Love+Love=Ermahgerd

Question- when was the last time your mind was blown?  If you didn't answer 'right this second', then you're wrong.  Because it's about to be.  Check this action out.

You're welcome.

Yes friends- it's Assassin's Creed and Heroclix, brought together, like a chocolate/peanut butter combo delivered direct to the fringes of society.  I'm in, like, nerd heaven.  I love Assassin's Creed.  I love Heroclix.  To have them both together at the same time...well, it's as if you like a girl, and you also like her sister, but you can't decide...so you just decide to start dating their mom.  That's what it's like for me.  That's what I'm feeling right now. 

That said, I don't believe that I'll see the perfect iteration of Ezio in Clix form until I get to heaven.  So I do have some nits to pick.  Overall I'm pretty stoked though.  So stoked that I decided to bring you my thoughts, in blog form.  Which I'm guessing you probably already figured out.

Warning- I'll probably reduce myself to quite a bit of Heroclixese here with a little Assassinish mixed in with zero form of  translation.  I'm a terrible ambassador of my passions.  Sue me.

(Wait, wait, don't sue me- because the only items I have of value are my clix and my Assassin's Creed PS3 collection!!!!!)

What I like:

1) The pose.  I'm not too crazy about the picture of the sculpt- there's just so much detail and color in the Ezio costume and this picture makes it look like they captured exactly none of that.  Nonetheless, it's a classic Ezio pose, and very reminiscent of a Renaissance-era crotch chop.

2) The Team Ability- I'm guessing you probably don't know much about Heroclix.  Let me just tell you that stealth is pretty spectacular.  In a game where range rules, the man who can't be seen is king.  True, there are ways to circumvent stealth, but by and large, stealth affords our friend Mr. Auditore here a very effective layer of protection.  The average figure is gonna have to mosey on over to our friend here and hope that they doesn't roll doubles 1s, 2s, or 3s (or 4s if they have a sucky attack value).  Because if they do, they're gonna get a hidden blade right to the face (or something...more on that in a minute).

For the most part, the team ability really a pretty cool representation of the combat system.  They attack, they miss, you attack, you hit (and usually kill, but that wouldn't make a very fun Clix ability).  Apparently most of the local militia (also known as 'guards') were pretty much terrible combatants, dressing up in their expensive armor every morning and waiting for some ridiculously skilled assassin to engage them in a duel and then kill them.  Gloriously. 

3) Most of the powers are pretty accurate and feel authentic to the experience of Ezio.  

Name of power (actual Heroclix power).  You with me?

• Roof running (Leap/climb)- Let me just tell you that I've played four Assassins Creed games and the joy and thrill of the Leap of Faith never gets old.  NEVER.  The idea of jumping off of stories high buildings- backwards, mind you- into shallow bales of hay and/or bushes of flowers goes so far over the line of Ridiculosity that after a couple dozen of these jumps, you start to rationalize how you're able to jump right out of the hay bale and continue running through the streets.  After a hundred or so, you start to believe that not only is this feat humanly possibly, but that you yourself could do it too.  After that, your wife ties you up and throws you in the trunk every time your family stops at a building taller than ten feet.  You bet your sweet bippy that every single time I move Ezio off of some elevated terrain, I'm going to be making the eagle screech while I pick my figure up off the table and drop him onto his back in the next square. 
• Altaïr's Armor (Invulnerability)- This is such a clever nod to the game play, it's not even funny.  In the game, Altaïr uses a mystical relic, the Apple of Eden, to create the perfect armor, made out of some new mystery metal (probably unobtanium) that is extremely strong (maximum health), unbreakable- and light enough to allow "complete freedom".  Ezio usually obtains this towards the end of game play, after collecting the six seals to unlock the tomb (or something).  Assuming that most characters in the Clix-creed system have damage values of 1-2 (again...more on that in a minute), his armor will be de facto impenetrable.  Well played, WizKids...well played.
• Poison Blade (Poison)- One of the most discreet ways to kill foes is by jabbing them with the hollow blade filled with poison.  It's super effective because it's not a flashy kill- you just sort of step up to them and stick them quickly with the blade, and then the punctured person starts to flail around like a zombie doing the Monster Mash, and everybody just sort of stands back and watches (or gets nailed by a wayward zombie arm) until the deceased falls to the ground and you can totally loot them of all their stuff (if you can tolerate people talking about your blasphemy).  My two favorite things to do with poison are: 
• Go up behind a group of guards and stab one of the ones in the rear (note: I'm stabbing a guard in the rear of the group, not stabbing a guard in his personal rear), and then just watch as the rest of the guards continue on their rounds.  Either that or I get bored and just go kill the rest of the guards.  
• Bribe a herald (which cost 500 florins), stick him, and then wait until he stopped spazzing and get my money back.  I know he's just doing his job, telling all the people about the dangerous assassin, but come on, man- 500 bones?  That's a lot of dough, and I'm not made of money.  Not until late in the game, anyways.

 4) I'm 33 years old.  I've been married for seven years.  I have two children.   I graduated from college.  And I guffawed out loud when I looked up at my open Ezio-clix tab and saw that it said "Ass-creed".  Hehe.  Hehe.  Hehe.  "Ass-creed".

Of course, the grass is always Tuscan Ember-er on the other side, and signore Ezio is no exception.  Here's what I don't like:

1) If any Heroclix figure EVER deserved a special power granting combat reflexes and super senses, it's Ezio.  I mean, that's sort of the whole 'parry/dodge' combat system.  You basically just hold down that L1 button when you're being attacked, time the counter just right, and go into berserk mode with the chain kills.  I would have rather seen Ezio's defense peak at a natural 17 and have a special power granting him those two defensive powers (CR/SS) than the natural 18 with mastermind- that's how Ezio fights. 

Speaking of Mastermind....

2)  The presence of Mastermind, period.  I don't like it.  On the HCRealms discussion board, one dude eloquently described the Mastermind-special power as representing the Assassin's guild (which at this point Ezio was pretty much in charge of) and how they'd lay their lives down for the cause.  I'm actually fine with that, for the most part.  I just think that in the Clix combat system, his abilities would be better represented by the CR/SS combo.

Especially since they named the power 'Blend'.  'Blend' is obviously not sloughing off damage to some simpleton who is too inspired to know any better.  'Blend' is when Ezio is chilling with a compact group of civilians and your screen flashes wavy green and all of a sudden the guards can't see you.  In a perfect world, I would have combined 'Blend' with the team ability and made it so that Ezio could use stealth if he was adjacent to one or more friendly characters.  

3) If you've played the Assassin's Creed games, you know that Ezio is basically Batman in the 1400s.  Armed to the teeth, he has probably a couple dozen weapons to choose from and even though he doesn't have them all at once (his clothes are pretty much a bat belt though), at any given time he can kill a guard by:

• Hidden blade
• Poison blade
• Shooting a poison dart
• Throwing knives
• Dagger
• Sword
• Pistol (built into his gauntlet)
• Crossbow
• Bomb

And they represent this by a 4 range and 1 target????  I think his ranged capabilities would have been better represented by a special power giving him a choice of either 4 range with 3 targets (the throwing knives) or 8 range with 1 target (crossbow).   To me, that would have pretty much made any other shortcoming inconsequential- the fact that they missed the opportunity amplifies them instead.

Additionally, the number of 1s and 2s on the damage slot is a little disconcerting.  Would a couple of 3s killed anyone?  I mean...you know what I mean!  Sure, he's a mere man- I don't expect any Hulk-level shenanigans here.  But if Ezio comes across any sort of damage reduction at all (which, in a set bound to be populated with suits of armor, is not out of the realm of possibility), he's basically going to end up dealing out more paper cuts and scrapes than he is awesome death blows.

Pictured- Ezio dealing out awesome death blows

4)  A couple of other powers were missed, pretty egregiously I might add.  First off, his hidden blade.  I know, I know- the card says Hidden Blade (Close Combat Expert).   But when I'm ramming my hidden blade into that guards skull, it doesn't feel like I'm having my damage increased by 2- it feels like I'm dealing penetrating damage (to his brain.  And now he's dead.  BOOM).  That screams 'Exploit Weakness' to me.  Especially if they lined it up with his blades/claws/fangs, giving him the potential to deal 6 penetrating damage.  Powerful?  Sure.  But this is Ezio freaking Auditore.  This guy should be able to one-hit KO street level characters and strike fear into the hearts of more powerful foes.  Not that he doesn't do that to a degree....just not to the degree that he could/should be.

The other power blatantly missing is some form of willpower.  Pretty much any character can have an argument made for them to have willpower- but it's one of Ezio's defining characteristics.  More than the unrivaled badassness and weapons proficiency, Ezio is such a compelling character because of his drive and determination to lead humanity to the truth- even in face of sickeningly overwhelming odds, delicious conspiracies, and the death of pretty much everyone that is close to him.  He keeps plugging along through thirty-plus years and three video games.  And in the end, he's able to walk away from it all because of the love of a beautiful woman.  Which doesn't really tie into willpower at all, but seriously- Sofia is a foxy lady.

As long as you don't look at her face.  (Sorry ladies)

Overall- I do like the dial.  I'm a little discouraged by some of the shortcomings, especially since I can't see another Ezio figure coming out from this time period (there will be an Ezio from Revelations though, which gives me hope), but overall it does feel like it could be Ezio, and with the proper support (AKA, his fellow Assassins), Ezio could very well prove to be the stone-cold killer that is near and dear to my heart.

PIC- Ezio- http://heroclix.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ass-creed-preview.jpg
Suddenly clear Clarence- http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/296645-sudden-clarity-clarence
Ezio killing- http://www.gameseyeview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Assassins-Creed-Brotherhood-Photos3.jpg
Sofia- http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110922214556/assassinscreed/images/6/68/Sofia-.png

The science of selling out

One of my friends recently turned me on to Redlettermedia.  How's that for an opening paragraph?

Before speaking so glowingly about this site that you blindly go to it and then proceed to form the grudge against me because you feel that I misrepresented it, I will say this- it is definitely for grown-ups.  There is dark humor.  It is a little macabre at times.  The narrator swears.  Basically if you didn't like any part of the show Dexter, you probably won't like this site.

I love it though.  If I had to summarize it in one word, I'd choose 'brilliant'.  If I got a bonus word, I'd say 'really brilliant'.  If I somehow got an additional word that could utilize the apostrophe, I would immediately say 'It's really brilliant'.  Yeah.  It's that good.

Redlettermedia has some original movies and short cartoons that I haven't checked out (and probably won't)- what I have been soaking up are his video movie reviews.  Using a crazy, sarcastic, and creepy alternate persona, he goes through various movies and critiques them on a technical level.  Despite his bizarre tendencies, I have found these reviews to be well thought out, insightful, and hilarious.

But that's not really what I want to talk about.  Although, what I want to talk did involve the website, so I at least had to plug for it, so you would have some idea of what I'm talking about.  Of course, that's assuming that I know what I'm talking about, which is not an assumption we enter into lightly.

So I watched his review of Avatar this morning, and it was everything I had hoped it would be.  Not only did it make me laugh- but it made me think.  Lots of things can make people laugh.  Farting makes people laugh.  Faceplanting makes people laugh.  In the right context, getting hit by a car can make people laugh.  But people that can make you laugh and make you think- they are the geniuses.  And the ability to both laugh and think is what separates us from the Rednecks.

What really caught my attention was his breakdown of the process of  digitally creating the Na'vi.  The Na'vi did not just evolve from binary code- they were purposefully rendered to elicit maximum sympathy.  James Cameron gave them "Disney Eyes" (you know what I'm talking about, those big puppy dog eyes that just melt your heart into a little pool of warm fuzzies).  He showed the animal elements in their noses and ears- traits which served to further solidify the innocence of the Na'vi.  Then Cameron made them smoking hot so that we would want to hook up with them but not feel like we were horrible perverts.

I thought about this for awhile afterwards.  I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I like to think of myself as a somewhat free-thinking critical observer guy.  Then I watch stuff like this, and I realize how easily that I can be manipulated.  And I was sad.

After hours of internal anguish and tearing down all my Justin Beiber posters, I still needed some help feeling better.  So I curled up on the couch with some Ben and Jerry's and watched Twilight.  Okay.  Life is better.

Before I begin, a couple caveats:

1. I am not suggesting that all the conspiracy theorists are right.
2. I do not believe that video games will cause kids to murder their parents, or that there are secretly encrypted messages that can be revealed when you play an audio cassette backwards.  And for my younger readers, I'll hold on while you go and Google 'audio cassette'.

What I'm talking about is how our brain processes stimuli, and how things that are barely noticeable serve to influence our conscious decision making subconsciously.  Dig?

See, it's not always the brazen, bold, out-there-in-your-face things that cause us to take certain actions- sometimes (or even most of the time) we are convinced by subtleties.  Because our super-duper computer minds are constantly working (even when we are on sleep or hibernate mode), we daily process I-Don't-Want-To-Know-How-Many gigaterrabytes of data.  Obviously we can't constantly act on every single sensation at every single moment- our brains would power down the minute we woke up.  Hopefully that scenario doesn't sound familiar to you.  So we have to be able to sort out what's important and what's not important.

Some of this sifting we do consciously- we decide what show we want to watch, what we want to read, what type of food we eat, etc.  By doing this, we are obviously playing an active role in what sort of information our brains take in.  But a lot of the sorting happens in our subconscious.  Take a morning commute to work.  There is no way your brain could possibly process all of the incoming stimuli in a manner that treats each one equally- not with the constantly changing topography, traffic signs, the drone of your car and passing cars, music (should you so choose), the smell of your air freshener, your clothing pressed against your skin, the taste of your delicious Egg McMuffin- your brain would probably explode.  And you would get a no call/no show.

Over time, our brains learn very quickly what needs to be focused on- and what can just be shoved off to the side.  The repetition of the stimulation helps our brain to become even more efficient.  Eventually, you stop noticing  the trees and buildings and such- because you've seen them so many times, that your brain has learned that it doesn't really need to process that information.  Because you don't need to really always know what your clothing feels like against your skin, your brain puts that info on cruise control (although I'm willing to bet after reading about clothing on skin, you start to become at least a little aware of it- gotta love the brain!).

So how do we get to auto-pilot?

It's by our conscious and subconscious working together.  Our subconscious mind picks up bits and pieces that are attached to the things our conscious mind is focusing on, and flags those things as objects of interest.  Take Disney Eyes, for example.  From years of watching Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, I not only learned that Disney has no idea how a real monarchy functions, but I also inadvertently taught my brain that big eyes are cute, innocent, and vulnerable.  My conscious brain was being fed things like plot, line delivery, movement, and music. 

Music is the truck that drives the plot...straight off a cliff

While my subconscious mind was associating 'big eyes' with 'vulnerability' and picking up things like this: 

Little Mermaid 2: Unleash the Sea Men!

Let me give you another example.  Most of my childhood memories of my dad revolve around his beard and musical escapades- either him practicing with the band, or going to see him play at different functions.  So through the process of frequently seeing my dad with a beard and playing music (which became linked with coolness due to conscious and subconscious associations), I came to believe that guys with full beards were cool.  It sounds weird, but I always perceived people with beards (no matter how creepy or freaky they might otherwise be) as cooler than they would be without beards.  

The interesting/scary part is that most of the time, we really don't think about the way we process things.  We just sort of go with the flow.  By and large, this works out okay.  We don't necessarily need to know how our brain works- just that it does.  But there are people that do think about this sort of thing, and make good money because of it.  They work in a little field you may have heard of, called Marketing.

Sara and I have started watching a show called Mad Men.  Actually, scratch that- Sara watches it, sometimes I'll watch it with her.  It's a show set in 1960s New York, and revolves around the lives of Sterling-Cooper ad agency employees.  It's a mini-dynasty at the Emmy Awards.  All the important people watch it...or at least they do sometimes, with their wives.  Anyways.  Aside from having a protagonist that is a selfish, low-life jerk face, the show is intriguing to me because of the whole concept of marketing and advertising.  I find it fascinating that there is an entire sector of our economy devoted to people sitting in rooms and coming up with ways to trick people on a daily basis.
 
I reckon most of us like to think that we're these forward-thinking intellectual savants that are far too powerful in the mind to be tricked by the kinds of marketing ploys that we are constantly bombarded with.  We scoff at the notion that someone else can influence our decisions just because of some crummy commercials.  We tell ourselves that we are our own people.  We decide what to buy.  We decide which soda to drink.  We our captains of our own cell-phone plan.  Right?  RIGHT???

The thing is, commercials aren't selling products- they're selling ideas.  And they aren't fishing for you- they're just throwing a net out there.  They are bound to catch a few.  They don't need a commercial to be successful for everyone. They just need to convince someone, somewhere to associate their product with the idea that they are pitching.  Then those people become salesmen.  I didn't buy a smart phone because Verizon made some awesome looking robot commercial- I bought one because:

• My wife let me (Merry Christmas, baby!)
• My friends had them, so not only did I get to see them in action, but I got to see my friends responses to them in action. 
• I had become dissatisfied with my old phone.

But why was I dissatisfied with my old phone?  Did it stop working?  Had some of the buttons fallen off?  Were calls being dropped?  Well...no.  My phone worked fine.  As a phone, it did what I needed it to do.  But the idea that a phone could do more...well, heck, I gotta get me one of those!  I have to find out for "myself" what this is all about.  And thus I was pulled in.

So how much of what we think is our own?
 
Our thoughts and feelings are heavily influenced by a number of outside sources- not just commercials and movies.  Even from the beginning, our basic template of who we are comes primarily from our parents.  Our initial belief systems come to us from our parents.  As we grow up, they largely guide us in (or out of) our passions.  At the very least, they control the flow of information. 

Over the years, parents become teachers, teachers become friends, and friends become something else- but no human being lives in a vacuum.  We are always surrounded by other people.  So we're always coming in contact with a host of different ideas, beliefs, values, and information.  Because of this, we are constantly evolving socially.  Sure, we have some deep held beliefs that are often extremely difficult to change- but many more that are ripe for the taking.

This is where knowing how to shape information comes into play.  When you look at the big picture and see that humanity consists of nothing but empty information vessels that constantly imprint on each other, it's not hard to see that there is a degree of power there.  If you know how to manipulate information subtly in order to create the impression of an original thought or idea...then you have taken control of that power.  This is how James Cameron was able to take an unoriginal story with some dazzling special effects and carefully crafted charicatures and create a product that grossed over $2 billion.

(Shudders)

What is the point of all this?  To make you all read my blog more (Yes)?  Well, If I would have been smart enough, I would have gone through and made this post a (read my blog more) subliminal message minefield.  But I wasn't (tell your friends about my blog).  I just wanted to get (post links to my blog on your Facebook wall) some thoughts rolling about why we think the things we think, why we like the things we like, and why we believe the things we do.  I hope to spark some critical thinking- self presently included.  Lastly, I wanted to give you a heads up that next time you feel like dating a 12-foot tall blue alien....well, it's probably not because you actually want to date a 12-foot tall blue alien.  It's because James Cameron told you that you did.      

PICS- http://edge.ebaumsworld.com/picture/Spetsnaz420/redneck.png
http://thumbs.mywallpapers.org/files/wallpapers/10/1048/The-Little-Mermaid-002.jpg
http://www.animatedbuzz.com/WB/images/coverart01.jpg