The What If Machine - Assassins

The death of Thomas Becket was not an assassination, it was just wanton murder by a bunch of confused knights.

 Worthless commentary.. your topic is about assassins not famous assassinations. The entire focus was off.  The information provided is (should be) common knowledge. Your  speakers gave no real insight; so why even feature them? Spend some actual time researching and find interesting  assassins instead of covering some of the most famous events in history. I expect better from a professional website.

What about poison and venomous snakes and insects?  They don't talk a lot about assassins as a profession, as Assassin's Creeds' plot lines follow.  The three examples in the beginning are all political assassinations meant to be famous and theatrical.  Those are some of the most high-profile assassinations in history.  I think Assassin's Creed made it a point to show that their work was not about high profile killings. 

BORRING!!!! I wanted to know about assassins creed stuff not about history. I already know those murders. This show is about games and logic, not history class.

There was an article on cracked.com about the most ridiculous successful assassinations. The one involving a man in a full bear costume during a carnival killing his target with a giant axe, but not before he defended himself with a giant candlestick is the one I will never forget.

How could they forget to mention poisonings. I mean, many notable assassinations, both ancient and modern have been committed with the use of poisons, It's no coincidence that royalty used to employ food tasters and such. Very disappointed they left this crucial part of  the history of assassinations out. Sure, not very action-paced but very effective nonetheless. 

@ 6:21 guys says Spencer Perceval (British Prime Minister) was killed by a sword, but I'm pretty sure he was shot by John Bellingham. But oh well I guess... 

the third installment of assassin is an idiot idea.Nobody finds appealing playing in...America. It's boring. In fact it's so boring that not even a pirated copy to see what is about I won't take. That must say something about how much this game suckc as an idea

How did they forget about the assassination of bishop valentine? There's an assassination with far reaching implications. I feel this was a missed opportunity to bring up the Hashassins, from which our word assassin comes from. I for one am not anticipating next week's episode with any eagerness. All one need understand is the Drake equation, and that most of the values in the Drake equation are based on conjecture. Thusly, it can be made to suggest anything.

I think the most modern assassin today would have to refrain from using any kind of weapons and start using his brain and a hell lotta gadgets, like aranging a car accident or a plane crash while eating in a diner. Probably Ubisoft's Watch Dogs can make something out of this. Also Ubisofts is preparing the next Call of Juarez back to roots but with a headhunter character kind of...

Anyway, when's gonna be a what if machine about Fallout or Borderlands, you know, post-apocalyptic theme.

I think the ambiguity point made by the ACIII designer is a crucial point. Do you know who the most successful Assassin in history was (defining successful as having a long career)? Neither do I, because we've never heard of them as they've never been exposed. Of course we have outliers like Booth and Brutus who either got caught or wanted it known that they were involved, and that's why we're able to talk about them. Do we know who assassinated Bin Laden? No, and it'll likely stay that way for a long time, because their network keeps their cover intact. In all three of those games, getting caught equals failure, and illustrates the huge difference between one-offs like Booth, Brutus, and Oswald (who for all we know was framed successfully by the real Assassin) and Connor, Corvo, and Agent 47: if you get caught after you assassinate your mark, you're of no use to your handler/organization in the future, and therefore unable to assassinate any more targets. The Ninja of feudal Japan used disguises, obscure tools that were the high technology of the time, and blades/projectiles to complete hit after hit without revealing their identity. They are probably the closest historical precedent to the Assassins of today's games. Also, the political ramifications are an interesting consideration as well, something that is explored well in the AC franchise, especially in Liberation where (SPOILERS) killing the governor just leaves you with more problems from the next governor who you must then go after (END SPOILERS) Something that wasn't considered is the nature of the target. Killings by Mafia hit men and by privately contracted modern hit men are normally of people with no political importance, such as businessmen and cheating spouses with good life insurance. They are also performed by individuals who don't know the target well, and the hit men are often disguised in one way or another because they aren't trying to get recognition, they're doing it for cash or for personal gain within their organization.

The problem with the discussion is that there are a lot of killings and attempted killings that may not be labeled assassinations because they are conducted by people labeled instead as terrorists, or soldiers (for example during the Viet Nam conflict there were lots of assassinations on both sides).   Furthermore, when assassinations are directed by government agencies, they usually do not want to take credit, so what you may end up with are 'accidental' deaths or, at best, rumors and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.   When the killing is up close and personal and in public, generally speaking, it's usually easy enough to know a lot of the details.  But when a car bomb goes off, or someone dies of a mysterious heart attack, and so on, unless someone comes forward, or a file becomes unclassified, you may never know the truth.  It's happened so much that the killing of South American dictators by the CIA has become a cliche.

love it !

I didn't see this topic coming in the What-if Machine. However, this was a pretty enjoyable episode.

The best assassins are those who leave no trail in history.

This episode inspires me to take up assassinations as my profession.

Nice episode. 

Normally i'd say Assassins Creed!!! But AC3 totally sucked. Way to much annoying bugs. Really bad story. Connor is just an ass. And not to even start about the ending....

It's like they only worked on the graphics...

3 great games. Nice video

Gamespot should have asked different questions. The way they (must've) presented the questions to those historians they all turned out talking about MAJOR events, such as Lincoln and Caesar. Hitman, for one, focuses on powerful, but but so public, figures, the targets are mafia bosses, evil company owners, not presidents and rulers mostly; also all the killings are done with no emotional sense at all, it's just a contract. Assassin's Creed killings are much bigger in scope, but still not that driven by emotion, it's still PROFESSIONAL. They should've focused on professional killing instead, like the "Chacal" (Jackal).

The 1st expert seems very happy about Lincoln's assassination, can't hide his glee, he's literally like "..assassination of Abraham Lincoln" :D :D

Thing is vast majority of past assassins werent our ideal assassins. Just a guy who sneaks close to their target, and kills them. Usually meaning they got caught. A one time event. Really not that much of a badass at all. Chances are a good assassin would eliminate their target, it gets pinned on someone else, and history would be none the wiser. Meaning these guys have no idea what they are talking about.

None of these cases cover our ideal assassin who  takes out targets one after the other like the "heroes"  found in the AC franchise. I mean that is the point of the video after all.

Im sure this video  should of followed gov't conspiracies or cold war drama. Or maybe ninjas. But then the line between "soldiers", murderers, and what not gets blurred.

I think the only REAL way you can get to an glorified video game assassin is digging up history on organized crime hitmen. They had to track a specific target, kill them, hide evidence, and dodge authorities. And then do it again and again.

stupid pieace of shit gamespot, why would i have to RELOAD THE VIDEO AGAIN AFTER I JUST STREAMED THE WHOLE VIDEO, SAVE THE DAM MEMRORY!!!!!!!!

A man needs a name.

they have all forgotten two incredible assassinations,one, i do agree with Julius Ceasar,but for the medieval era i would posit the one of the imam ali (No i am not moslem) and three what about the Medici murder, where even the pope was know found to be involved.

All I see on his shirt is a giant shadowmark. Anyone else?

How about assassination by limpet mine?  i.e. the assassination of a greenpeace activist in the 1980s by 3 french government agents?  They donned wetsuits, used an inflatable dinghy under cover of darkness to enter the harbour, attached a limpet mine to a greenpeace vessel, consequently sank it, murdering a crew-member, and were shortly afterwards captured by police...

Sure, Lincoln, Caesar and JFK were assassinated, but by assassins per se? Those were all examples of people holding a specific grudge which they decided to deal with personally. I would have liked a look at the idea of professional assassins, which is more akin to those in games as opposed to the examples listed in the video. Although I guess that would have been much harder to do research for.

Nice video. There was some good info in it, though the smiling Lincoln guy was annoying as hell!  lol

None of these assassinations come to my mind when I think about assassinations haha. I would say JFK is the most known assassination?

Aww...I really wanted to see him talk about the order of the "Hashashin" (the true origin of organized assassinations) rather then him talking about all this little unrelated blips in history... Then again, given it's strong relation to Islam i guess there would a rather unpleasant comment war on religion... But still...T.T 

How can a guy with such an annoying speech impediment get a narrative job ffs?

Ok so nothing on actual assassins then..? Ya watched the video, that was pathetic. There was a Order of Assassins during the time of the Crusaders. Then we have actual ninjas during the time of the samurai and so on.

Seriously all you chumps chose were murderers, not assassins.Hell the guy talking about Wilkes Booth i wanted to smack, those teethy smiles were annoying and he seemed far too happy talking about it lol

Hell i could do a better job than this in a 5 minute video if i chose to.