Was Assassin's Creed worth a movie adaptation?

It took me more than a week to wrap my head around this movie. People have been saying since the Mario Bros movie flopped terribly that there can't be any great video game to movie adaptation. They kinda said the same thing about comic book movies. This is not Ubisoft's first endeavor into the movie making business, mostly making short features that tied in with some of their games. And they did have a love for Assassin's Creed before, with Assassin's Creed Lineage telling the story of Ezio's father, and a short animated story about an old Ezio trying to leave his past behind. This time, Ubisoft is making a big budget flick with big name actors and a big production company like New Regency in an attempt to reconstruct a beautiful setting filled with historical events. Except you don't get to roam and discover it on your own nor do you get to choose how the protagonist tackles the mission. Like any other video game movie, we need to accept that our only input is to sit down and watch the 2 hour long cutscene. Before I answer the question in the title, let's weigh the good and the bad first and see if Assassin's Creed is among the good video game movies or the sucky ones.

The curse of video game movies

Back in 1976, writer and director Steven Lisberger was fascinated about a game called Pong, one of the first, if not the first arcade and home release games to ever hit the market. He then made Tron, making it the first video game inspired movie, technically. Tron was and still is a good movie, even by today's standards, even if the special effect aged dramatically. But when it came out in 1982, people were impressed by the visual artistry, the groundbreaking special effects, although the story left many bewildered. Over time, it became a classic. But why do people think there's a curse surrounding movie adaptations of video games? Why do we instictively dismiss the notion that a movie based on a video game can be good?

Mobile games that play great with a controller (Part 1)

 

So you've bought a Bluetooth controller for your Android or Apple mobile device and you're probably wondering what you could play on your phone or tablet. Well, I'll give you some titles to get the fun started. I also bought a cheap $12 Mocute-050 controller, which is a very good deal for the price, nice looking, decently sturdy, but it's definitely no MOGA or MAD CATZ C.T.R.L.
Before I get to it, I have to state that the games in this list are games I've tested personally, some might not work similarly for every type of controller, and fun factor is subjective. Also, in no way these are all the games that work with a controller, this is but a small part, and I do intend to continue listing more games you can try out for yourself. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to know your opinions, so please take your time and comment! Let's start...

Video Games Featuring Black Protagonists (Part 1)

Image source: inquisitr

I've decided to make this list because I've recently felt reinvigorated by Lincoln Clay, the protagonist of the very acclaimed Mafia III, a game with a great pacing and tone, featuring a character with a realistic personality I've rarely seen in games. There's no political agenda or motive behind me undertaking this "task", neither do I want to make a point, otherwise I would be able to make a

Before I start listing all the games I can think of (Google cheating only for accurate spelling and fact checking, I promise), I need to set up the rules, and the first rule is...

 - the game must have a full-fledged story. So multiplayer-only games and half-baked stories, like the ones in Evolve or Titanfall, don't count. We need this rule to establish that the character isn't just window-dressing, that they have an importance.

What the 3rd season of Black Mirror is like

 

Black Mirror is a british sci-fi TV series in the form of an anthology of stories, much like in the same style as Twillight Zone and The Scary Door, which I bet is a real show, each episode commenting and satirizing our dependency on technology, entertainment and virtual interaction, concluding on a depressing note, generally. Bare in mind that even when it ends with a closure, it's bound to be questionable or bleak, but that's exactly what makes this show great.

If you're asking yourself, yes, there is an adventure video game called Black Mirror, but it's not related. There's also a 1981 movie with the same name, again not related. The title "Black Mirror" is a metaphor that's supposed to reflect (pun intended) the screen of your TV.