Kevin Wheaton Blog Post

As a Game Design major, it is really important to me to incorporate the history in games and make it as historically accurate as it needs to be.  I feel that Assassins Creed did this very well during the Crusades.  It paints a picture of what life was like during the Crusades in many cities like Jerusalem and Damascus.  They incorporated real historical figures in the game and had them do things that they did in real life.  They included the Knights Templar in the game as the main enemies.  To many people they were enemies and to many they were allies.  Having the main enemy as a historical group that people can recognize is brilliant.  The Templars had many secrets and rituals that made people think that they were secretly a bad group that spit on the cross.  This provided the designers the perfect cover for their alternate reality world.  Though there is a little game fakery like the Apple of Eden and all it has done in the world, but they incorporated that very well.  This connects to our course because it was a window into what the Middle East looked back then.  The media this was shown in was a video game.  I feel this is even better to experience because unlike a film, which shows you what the director wants to show you, the video game allows you to explore and wander in any direction that is reachable to the player.  They can see everything that the designers wanted the player to see.  So in this way it is similar but it is usually more than a film can show.  This game shows a little bit of how the hatred between Christians and Muslims started.  It doesn't do it entirely but it was set in the era of the Crusades so it is also implied.  This hatred has developed more into fear nowadays and was never forgotten.    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mYlPTYkvGw