game could work in the style of the Infamous games. You're basically already a superhero zipping around a city fighting bad guys. Give him slightly different powers and turn the city into Metropolis, and you're pretty much good to go.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

DCUO has already sort of done this but as an MMO. The problem though is in delivering that "being Superman experience" the way the Arkham games delivered the "being Batman experience".

In a nutshell, Superman is so ridiculously powerful that playing as him would be like playing any other game with all the cheats on. Fun for messing around in a sandbox, but an absolute nightmare for a well balanced game.

The alternative is to come up with a plot reason why he's not so powerful (e.g. evil robots powered by kryptonite) but that'd likely make the player feel like they're being nerfed and you won't get that same experience.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

He could start in a weakened state and get his powers back through the course of the game. Start the game with a kryptonite meteor shower or something..I dunno.

Or you could possibly do it Smallville-style where his powers develop over time.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Exactly what I wanted to state, but didn't have time.
Well told.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Yeah, I like Superman as much as the next guy (well, maybe not quite as much, he's kind of an asshole, actually), but he simply is a game design nightmare, as was pointed out so eloquently.

Amen, Reverend.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Which as I said, wouldn't give you that "being Superman" experience right off the bat (no pun intended), but instead hold it back until maybe the last hour or so of gameplay. In the Arkham games, you get that "being Batman" feeling pretty much straight away in the very first fight and is present throughout. Unlocking the new equipment and combat moves only deepens the experience.

That aside, would anyone seriously want to play something that is essentially "Smallville: The Video Game"? Didn't think so!

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

True, I did think about exploration, but struggled to think how those two could be combined. But then I've started thinking, you could still make it open-world, just that the mechanics would be vastly different than Arkham since Batman is more hands-on. You could fly around and listen for things to happen, like say, someone in need of a rescue, which turns out to be a major plot point.

But I have to admit, I think having all your powers at the start might get boring. It would make for much better gameplay if you did start off that way in intro part of the game, but then have some plot related to Lex Luthor which weakens you, and possibly having to track down and destroy kryptonite fragments around the city to unlock your powers.

Heh I see Rojo had the same idea. I swear, I didn't look beforehand!

I did play DCOU, and it was pretty decent, especially the way they had you choose a mentor as a way of choosing your class.

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

Why does historical accuracy only matter when a game puts women on the battlefield?

 

Re: Lack of female assassins in Assassin's Creed? 'Reality of producti

You know it utterly baffles me how gender representation has become such a divisive topic in gaming. I actually saw something the other day where someone was complaining that Bioware was being prejudiced against men because so far, most of their released gamplay footage from DAI has featured a female Inquisitor....the mind boggles.