I have a feeling this is turning into a thing. Having finally completed Assassin’s Creed, I moved on to the universally popular sequel, Assassin’s Creed II. I can happily say that I’m enjoying it significantly more than I did the first one. I did have to laugh (by laugh, I mean groan) when I learned that the developers traded out annoying beggar women with annoying minstrels.
I’ve been happily punching them (though pickpocketing has proven more lucrative and useful) whenever they come prancing and strumming up to me, but these two unlucky fellows caught me in a particularly irritable mood.
I had just failed an assassination attempt in probably the most aggravating way possible. I was tasked with off’ing a conspirator (I can’t remember his name) who instead of walling himself up in a small fortress, had planted himself at the top of the tallest tower in Tuscany. Getting to the top required scaling several other towers and traveling between them using tightropes that stretched from one to the other. Climbing in general is still a pain in the ass in these games, so you can already imagine what a crapshoot that was. On top of that, there were archers planted on the towers themselves, so getting rid of them as I made my way around would allow me to scale the tallest tower without having arrows zipping toward me. Fair enough.
I took my time, carefully eliminating guard after guard, until it was time to make the climb to the mark. I climbed my way to the top of the tallest tower, right below the man I needed to assassinate. There were two final guards here, who honestly were inconsequential; I could’ve just hopped up the final ledge and stabbed my target and been done with it. But no, I had to get cocky. I had to kill everyone and leave no witnesses.
But Assassin’s Creed is a fickle bitch. As I ran toward the final guard, crazily tapping the X button to launch Ezio into the air in assassinate-mode, I moved the thumbstick a fraction of a millimeter to the right and Ezio proceeded to swan dive off the ledge, plummeting to his grizzly death on the cobblestone hundreds of feet below.
Activate rage.
Having just realized that my overly zealous bloodthirst just wasted about 15 minutes of my life, it was all I could do to keep from throwing my controller. As the load screen ended and I realized I had to begin that entire ascent all over again, my white-knuckled grip on my controller trembled. I needed to vent.
Enter the prancing, strumming minstrels. Three of them, to be exact. As I jogged toward the nearest rooftop, here they came, ready to swarm me and impede my progress as minstrels are wont to do. And I was not in the fucking mood.
So now I have a screenshot of Ezio breaking character and shanking two street performers in the face. Not my proudest moment, I’ll admit, but a moment nonetheless.
