The Black Flag of Assassin’s Creed: Why modern politics can be seen in naval ship battles
As I mentioned yesterday, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed video game franchise is releasing a pirate version of their popular series to be launched prior to Halloween 2013 and it looks fantastic. So I’m going to take a break from the usual serious matters dealt with at this site and expand a bit more about what I started to discuss regarding Assassin’s Creed as an instructive platform from which all people can learn history, by allowing players get to walk in the shoes of characters as history was made. Shortly after I wrote the article previously mentioned, I managed to obtain my own ship while playing Assassin’s Creed III which takes place during the American Revolution and engage in the fantastic naval battles which is the new feature developed by Ubisoft. The ship battle feature in the game is hands down one of the coolest uses of video game technology I have ever seen and it appears to be expanded upon dramatically in their upcoming pirate release, so it deserves mention and a metaphorical analysis in relation to real life. The ship to ship battles in Assassin’s Creed III are simply breathtaking and deserve comment for the bench mark in history that they represent. Justifiably so, I am very much looking forward to the release of Assassin’s Creed 4, The Black Flag coming this fall. I will be one of the first to get it! There are few places that you can live history from your living rooms and engage in the exhilaration that model ship builders have for years tried to capture when imagining grand galleons perched in combat with cannons firing on the choppy waters of a stormy sea. But that is exactly what these recent Assassin Creed releases are offering for the first time anywhere and the results are simply stunning. I’ve never seen anything like what I was able to play in Assassin’s Creed III with the ship to ship combat that alone makes the worth of the game more than justified for gamers who enjoy history.
Hanging in my home I have a painting of two ships firing canons at each other on Lake Erie during the War of 1812. I have found that the old sea battles from the romantic era of naval combat reflects modern politics in many ways. Like politics, wind speed is important as well as the direction from which it comes. Politicians often allow themselves to blow where the winds of public opinion take them, so the metaphor is a proper one. The old mast driven battleships were very much victims of circumstance, so maneuvering in position at a speed of 8 to 12 knots in order to fire upon an enemy was difficult. Even then gaining a tactical advantage over an opponent meant that one ship would have to outlast another in broadside combat at close range, because that is often what it came to. One ship would have to absorb the damage of another and hope that their ship wouldn’t sink to the oceans depths before their enemy. I see in modern politics that Republicans have constantly been outmaneuvered by the pirate tactics of the Democrats who attack not just with one spectacular galleon, but many small ones. Republicans often utilize such magnificent ships by displaying lots of guns and massive sails in a fashion that was typical of the British during their imperial rule. The Democrats use smaller, faster vessels that can overtake larger ships with mass and dirty tricks to take down their superior foes—and such a metaphor describes modern politics clearly.
Many of the tactics seen in modern politics were long ago used on the high sea battles of early naval combat, before engines and modern firepower allowed technology to trump bravery. In the picture I referred to of the 1812 conflict, I often think of the do or die nature of the ship crews who knew if they lost the fight, there would be no quarter given, no rescue from the enemy–there would be only death as their ship sank becoming their collective tombs. So it is in this spirit that I love naval conflict from the period of world history where such things occurred, which is so wonderfully rendered in the Assassin games.
Personally I love the violent combat that is required in Assassin’s Creed III to even get to the naval battles. Many game players over 35 years old might find themselves turned off at having to assassinate so many Redcoats to play through the story mode. Some of my Tea Party friends who are history buffs and are inclined to spend their spare time building model trains and ships in bottles would love the naval combat graphics engine in the game, but they would find the brutality required to play the main character difficult to get their minds around. That is the only weakness of the Assassin games. The cost of the game is worth buying just for the ship battles, but that option should be available right out of the box to the advantage of the history buff—not the seasoned video gamer who loves the violent game play—like I do.
But that aside, it was bewildering to engage in combat with several schooner style ships in the choppy seas off the coast of North Carolina where the waves were 10 to 15 feet high and pitching my ship to and fro in a very violent manner. I found that I had to time the cannon fire to these rough waters so that the cannons would reach their targets and not nose dive into the water short of their mark. I have never seen such realism in a combat simulation of any kind, and it is just incredible to look at, let alone play.
The Assassin games are bringing history to life in a way I never thought was possible. Needless to say, I am incredibly impressed. As I write this the Horseshoe Casino has just opened in downtown Cincinnati and many adults my age converged upon its opening to spend $10 dollars per game on bets they are likely to never see a positive result. The gaming that goes on in places like Vegas and casinos like The Horseshoe are consuming exercises that do little to give the players any kind of rewarding experience except for the occasional jackpot. For my money, I would rather spend my gaming time on a $60 investment into a game like Assassin’s Creed III so at least the time spent playing can put the player into the seat of history and see and feel what it was like to stand on the docks of Boston in 1773 climbing aboard a ship to sail into the open sea blasting canons into the hull of an enemy in a rip-roaring wind attempting to turn ships over as sea water washes over the decks in a bubbling froth. The ship battles are a heck of a lot more exciting than a casino slot machine that simply is designed to eat money from hopeful treasure hunters dressed to kill, but often losing the shirt right off their backs. Games like Assassin’s Creed give back where a casino gaming experience can’t.
In such war simulations I tend to be a rammer when it comes to naval combat. With all things being equal, the way to gain an advantage over an enemy is to be bolder in combat efforts so ramming into an opposing ship to cause them to hesitate before firing yields great results. I do the same type of thing in actual politics. Rather than dance around in never-ending stalemates, I tend to think like a pirate in being overly aggressive in achieving a victory. (SEE THE LAKOTA LEVY FOR A SAMPLE) I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to politicians who insist on dancing with the enemy as less aggressive ship captains discover happens often in confrontations if they over-think their scenarios. Playing games like Assassin’s Creed III can reveal these tendencies in a simulation before millions of wasted dollars go into political campaigns that only end up dancing around the enemy on the seas of life, (LIKE THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN). The people reading this who will insist that their strategy was formed from years of experience and that such a simplified answer to age-long questions cannot be found in a video game—they are the same people who have lost many campaigns and are not qualified to provide an opinion. Players of such a game not only learn a lot about history, but they also learn a lot about themselves.
Regardless of the level of enjoyment, the Assassin Creed video games are unsurpassed in their naval war simulations. I could play them endlessly, and I scratch my head at those who are my age and older who scamper off to a casino to throw their money away when there are games like Assassin’s Creed III that are much more beneficial to the human mind, and an understanding of the history of our species. But just for the sheer enjoyment of blowing up a gigantic galleon after a long fought battle, Ubisoft has achieved a level of detail that has never before been achieved in a game or war simulation of any kind any where. I simply shudder to consider how cool the new game Black Flag will be. I think I will be taking another vacation come fall of 2013, similar to the one I took to play The Old Republic. Because if Assassin’s Creed 4 has better ship combat than Assassin’s Creed III, then I may never leave my house again………….because they are a lot of fun, and filled with rich history that will make a modern novel envious.
Rich Hoffman
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
