Assassin's Creed

History and videogames have been intertwined since at least the early ‘80s, but at best it’s been a shaky relationship. Until fairly recently, concepts like “realism” and “accuracy” weren’t often a consideration, and they tended to be thrown out the window if a cool explosion or giant monster was judged more beneficial to gameplay. As technology has progressed, however, more of these games have been trying hard to be true to their historical roots – and, predictably, a lot of them don’t do so well...

A conveniently skewed view of history. Corrupt religious leaders. Serious men in silly white dresses who leap flamboyantly about with knives strapped to their wrists.  Jade Raymond. What do these things have in common? They're hallmarks of Assassin's Creed, which has quickly grown from a single, divisive game to one of the most popular franchises of the current console generation. And if you've been paying attention, you know that makes it a perfect target for our continuing Week of Hate coverage. Specifically the part of that coverage in which we take a moment each day to nitpick a beloved series to death...

While playing a bit of Spirit Tracks I bumped into a tiny old man named Niko, who’s apparently been a part of Link and Zelda’s watery quests since the Wind Waker days. After that revelation shook its way through my bones, I realized, oh hey, his name’s Niko… as in Niko Bellic!

26 more cases of "Oh, that's interesting" inside!

We've all seen dozens of lists over the years that recount all the things old-school game designers loved to include in their games for bizarre and unknown reasons, like exploding barrels and wolves that carry gold and chainmail for you to loot upon their death. Yes, these things were weird, and yes, they were ubiquitous in 8-,16-, and even 32-bit games.

Sometimes, games are so good we say they're 'good enough to eat'. That's usually not strictly true, of course - DVDs, Blu-Ray discs and the human mouth do not mix. But what if games were turned into candy bars? Now there's an idea.

If our Photoshop attempts are anything to go by, there's a huge market of untapped potential just waiting for some entrepreneur to take a lucrative bite. Just try not to dribble on the keyboard,

It’s not easy being a horse, especially a diabetic horse who loves sugar cubes and games. As a proud member of the Equidae family, I don’t give a damn about the new protagonist in Assassin’s Creed II or the stupid non-animal flying device he’ll pilot. I just want to know if Ezio will be riding a freaking horse through the Tuscan countryside. Will he get to mount a Salerno, or perhaps a San Fratello?

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The Top 7… games you either love or hate If you’re in the middle, you’re in the crossfire.

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On some level, roughly 95 percent of games have always been about assassination: go to point A and kill prominent entity B, fighting your way through goons C through Z to get there. Most games tend to come up with a morally justifiable pretext for all the violence, but more and more, we're seeing games that drop the act and let you be what you've secretly known yourself to be all along: a remorseless killing machine bent on destroying your targets.