Video Game Review: Assassin's Creed: Revelations | The-Mirror

By: Adam Shaw ?New York
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'ASSASSIN'S CREED: REVELATIONS'--This is the cover of the video game "Assassin's Creed: Revelations." The CNS classification is O--morally offensive. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board rating is M--Mature. (CNS photo/Ubisoft)

?Inspired by historical events, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a multicultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs.?

The above line may seem an unusual introduction to a video game. Yet anyone who has played any of the predecessors of the ethically illiterate ?Assassin?s Creed: Revelations? (Ubisoft) will understand exactly why the developers decided to cover their, er, backsides once again.

?Revelations? is the fourth major installment in this pseudohistorical series, and is a direct sequel to the third entry??Assassin?s Creed: Brotherhood??which will go down in history as one of the most anti-Catholic video games ever created. A game, that is, in which every member of the church hierarchy is presented as vicious, corrupt, or downright evil, set in a world where cardinals walk around half-naked and engage in orgies, and where the pope is marked as a legitimate target for assassination?by the player.

?Revelations,? however, is much less of an attack on religion than its elder brother, perhaps because the main setting is the Islam-dominated Constantinople of 1511. The developers would not be the first media group to enjoy bashing Catholicism, but then wax respectful?or, perhaps, timid?when Muslims step up for their turn.

As played for review on the Xbox 360, this latest installment continues to focus on the adventures of modern-day Desmond Miles, who, using a machine called the ?Animus,? can access memories of his freedom-fighting ancestors: Altair ibn-La?Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze. By doing this, he hopes to defeat the modern successors of the ancient Knights Templar (how very Dan Brown!) who, it seems, are chasing him.

Although parts of the game takes place in Desmond?s modern-day world, or in Altair?s 12th- and 13th-century Holy Land, the majority takes place in Ezio?s Renaissance-era Constantinople, having moved forward?in more respects than one ?from the medieval Italy of the previous title.

With a lessened anti-religious sentiment, tighter (if unoriginal) gameplay, and crisp new environments for the gamer to explore, it might seem that the latest entry would be a ?Creed? Catholics could potentially support. Unfortunately, however, this iteration ruins itself by advancing and supporting some of the most hypocritical characters to ever (dis-)grace a video game.

Characters ramble inanely, and in haughty tones, about fighting for ?freedom? and on behalf of ?the people.? Yet one of the first missions involves the player using Ezio?s persona to pickpocket passersby. And humble soldiers?drawn, presumably, from the ranks of the unfortunate and the oppressed?have their throats ripped out by trained killers on a regular basis.

Although dispatching opposition forces is an all-too-common element of gaming, it is (thankfully) rare to find the player being encouraged to slay his or her adversaries in such an unprovoked, indiscriminate and bloodthirsty way, and to have death portrayed with such obvious relish.

That this sequential slaughter should be tricked out as a sort of ethical quest, complete with the hit men offering forms of absolution to their victims as the latter expire, will only make it more repugnant to gamers of faith.

Although it?s by no means as blasphemous as its predecessor, the heedless approval of butchery that underlies ?Revelations,? and the slow-motion death sequences by which such mayhem is accompanied, make this one statement of faith to which no believer will want to subscribe.

Also available on Playstation 3 and Microsoft Windows.

The game contains sacrilegious incidents, frequent, excessively gory violence, some mild sexuality, a few uses of profanity, and occasional crude and crass language. The CNS classification is O?morally offensive. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board rating is M?Mature.

Shaw reviews video games for Catholic News Service.

Copyright ? Catholic News Service

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