Canada's The Globe and Mail newspaper last week launched an editorial attack on Assassin's Creed 3, which we happened to enjoy very much, seemingly based on the rather (in our opinion) incorrect assumption that the game presents a one-sided, Amerocentric view of the Revolutionary War.
Anyone who's played the game—and seen what its fictional version of George Washington was capable of—is aware that that isn't the case. But the writer of this editorial appears to have gleaned all he or she knows about the game from its promotional materials.
"Whose side is Ubisoft Montreal on, anyway?" the piece asks, as if this is a war that's still raging. The whole thing reeks of manufactured outrage; take this passage:
Even assuming someone at Ubisoft has an awareness of Canadian history – and that requires a leap of faith – it’s unlikely they would have done anything differently. The size of the U.S. video-gaming market pretty much dictates who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
As fans know, the "bad guys" in Assassin's Creed 3 aren't the British, as the author seems to believe; they're the Templars, with members on both the loyalist and separatist sides of the conflict. But you'd have to have played the game to know that, wouldn't you? Here's another excerpt:
Assassin’s Creed III is just a video game. But given the dearth of history instruction in our schools, it might be the only place that Canadian young people are learning about the Revolutionary War. At very least, they need to be equipped to separate the Ameriphilia from the facts.
Ameriphilia? What a shame that those criticizing games can't be bothered to find out more about them. Do you think the Globe and Mail's complaints with Assassin's Creed 3 are valid, or are they nothing more than hot air born of ignorance?
[via Giant Bomb]
