Assassin’s Creed 1 (henceforth “AC1”) was a game that was worth playing in spite of the game itself. The technology behind AC1 was stunning – the free-running system was liberating and freeing, with a breathless pace that still hasn’t been matched in another game (though the rickety climbing in Uncharted 2 is endearing in its own way). However: the game itself was, objectively speaking, awkward, hollow and manipulative. The combat system, which was based around countering opponents’ blows and did not develop in pace with the game itself (full disclosure: I have not finished AC1, but had reached the point where I was deep into 10-minute battles against 20ish Bad Guys, at which point the game becomes a test of repetitive patience, as I waited patiently for each of the 20 fellows to swing at me so I could counter them). Certain missions were shamefully decontextual in the most “gamey” way – an in-game character in ancient Jerusalem suddenly orders you to GET ALL 100 BANNERS BEFORE THE TIME RUNS OUT GO GO GO! 

Assassin’s Creed 1 was a game. A game with beautiful technical details (great depth-of-field usage, forgot to mention that earlier), incredibly repetitive – I’ll go so far as to say lazy – construction, and weird oversights, some of which still exist in AC2, like shops that are available hours of gameplay before any buying options are unlocked: 

I’m 6 hours (or so) into Assassin’s Creed 2, and it has rectified a remarkable number of these flaws. The missions (and voice samples, but let’s move on) are vastly less repetitive and (so far) justified contextually in a respectable way. The combat system has been given just a little more love, and Ezio (the new protagonist) has just a little more mobility, so fighting doesn’t devolve into a mind-numbing and highly silly wait/counter game. 

Most importantly, Ezio is emotive, well-detailed, and (gasp) given a motive. He isn’t just an assassin – he becomes an assassin. (Origin stories may be overexposed in the world of film right now, but when you’re dealing with a 15-30 hour video game plotline, it is sometimes awfully nice to fit an origin story in there, seeing as you’ll generally be staring at the back of your protagonist’s head for the majority of that time.) Even the silliest things to climb in Assassin’s Creed, like this here ship mast, seem appropriate – I could imagine Ezio climbing up here just to get away for a while. 

There are flaws (I’m sure that if I was Italian, I’d have seven more paragraphs to write regarding the “Italianness” of the acting at this point (do Italians really make the “that’s-a-good pizza-pie” two-fingers-to-the-thumb hand motion every five minutes? I really want to know)) but they’re few and unmemorable, and this post is long enough already (amen). 

The leap in usability, emotion, plot, and dynamism between AC1 and AC2 is remarkably similar to the tremendous improvement from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2. These franchises (which seem to both be converging upon some previously uncharted apex between the “action game” and the “RPG”, by the way – that could be an entire other blog post) are perfect evidence that there is much, much left to discover and improve upon in current-generation games.

That said, it’s time to play more Assassin’s Creed 2. 

The UI book that I was just reading this evening (timely!) explains that an interface is anything that separates the user from the data.

Here’s what that means: UI is the separation. It stands between a user and the information they are trying to access, the communication they are trying to send out, or the activity they are trying to accomplish. 

Traditionally, UI is at its best when you don’t think about it being there. This is called a “clean” or “intuitive” UI by folks who think about such things — but most users call it nothing, because they accomplished what they intended to accomplish when they [started your application][visited your website][played your game] without ever having to stop and think about how they were doing so.  

Heavy Rain is a crime drama. Its environments are highly, highly polished, with rain splashing convincingly off of windshields and characters approaching Final Fantasy Movie levels of photorealism. The story (at least from the hints in the demo) appears to be a potentially serpentine beauty, branching into dozens of different outcomes and possibilities. 

Heavy Rain is also a world full of prompts. Playstation Button Symbols (X, Square, Circle, Triangle) float near character’s hands whenever contextually appropriate actions are possible. 

Get in your car, and see an icon (see above graphic for the essential glossary of what prompt symbols mean) that explains that you must push the right analog stick to the right and a quarter-turn up in order for your character to insert his keys into the ignition and start the car. In another scene, push the right analog stick right and a quarter-turn up to put on your character’s sunglasses, right and a quarter-turn down to remove them. Hold buttons in the correct order to climb a muddy slope — miss one, and be rewarded with an animation of your character sliding roughly to the bottom of the slope. Miss again, and see the same animation. 

In fight scenes, the prompts become timing-based — miss a prompt and your character fails to dodge a punch, or gets thrown through a window. It’s in these timing-based moments that the Heavy Rain control system shines. You’re watching a cinematic fight scene, yet influencing it! 

However, the prompts themselves throw the disconnect between what you are doing and what you are seeing into stark relief. Pressing “B” in Mass Effect 2 on the XBox 360 causes your character to punch someone, but that interaction is only visualized on-screen by your character delivering said punch. Your mind is not thinking “B”, your mind is thinking “punch that guy”. UI is at its best when you don’t think about it being there.  

In Heavy Rain, the button symbol floats on-screen with the character. Every scene is imprinted — some might say sullied — with button or action symbols. In almost all games, the UI facilitates the game, but in Heavy Rain, the UI becomes the game. Heavy Rain is a game where you play the user interface. 

Regardless of my initial impressions, Heavy Rain is also a fantastic example of how fascinating this period in Video Games’ history continues to be. Like the early decades of film, which ranged from bizarre experiments to simple 3-wall-room plays filmed by a fixed camera, video games continue to reach out in various directions, struggling to define their native language in terms of visuals, storytelling, and interfaces. I respect Heavy Rain for reaching out in a new direction, but I’m afraid that direction may be disappointingly counterproductive.