The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

August marks the second anniversary of our Featured Member column so we're doing something a little different this month. The original purpose of the series (first suggested by Fly Like An Eagle) was to get to know members who are not on the About page. Site editor and co-founder IanXO4 certainly is on the About page but someone nominated him for Featured Member after pointing out that we still don't know much about him. Here's my interview with Ian:

Let's get right to it. The question on everybody's mind is will you be back on The Hidden Blade making gameplay videos when Assassin's Creed 3 comes out?

I think so, but we'll have to wait to be sure. I have very limited amount of free time in a day, so I need to really enjoy something in order to commit time to it. It's a simple matter of cost vs benefit (i.e. time vs enjoyment). AC3 needs to be sufficiently enjoyable in order for me to play it repeatedly, which is the only way that I'll get enough experience to make my videos interesting.

It has been eight months since your last AC video (Blade Bomb Assassination in Revelations). What caused you to stop so abruptly?

Revelations has extremely scripted assassinations, and it seems that Ubi went through great efforts to make sure that you assassinate certain targets in a specific way. This leaves less room to do anything creative. The amount of time that I needed to invest in the game (cost) in order to make it interesting (benefit) wasn't worth it for me anymore.

What other activities have you been enjoying during your absence?

Wiping out world hunger, curing cancer, stuff like that. In my free time, I really enjoy puzzles, and I've long considered the AC games to basically be one of the many puzzles I play as a hobby. Puzzles and hobbies that I've started in 2012 include:

• ThinkFun Gordians Knot - The makers claim that there is only one solution, but that's absolutely incorrect. There are at least 3 basic ways to solve
  the puzzle, and each has several variants.
• Sudoku
• Making polyhedra with Buckyball Magnets
• Bouldering (a type of rock climbing that involves short, difficult routes.)

When I find a new hobby, I typically work at it until I become fairly advanced, but I never quite reach the level of expert before I move on to something else. Aside from those listed above, some of my favorite hobbies from recent memory include:

• Combination puzzles, such as the Rubiks Cube. I really like the Twistyhedron app due to the tremendous variety, but it's probably been a year or so since I've last solved a complex combination puzzle.
• Boggle (best game on 4x4 is ~110 words in 3 minutes for 171 points. I still play this game if I need to waste a few minutes while I wait for something.)
• Scrabble (At my best, I'd average in the low 400's, and my high score is something like 530. I've been out of practice, so I'm not nearly that good now.)

What is your profession and how does it affect your approach to gaming?

I'm a scientist by profession, so I enjoy figuring things out. Of course, it's actually the other way around: I enjoy figuring things out, so I became a scientist. I like figuring out game mechanics so that I use them to my advantage, but that alone is not enough... One of the principles of science is that you document what you've learned so that others can build on what you've done. That's why I've always had detailed descriptions in all my videos, and why I have a great appreciation for other players who do the same. (Yes, I'm talking about the tremendous number of contributors to this website. Thank you!)

Tell me about your family. Are there any up and coming assassins among them?

I have a wife and 2 kids, and I gladly let them take up most of my free time. They aren't assassins, but they all enjoy gaming in some degree. MrsXO4 is crazy good at Dance Central, IanJr loves Little Big Planet, and NeoXO4 is a toddler who is surprisingly adept at kids games in the Apple App Store.

How did you first hear about Assassin's Creed and start playing it?

A friend of mine recommended the game and ultimately gave it to me as a gift. Unfortunately, I played part of the first memory block and got bored, so I put it away. A few months later, another friend came over to stay for a week. He was excited to see that I had Assassins Creed, and he played the game mostly while I was at work in order to occupy himself. I still got to watch him play, and I became more interested in the game in the later memory blocks. He ultimately finished the game during his stay, which allowed me to use the replay feature without actually having to complete the game myself. Once my friend left, I started playing pretty regularly. I still remember my very first assassination. It was on Abul Nuqoud. I recall the tension in trying to figure out how to get out of the pit, then trying to figure out how to reach the balcony without being spotted. I eventually reached the roof, and I dropped down on Abul from the overhead beam. I recall getting a rush when the hidden blade went in, and then thinking "Oooooh, I'm definitely going to play this game some more."

Which Assassin's Creed game is your favorite? Why?

Both AC1 and AC2 are very good games that give you lots of freedom to be creative. AC1 has fantastic graphics, originality, good dialog, and a lot of flexibility so that you can make the most of what you are given. AC2 has a ton of targets, and lots of new toys and game mechanics. AC2 did a great job of feeling both fresh and familiar at the same time. In the end, I have a slight preference for AC1. I think the lack of a replay feature in AC2 was a critical fault.

How would you compare Revelations with the earlier titles?

ACR has the best storytelling, by far. Unlike previous titles, I found the ending to be very satisfying.

ACR, unfortunately, has the worst game play, by far. I mentioned before that I'll replay a game and make videos if I find it interesting. Here are some relevant stats: I made over 130 videos for AC1 and AC2. I made 11 videos for ACB, and 2 videos for ACR. It's a lousy trend that I hope to reverse in AC3 - if Ubi cooperates.

You've pioneered many assassination styles and discovered many exploits. Which accomplishment are you most proud of?

I suppose the skipping procedure counts as an exploit. Even though it was initially designed for PS3, the same concept was ultimately applied to XBox and PC. The initial motivation for skipping was to replay the assassination missions in AC1 more quickly, but it ultimately had several other effects:

• It allowed the flag collection videos to be created, since collected flags are recorded in the savegame file.
• It facilitated the discovery of the AC1 broken timeline exploit, which can save a lot of time in making certain videos.
• It allowed stabguy to document the game-breaking Arsuf shutdown glitch.
• It offered a crude workaround for the lack of a replay function in AC2.

I'm sure the list could go on longer.

"The Bleeding Effect" is clearly the crown jewel of your video collection. Which of your lesser known videos would you recommend to an experienced AC player?

When I started to assemble The Bleeding Effect, my goal was to create a "wake up call" so that viewers would start to think differently about how to play the game. So I went with lots of dramatic elements to catch the attention of viewers: the original Eagle Strike, stunts, blitzes, shock and awe, and surprising scenes like Maria in the Bureau and air assassinating Al Mualim, etc. My goal was similar in the video Hiding in Plain Sight- Altair's Job Hunt, but I tried to accomplish the "wake up call" through humor instead. Altair's Job Hunt demonstrates several interesting game mechanics, such as the "dumb" scripting of targets, the power of blending, and the use of throwing knives to silently compromise guard posts. I recorded the footage for Hiding in Plain Sight on 5 targets, and then I somehow got inspired to tie the clips together with a concept of Altair's Job Hunt. Once I had the job-hunt concept, I re-recorded the clip for Sibrand, so that Altair could act out the starboard/portside bit, but all the other clips were recorded before the dialog was established. I really enjoyed the process of lateral thinking that went into making that video. Hiding in Plain Sight- Altair's Job Hunt was fun to make, and it started me down the path to Bleeding Effect, which came a few months later.

My all-time favorite assassination is probably the Quadruple Jump on Majd Addin. Patience, precision in control and timing, the accumulation of momentum, the build up of suspense, acrobatic movement, and dramatic change in camera angle for the tackle and kill animation. The mission was very difficult to design, moderately difficult to execute, and very fulfilling for me to watch. Plus, the timing of the kill with Majd's speech makes me giggle. The Eagle Strike may be my most famous assassination, but I think Quadruple Jump is vastly superior.

Here a couple of other videos that come to mind:
The Turkey Shoot - Diary of a Schoolboy - Somewhat similar to Hiding in Plain Sight - Altair's Job Hunt but not as good.
Complex Stunts in Assassins Creed 2 - An unusually popular video for me.

Since this is the second anniversary of the Featured Member column, here are some questions from other members who were featured in year 2. PatrickDeneny asks:
If you could add anything to a previous or future AC game (weapon, assassination, technique, target, city/location etc.) what would it be?

Replay ability on AC2. I've gone back to play AC1 several times, but not AC2.

YurkleNorf asks:
What is your opinion on Ubisoft making the series a yearly title?

It's seems to be a good way of keeping people interested in the game, but it doesn't fit my tastes... A year doesn't seem to be enough time to implement real innovations in the game. AC2 was fun because it felt familiar, yet it still had fresh elements. (AC2 came 2 years after AC1). ACB and ACR (the yearly titles) felt tired and tedious, and it shows in my decreased level of activity on those games. I hope AC3 will be different. (Of course, I'm referring to the single player aspect of the games... ACB's main innovation was the multiplayer mode, which is pretty much an entirely different game from the single player experience.)

GopherBlaine asks:
If you could travel to one specific period in time to be a part of a group, what time would it be, what group would you want to be a part of, and why? Would you want to be in a leadership role or a supporting role, and why?

Interesting question. I'd want to be an Apollo astronaut with the opportunity to land on the moon. I like experiencing new things, and experiencing something that few others have seen makes me appreciate my life more.

But just for fun, I'd travel back to caveman times and write E=mc² on a cave wall, complete with diagrams for relativistic thought experiments, knowing that future scientists will poop a brick when they find it.

After reading about a great tragedy in the news, I often wonder what I would do if I could go back in time to the day before and try to fix it:

I've wondered how I would convince thousands of workers to not go into the World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001. Simply being President and ordering the towers closed on that day would be highly suspicious. Setting my car on fire (or several cars on fire) in the parking garage(s) might work though.

I've wondered how I would try to evacuate coastal areas in the Indian Ocean in preparation for the tsunami in 2004.

Sometimes, the tragedy would be easy to fix. I'd travel to Aurora, Colorado on Jul 19, 2012 and hide behind a theater door with a heavy baseball bat.

Vesferatu asks:
How did you find this forum?

This is a silly question for me, of course, but maybe I can share some interesting information about how this site got started. Back on AssassinsCreed-maps, I proposed that we include flag collection videos alongside the maps. Stabguy and I had created the flag collection videos on Youtube, and viewers were using them to collect flags about 2-3 times faster than using maps alone. I thought the combination of the videos + maps together in one place would have helped players tremendously and added tons of value to the website. Oddly, my proposal never met a response. When stabguy mentioned the possibility of starting a new website, I thought of how nice it would be to finally have the opportunity to put flag maps and videos together. Stabguy agreed, and got to work. Over the course of a few months, stabguy really did a tremendous amount of work to get the website up and running, but we still needed a name. We had toyed with using "animus" in the name, but we found that many of the domain names were taken and that animus was a term that predated AC. I thought a while longer and proposed "The Hidden Blade," which we both liked since it conveyed that there was a "hidden" part of the AC game to enjoy. Plus, the domain name was not taken!

Slembroccoli asks:
If Abstergo was real, what company would it be? Motivate!

Apple. They know what's best for us. We just need to conform to their ideas to ensure our happiness.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I own many Apple products, but I'm no fanboy.

1001Human asks:
If you could take one music album, one game, one book, and an endless supply of one food item to a deserted island for two years, what would
they be?

Music: U2 - Joshua Tree, which has several songs that I can't seem to get enough of.
Game: One of the Civilization titles, which is fun and takes forever to finish.
Book: Something long and interesting that I would need to read slowly and repeatedly in order to fully comprehend. Something like Les Miserables or String Theory by Joseph Polchinski (Volumes 1 and 2)
Food: Steak Stack from Zoe's Kitchen.

If this question were taken very literally, I would do my best to prepare for 2 years of survival in the wild. A deserted island probably doesn't have electricity, so a music album wouldn't really matter, except that it might be made into something useful. In that regard, I might select a long audio tape so that the magnetic tape could be used as string. Or perhaps a CD might be useable as a reflector for starting a fire or signaling. I might select Twister as the game so that I would have a large plastic sheet, which could be used for shelter. The book would be a survival guide that I'd also use as kindling (after I finished reading it, of course). And the food might be something like a blend of avocado and banana juice, so that I can have a guaranteed supply of nourishment and water.

Is there anything else you'd like to add or promote?

Where in the world is stabguy? (Coming soon...)