Video Game Review | Assassin's Creed: Revelations, dev. Ubisoft Everywhere

You want revelations?

Well, that's too bad: there aren't any in this tepid second sequel to Assassin's Creed 2.

When the first sprung out of a conveniently-placed haystack late last year, it came fully-formed out of almost nowhere. The pre-release publicity had pitched Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood primarily as a multiplayer game, and in part it was that... but in the same breath, to the shock and awe of game critics far and wide, it was so much more than that.

As a single-player game, Brotherhood was an experience which built smartly and expansively upon the already-solid foundation of the last installment in this secret sci-fi franchise. The introduction of a marvelous managerial metagame whereby the player could recruit, train and then call upon an entire battalion of junior assassins proved to its biggest, bestest - but not its only - innovation. This worked both to add depth and texture to the world of Renaissance-era anti-hero Ezio Auditore, fleshing out the eternal conflict between his hidden guild and the wicked Templars to great effect, as well as to spice up the play mechanics of a series already looking a little long in the tooth.

Alas, like a wagon without wheels, the incremental betterment of the Assassin's Creed franchise shudders to a halt here, because there is no such masterstroke in Revelations. Saying that, there are a few new mechanics, most notable amongst them a tower defense mini-game which is every bit as awkward as it sounds, and dull as day-old dishwater to boot. More successful than Den Defense - though similarly derivative - are several heavily-scripted set-piece sequences likely to put players very much in mind of the Uncharted series.

There are a handful of further new features, too, but by and large, those embellishments Revelations makes on the tried-and-tested formula of the essential Assassin's Creed experience are... uninspiring, to put it politely. Insipid, if we aren't minding our manners. 

Revelations is still an incredibly competent game, all things considered - particularly given the sordid story of its development in such a tight time-frame (one year) by no less than six different studios - but fatigue sets in early on, such that the end, when it comes, is a real relief.

Needless to say, that's a great shame, because Revelations is a game all about endings, and Ezio Auditore's story is not the only narrative to clatter to a conclusion in this scattershot annual installment: we also spend some time - rather too much time, in point of fact - with the protagonist of the ill-considered original Assassin's Creed, Altair.

As it happens, the conclusion of Altair's story is markedly more satisfying than the end Ezio meets, which is to say no end at all since - in their infinite wisdom - Ubisoft have deemed to tell that tale in the short animated feature Assassin's Creed: Embers... and unless you invest in the limited edition of Revelations, you'll have to buy Embers separately, or track it down on YouTube, as I did.

Leave it to the purveyors of all things Tom Clancy to spin off the spin-off of a spin-off...

Revelations is assuredly not the last hurrah Ezio has earned. It's not even the send-off Altair deserved, and I didn't like that dude in the least. What it is is a bit of a kick in the teeth... an elaborate insult which does a disservice to so many of the stories this series has told better before. It looks the part and, insofar as it has such a firm foundation in its predecessor, it actually plays pretty well, too, but Revelations is ultimately no more and no less than a stopgap between Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed 3, and with it, Ubisoft run the risk of putting people off the franchise entirely.

A dangerous game, that...

...not at all like this one!

Quoth the Scotsman | Jon Courtenay Grimwood on Reinventing the Wheel

A couple of caveats to bear in mind before we start. Unless otherwise indicated, none of the quotes quoted in the following article are representative of the beliefs of the person in question quoted nor those the person quoting the person in question. Additionally, any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental... or so I'm saying.

In short, Quoth the Scotsman is just a space here on TSS for me to post neat quotes as and when I come across them. Simple. As. That.

***

It's not often I go from loathing to loving or loving to loathing, and in truth, though it did in the early going rather try my patience, I was never less than admiring of The Fallen Blade. There was, however, a moment in John Courtenay Grimwood's spectactularly dark first fantasy which served to turn my opinion completely on its head.

This isn't it.


What this is, in lieu of that, is an addendum of sorts to the glowing review I put up yesterday; a non-spoilery quote from the The Fallen Blade which speaks to so much of what I came to admire - indeed adore - about this inspired, and thickly political riff on Assassin's Creed.


For those of you who remain on the fence, then:

There were two tides a day. A low and a high. The first matter neither here nor there to those in the pit, who were removed from the festering mud banks of Venice's edges, and the stink of sour water, as backstreet canals revealed rubbish, puddles and the occasional corpse with every ebbing tide.

The second tide did concern them.

At high tide, lagoon water flowed along ditches, for a few minutes to as much as an hour, and splashed into the oubliette below. One day's tide left half the central island still exposed. Two days' drowned it, but left prisoners able to stand. Three days' killed those unable to swim. Only by constantly working the pump could everyone stay alive. Exquisite cruelty. Hard work for the sake of it. More than this, it stopped prisoners trying to escape. You worked the wheel; slept, woke and worked again. No one was allowed to slack. The oubliette was self-controlling, self-containing. 

In it, Tycho saw Serenissima. 

The varied councils, the courts within courts, the Arsenalotti at war with the Nicoletti, the cittadini jealous of the patricians, the patricians divided into old house and new, rich and poor. no one in Venice got off the wheel. 

Beyond the city, Serenissima's colonies fed the capital, the Venetian navy fought the Mamluk pirates; the Moors allied themselves with whoever the Mamluks opposed. The Germans offered support, claiming Byzantium was Serenissima's greatest threat. The Byzanties claimed the German emperor's ambition was a greater threat and offered support in turn. Timur's Mongols conquered ever larger slices of the world, threatening to recreate the sprawling empire of his hero Genghis Khan. 

And the wheel went round and round and round...

Oh, yes. Ye gods yes...

So who's going to give The Fallen Blade a shot? And who's read it already?

Book Review | The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Buy this book from

Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com

IndieBound / The Book Depository

Venice, 1407.


The city is at the height of its powers. In theory, Duke Marco commands, but Marco is a simpleton so his aunt and uncle rule in his stead. They seem all powerful, yet live in fear of assassins better than their own.


On the night their world changes, Marco's young cousin prays in the family chapel for deliverance from a forced marriage. It is her misfortune to be alone when Mamluk pirates break in to abduct her - an act that will ultimately trigger war.


Elsewhere Atilo, the Duke's chief assassin, cuts a man's throat. Hearing a noise, he turns back to find a boy drinking from the victim's wound. The speed with which the angel-faced boy dodges his dagger and scales a wall stuns Atilo. He knows then he must hunt him. Not to kill him, but because he's finally found what he thought was impossible - someone fit to be his apprentice.

***

 

There's enough going on in the first hundred pages of The Fallen Blade that I honestly had trouble keeping track; enough character, atmosphere and narrative in that short space to fit out a swathe of less ambitious fantasy sagas from top to tail. Overwhelming is what it is, initially, and for its density - for its complete and utter abundance from the word "go" - The Fallen Blade will very likely haemorrhage readers of a certain type. For myself, only rarely will I think to put a book down without sticking with it till the bitter end... and I nearly did this. Nearly... but not quite.


Imagine my astonishment, then, that having resolved to give Jon Courtenay Grimwood's dark fantasy debut a little longer to find its feet, and taken the opportunity to realign a few of my own key expectations, I found in The Fallen Blade the first act of a trilogy with such tremendous promise that at this point, its difficult beginning be damned, I wouldn't hesitate to proclaim it the finest new series of the year to date.


Perhaps the problem I found myself facing, starting in on book one of The Assassini, was a lack of familiarity with the author: an award-winner, at that. And here I hadn't read End of the World Blues, or The Arabesk Trilogy -- more fool me, from where I stand now.


But I don't think that was it.


I think the trouble was, I came to The Fallen Blade expecting a certain standard of fantasy -- which is to say, politely put, standard fantasy. We all know the like, no doubt. And what with the uninspiring blurb and cover art adorning Orbit's edition of The Fallen Blade, it's surely fair to say I had my reasons. Namely a city teetering on the brink of collapse, with a war in the offing, a history of horrors and a proliferation of political strife. Want to bet a pretty boy with incredible supernatural powers will somehow save the day?


Well, not so much.


Tycho - he of the aforementioned angel face (p.43) - is assuredly our protagonist for the macabre entertainments to come throughout the remainder of this stunning introduction to the world of The Assassini, but let's be clear here: he's no sweet cheeks, despite sharing a name (somewhat distractingly) with one half of renowned internet funmongers Penny Arcade. Either a fallen angel or a risen devil, Tycho is at the outset of The Fallen Blade as new to the filthy 15th century Venice of Grimwood's trilogy as you and I; and as new to himself, too, for he's an amnesiac when we meet, only lately freed from a voyage to the city spent in cruel and unusual captivity. Or so one gathers.


You might think his gradual awakening, both to who he is and to the festering wonders of the world around him, would work as an ideal means of introducing the reader to this "city of gilt, glass and assassinations," (p.28) and so it serves to... eventually. But in the early going this is assuredly not that sort of novel. Much in the mode of the hard SF this author cut his teeth on, Grimwood courageously refuses to pander; his priorities at the outset of The Assassini are of a grander order than the offering up of accessible worldbuilding and an array of relatable characters. Inevitably, readers used to the baby's-first-fantasy chaperoning of so many genre novels will find themselves floundering for a foothold through the first act of The Fallen Blade. For me, my own frustrations are evidence enough of that disheartening fact.


But I wouldn't change it if I could. Grimwood might make you work for it - for an understanding of this murderous, Machiavellian society wherein "the briefest glimpse of lovers, seen through the window of a candlelit room overlooking the Grand Canal, carried more interest than prices murdered on Venetian orders miles away," (p.145) check your undivided attention in at the entrance - but the end result of all your effort is a red-wine rich and resplendent sight; a measured assault on the senses which only a precious few fantasists are capable of accomplishing in fiction.


The Fallen Blade is many things, and if there's any justice in the publishing industry - and I dearly hope there is - it will be many things to many people. At first, it's hard work; I make no bones about that. Having come to fantasy only after sharpening his storytelling skills as a science fiction author, working in a field esteemed for its intelligence and density, Jon Courtenay Grimwood's prose in The Fallen Blade is so finely honed as to seem a point... a point which some readers will struggle to see past. But at the last, The Fallen Blade is a darkly remarkable first fantasy, featuring goodly amounts of sex, death and other assorted grimnesses, set in a squalorous city the equal of Styria - from fellow filth slash fine art purveyor Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold - and starring in Tycho a character handily up to the task of carrying a thickly political narrative with such boundless ambition as to recall no-one more than George R. R. Martin.


It really is quite good, shall we say.

***

The Fallen Blade

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

UK Publication: February 2011, Orbit
US Publication: January 2011, Orbit

Buy this book from
Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com
IndieBound / The Book Depository

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