Like Watching The Prince In Real Life

[nano_moose]

Do you remember being a kid, and trying to find more interesting ways to walk down a street? Balancing on the curb, vaulting over unnecessary fences, twirling around street-lamps and the like?

These guys made it into a sport.

Comments

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's fragging amazing. I wish I could jump like that.

[nano_moose]

Isn't it? Part of me wants to go out and start jumping off buildings. It'e one of the reasons I want Assassin's Creed so much - they modeled the way Altair moves off it and it looks positively glorious. I like nimble protagonists.

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

I would so join you jumping off buildings except for the fact that I think I can jump a total of, like, five centimeters. I wouldn't even make it off the building. (This may be a slight exaggeration. Er... undergeration? I AM GOOD WITH WORDS.)

Nimble protagonists are awesome. Man, I suddenly really want to go play Sly Cooper. IF I CANNOT JUMP OFF BUILDINGS, I WILL JUST HAVE TO PRETEND I AM A FICTITIOUS RACCOON WHO CAN. Also, because you are my source of video game information, TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT ASSASSIN'S CREED! Please?

[nano_moose]

And I will go and play Prince of Persia! Since I can't be a raccoon, I may as well be a Middle-Eastern toff, albeit a very graceful one.

Assassin's Creed! The actual, factual assassin's creed is "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." It turned up at E3 this year, and is being made by the same dudes who made the remake of Prince of Persia. Um, it's about an assassin named Altair trying to end the Third Crusade. I'm not entirely sure how accurate most of the information is, but I think he was a high-ranking member of a guild of assassins before he screwed up somehow and got bumped down to the lowest rank. In the game itself, you have something approaching total freedom to do what you like, and the world will react to you doing it - say you're moving through a crowd. If you want you can just sprint through them and knock people down and stuff, but if you put a little more effort into things you can gently move people out of the way. Of course, once you actually stick a knife in your target, how you treated the people around you comes back to haunt you. If you were nice, they'll spread out and hide you. If you were mean, they'll link arms and trap you in one place for the guards.

Um, what else...Altair's really agile, and he can grab anything that sticks out more than two inches from the wall/cliff/whatever. And he can jump real good, and since these guys know how to make nimble protagonists, it's very pretty to watch. The thing that amuses me most about him is that he wears a white and red outfit a lot like the one the Prince wears in the third game, and a hood that hides most of his face, so he looks like a cross between Garrett and the Prince. In my head, this means he must be have a concentration of snark that could break the universe, so I heart him a little already. His name means "The Flying One," and they've modeled a little of the way he moves off eagles and birds of prey (as well as the freerunning). Also, the ring finger on his left hand has been cut off, and he has a spring-loaded blade on his wrist. I find that kind of horribly intriguing.

One of the most interesting things about it is that, in the play demonstration at E3, every time Altair got hit, the screen would fuzz and break up a little. And then, when he actually died, the screen went to static that cleared up to reveal a futuristic computer panel kind of thing with the words "Memory Retrieval - Failed" written across it. What the hell that means nobody knows, but it sounds a little like the way the Prince would say "No, that's not how it happened," whenever the player messed up in Prince of Persia. Except more plotty. So, I'm intrigued. And I want this game a lot. There's trailers here.

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

OH MAN, I WANT THIS GAME SO BAD. It's so pretty! (Well... not pretty pretty, in the sense of fantastic sunsets and flowers or whatever, but in the sense of HOLY CRAP AMAZING.) But mostly I want it for the static and for Altair, who looks like he will turn out to be an incredible bastard, or at least one of those morally ambiguous characters I like so much.

And dude, that knife is -- I. And the running! And the climbing walls! And -- !! WHY IS THE PS3 SO EXPENSIVE, DAMMIT. If Thief-for-the-PC goes over well, maybe I'll just get it as a computer game when it comes out.