Saturday, October 27, 2012

"History, only more badass"


According to Slate, the wargaming videogame Assassin's Creed III may also be the best historical simulation of the American Revolution ever made.
What they’ll find is the most accessible reconstruction of the Revolutionary War era that’s ever been made. That’s because of the painstaking research and astonishing sense of historical responsibility that AC3’s makers poured into the project. But the game also stands out because it’s the first of its kind: Nobody in mainstream entertainment has ever tried to capture 18th-century American at this level of detail.
And the gamemakers are willing to put in more than "shoot up the Redcoats."  They include, for instance, big chunks of the eighteenth-century "Beggar's Opera":
Hutchinson admits to a perverse glee, too, at jamming opera—what he calls the most maligned art form—into one of gaming's most mainstream franchises. "I love the idea of making 10 million kids listen to an opera for half an hour. This is stealth history, the songs people are singing, the jobs they're doing around you, it's all just happening. You’re not singing in that opera, you're not part of the line infantry, but you see it, it surrounds you,” he says. 
Apparently the game's hero is a Mohawk, and the game apparently includes substantial chunks of Mohawk dialogue, recorded with help from the Mohawk communities south of Montreal  -- the game's creators are Montrealers, working for the gamer giant Ubisoft.  Slate thinks this is the best presentation of the First Nations experience of the Revolutionary War period we've ever seen.

Mind you, they are not exactly trapped in historical accuracy. There are aliens. It's enough you to think of becoming a gamer.


 
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