Okay, it’s not Fiction Friday anymore, so you know I’m serious. I only wish I was making this s*** up. Who am I referring to? Patrice Desilets is the French Canadian Lead Doucheveloper in charge of Assassin’s Creed 2. In two recent articles based on an interview at PAX, Kotaku writer Stephen Totilo tries to play Desilets’ comments off as diplomatically as possible, but the “big D” is the only word I can use after reading the articles (links at the bottom if you don’t believe me, and you may not).
Patrice Desilets thinks gamers are stupid. Not in such simple terms, but apparently Assassins Creed was a work of art that was too far advanced for our feeble minds. He claims it wasn’t supposed to be a “video game,” it was “an experience,” but he won’t make that mistake again. Rest assured, he’s dumbing AC 2 down. Thanks Patrice! Douche. “Flower” for PS3 was an artistic experience. “Braid” was borderline. AC 1 had a captivating storyline, but was still just a video game. It wasn’t compelling enough to make up for the game’s biggest fault, which leads me to my next rant.
Patrice admits that his team didn’t really play AC 1 all the way through. Huh? “We never played with the game structure. At the beginning of the game, we said to the players there’s nine guys to kill. You’ll do your investigations first. You’ll assassinate. You beat it. At the seventh one it’s still the same, and never did we play with that.” How do you perform QA testing on a game without playing through the whole thing, and realizing along the way that what was a great concept with very nice graphics got boring after an hour or two? I guess there’s just not time when you’re too busy popping your collar and growing a scraggly-ass “artsy” beard.
“Douchelets” also admits openly that collecting flags in AC 1 does nothing. No trophies, no achievements, just a big “you just wasted hours of your life looking for all of these, now go screw yourself and get a life” (my paraphrasing). His actual quote:
“I’m not a collector person. I don’t collect a lot of stuff, so I don’t get it. I don’t understand…It’s not the middle finger, that’s too [strong], but yes, I’m playing [with gamers' heads].” Oh, well, when you put it that way…douche…
WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY HIS GAMES? Could you be any more arrogant than to admit that you sadistically added in tons of collectibles to a game with no reward, based on the fact that it’s not something you personally enjoy? On the plus side, AC 2 will have rewards for some of its collectibles. Do I even care anymore to find out which ones do? Rhetorical question: I really don’t.
Patrice also admits that the camera system used in both games was named after himself. He wants people to recognize how great “Patrice Mode” is. Self-centered much? In the article, Totilo tells of firing up AC 1 post-interview and tried out the developer’s instructions on how to use the camera properly. Here’s a shocker: it didn’t work. I now dub it “Douche Mode” camera. How’s that for an industry term?
The topper was when Patrice claimed that due to improvements over AC 1, the new AC 2 will be better than Batman: Arkham Asylum. He’ll let them finish, but he’s just gonna say… Sound familiar?
I could go on for pages about what a huge tool this guy is, and why I probably won’t be bothering to play AC 2, but there are actual fun games waiting for me to play created by developers who actually care that their games are enjoyable.
Sarcastic Gamer isn’t a breaking news site, but one of the things we pride ourselves on is calling the bulls*** when we see it. These articles were written well, but I don’t know how Totilo restrained himself. People give Molyneux crap for promising a lot of features with his games that don’t always measure up, but I don’t remember a time when he claimed his critics just didn’t understand his brilliant artistry, had to apologize for not actually playing his own game, or made fantastic promises that his next game would be better than whatever the current praiseworthy title is.
Douche.
Links:
The Lessons Learned — Or Resisted — While Making Assassin’s Creed II
Can ‘Patrice Mode’ Solve Gaming’s Back Problem?
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Well i thought Assassins Creed was amazing, an i thought people who hated it were stupid too, so I’m on his side
I agree with all you say about his douchiness, but I think you misunderstood when you say he didn’t play the game all the way through. He said they didn’t “play around” with the structure at later points of the game, as in change it up, not literally not PLAY the game.
French Canadian = Douche. The article is redundant.
I was stoked for AC1 for at least a year only to be met with a piece of garbage. I’m not even renting AC2. Douchelets can suck my nuts.
@PopTrogdor: Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I own the game and I still haven’t beaten it because I only play it for a few hours every other month. Just long enough to remember the controls, remember why I liked the game in the first place, and then remember why I got bored with it again. Work of art? It *looked* nice. Experience? No.
@Stu: How do you not realize, though, that your game is getting incredibly repetitive if you’ve played through the whole thing? You don’t. So granted, he may not have said “we didn’t play it at all,” but I personally believe that’s what he’s implying.
I agree that the guy is kind of a douche, but as a point of clarification the “Patrice camera” is something they set up for him to use while he’s playing the game and working on it. It won’t necessarily even make it into the game.
@TheBrain76 – read the last two paragraphs of that “Patrice-mode” camera article again. Even Stephen Totilo had been led to believe it was in AC 1.
I think I’ll take the money I was going to spend on AC2 and buy Borderlands instead. Oh, wait. I was going to do that anyway.
Dude, Assassins Creed was an awesome game if you just sat back, listened to a podcast or something and just soaked in the awesome 13th century cities that they created.
It sounds like you had your nose up to the TV, shouting “GO FASTER!!!1!” and was angry when the flags didn’t get you anything.
@Ollycity – Nope, try more like “Wow, this game is really cool…oh, awesome! Wow that was sweet!” for the first two hours, then, “Wow, I can’t wait to see something new” for the next two hours. By the time I got to the second trip through the second or third city, it was, “Huh. Another pickpocket. Oh look, I get to go eavesdrop again. Hmmm, I wonder if I’ll have a chance to go assassinate a bunch of guys in under three minutes – why yes, it looks like I get to do it twice for this mission.” I did enjoy the game to begin with, but it got old fast. I understand the anfay boys have a hard time with that concept, but while it was a great idea, the execution grew stale for most gamers. I’m not the only one who felt that way, and it was the first thing brought up by Totilo in the first article. I haven’t even beaten the game, let alone collected all the flags, because I have too many fun games I’d rather replay than force myself to try and beat AC 1.