Quote of the Moment
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. - Oscar WildeStumbled across this awesome piece of artwork on the internet. When I first saw the picture I only noticed the monster beneath the surface of the water. I failed to notice the little girl fishing at all. Perhaps that was the original intention of the artist. Still there is so much depth to the image. I for one love trying to glean all the bits of information from fantastical images like these. Its an image open to different interpretations by different people.
Is the monster a manifestation of evil. Will his next move be to pull the innocent looking girl down below. The presence of a human skeleton at the bottom of the lake still clad in armor might indicate this.
On the other hand is he just a blissfully innocent creature like the girl herself and the bait dangling before him has just piqued his curiosity. His face too doesn’t indicate that he has any hostile intentions. Maybe he pulled down the humans without the notion of doing harm like the way a human child may play with a doll or an action figure.
There are other tiny details in the picture like the eyewear that little girl has donned. They look like a something you usually see in a sci-fi universe set in the future. They are perhaps meant to enhance her vision beyond normal capabilities. Perhaps it is her intention to seek out the monster. Also the body of the monster seems to be a part of the vegetation that is above the surface of the water.
Picture found on www.geektown.co.uk through Stumbleupon
This is just one of the many gems I come across in my daily life. This particular auto workshop is itself in need of some major oiling it appears. Snapped at Koregaon Park, Pune when I used to go for a morning walk there.
Though I personally find the use of excessive flash on web sites gratuitous, for an entertainment product like a movie or a game it usually makes sense. The Diablo 3 site By Blizzard is a truly awesome implementation of flash loveliness. The (not sure what they are exactly) ribbons of light moving ever so subtly in the background along with an incredibly rendered faceless armored guy really manage to lend the main sites page an extraordinary quality. Click the image to go to the game’s site.
The article top 10 videogames that should be made into movies that I had written for gamguru.in made it onto digg. It has been a lotta fun reading people’s comments so far. The article can be viewed here.
http://www.gameguru.in/features/2008/06/10-video-games-that-should-be-made-into-movies/
Ubisoft have just announced a sequel to Beyond Good and Evil. I’m ecstatic. 
. Ubisoft just made made my day, month and year. They also made me feel all giddy. Heck I could cry. I’m probably coming across as a little crazy now. After all its just a game. Ask anyone fan who played the first game. Their reactions would probably be the same
Assassin’s creed that slick piece of gaming goodness we PC gamers had to wait six long months for. On its console release it was a game which had incredibly polarizing reviews some praising its presentation elements while simultaneously criticizing its repetitiveness. I had been following Assassin’s Creed since the first bits of information had begun trickling through to the gaming world : back when it was called Project Assassins. Ubisoft are a company I truly admire right from the days of Rayman 2 (I will review that gem someday) right up to its recent incredible Prince of Persia revivals and the much ignored Beyond Good and Evil. Though I have begun to fear their recent shift towards EAness, what with their yearly iterations of all things Tom Clancy I can still trust Ubisoft to always come up with a cool new character every once in a while. So this was the frame of mind with which I approached Assassin’s Creed. My near reverence for Ubi on the one hand and all those reviews proclaiming Assassin’s Creed as a victim of the hype machine.
Still I made up my mind, cast off all prejudices and dove straight into AC’s enigmatic world of medievalism and modernism. To start you off I loved absolutely every moment of Assassin’s Creed. Fifteen minutes in and I was hooked. The world of Assassin’s Creed is an incredibly rendered medieval world with an omnipresent sheen of sci-fi. The sci-fi twist to it all is revealed within the first five minutes of your game. All I can say though that this in no way a disappointing early revelation but just an essential initiation into its sci-fi world which forms the beginning of what I thought was an incredibly compelling narrative. The bulk of assassin’s creeds game play revolves around investigations, assassinations and the combat. You play an assassin named Altair. All of your nine main missions or assassinations start with the customary investigation missions. You need to solve a few of them before you can unlock your main mission which is the assassination of the target. These investigations include pick pocketing, interrogations, eavesdropping which were standard with the console version in addition to a few PC exclusive missions like rooftop race and merchant stand destructions etc. These are fairly fun diversions which help break up the period between the assassinations and escape sequences and allow you to explore the vast cities at your leisure. The cities are usually bustling with citizens and really help the city feel alive. Once you unlock your assassination mission you are tasked with assassinating your main target. This can either be done stealthily Sam Fisher style except with an incredibly cool hidden wrist blade or you can choose to go swinging your sword about like a medieval Rambo. Going all stealth becomes a little difficult during the later missions. Either way once your target is dead you go into what I would call a blue screen of death (pun intended). You get pulled out of your medieval world and end up having a little heart-to-heart with your freshly assassinated target before he is finally laid to rest. After this is the escape sequence of your mission, what I found to be the most enjoyable part of Assassin’s Creed. You can choose to fight with the guards but you will soon find yourself severely outnumbered. Even if you do fight for a while after a certain point you will have to run away from the guards and manage to keep out of their vision before you can return to the safety of your Assassin’s Bureau in the city. You will find yourself literally flying across the rooftops. There are no frustrating timed button sequences or the like. In what I found to be a pleasant deviation from the standard platforming control norms all you need to do in Assassin’s Creed is hold down a button and just move towards where you want to go. If your character can jump he will jump if he can run up a wall and latch onto a ledge he will do so without any further intervention on your part. All you really need to do is scan your environment and make a decision about where you ultimately wish to go.
The combat in AC is also different. It revolves around the concept of counter kills. Random button mashing will not get you very far. The enemies will also defend themselves. Successfully killing an enemy depends on your ability to counter an attack by the enemy at just the perfect moment upon which you perform one of several cool looking finishing moves on the enemy. The great thing I found about the combat was that once I got the hang of timing the counters I could usually get through most combat situations with a little patience. Some people may not find this challenging enough or might simply hate the system but I was glad they chose this route because as a gamer I have always hated games which cause me to die just because I wasn’t adept at mashing buttons in an endless number of different combinations.
The graphics in Assassin’s Creed are gorgeous. The cities of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem have been modelled with incredible detail. However it’s not just eye candy. Anything thing and everything that the eye can see can be scaled climbed or jumped across. Altair has an incredible repertoire of moves at his disposal. The most impressive part of this is the sheer fluidity and variety of his animations. A recent interview with the developer mentioned that they created almost 1400 different animations for Altair. Also much to my surprise Assassin’s Creed ran flawlessly on my mid – range computer with zero slowdown and no crashes and hitches whatsoever. Thank god some developers still put some effort into PC ports.
The sound in the game is generally good. The music that plays in the background occasionally is also good. It was composed by Jesper Kyd the guy behind the music in the Hitman series. One issue with the sound design is the repetitiveness of the civilian dialogs. It’s one of the things that really managed to taint my experience of an immersive alternate world.
To conclude it all Assassins’ Creed is an incredible thing, an entirely satisfying culmination of 4 years of effort and several million dollars of development by Ubisoft. It’s what next gen truly means to me. I can see where the complaints from some of the critics come. Most talk about the repetitiveness. I personally never got this feeling. My playtime was spread over several days and I always felt fresh going into a new assassination. Also there is the cliff hanger ending. We always knew they had a sequel in mind from the get go. That ending definitely left me salivating for more. The narrative possibilities are limitless. I hope Ubisoft don’t disappoint me. So it may not be perfect but Ubisoft at least built an incredible base for the future. Assassin’s Creed was a beautiful, breathtaking experience that I will treasure for years to come.
RATING : 9/10
Mere moments have passed after I have shut my eyes,
All earthly occurrences stop registering in my mind,
Into a tranquil unknown land I gradually drift away,
An alien land I see, yet an inexplicable thrill seizes me,
Upright I find myself, gazing in wonderment all around,
At the edge of a precipice I stand a gentle breeze blowing past,
Below me another world’s sky seems to float gently,
I step out over the edge yet gravity cannot influence me,
Instead, endlessly I soar through the multitude of clouds,
However search as long as I may, all signs of life elude me,
Faster I begin to fly as wonder turns to despair,
The breeze has stopped and a storm engulfs me,
I’m no longer floating but falling through the blackness,
I scream out in terror, for this journey to end,
I wake up in fear to the golden rays of the sun,
Calmly I wait for, the wonders of earth to besiege me.
There is something so incredible about this picture. It somehow seems to exude peacefullness. Just staring at it for a few seconds makes me forget my hectic world and takes me to a whole other place.
Photo Credit – Maciek Duczynski
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.
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