Assassin's Creed II

It’s not too often that we see companies in this medium take chances on new properties, so it came as a surprise when Assassin's Creed came out in 2007 with record sales. While it was original in many ways, it was frustrating in many more. So, I approached the sequel with trepidation only to be completely surprised with the amount of detail, depth, and thought that Ubisoft instilled into the game this time around.

First off, the setting of Renaissance-era Italy has to be one of the most inspired and well-realized virtual worlds of its generation Even better is how the game takes you on a history lesson, giving you detailed backgrounds on real world locations and historic people you will meet throughout the game.

The biggest complaint of the original was the lack of variety in missions and locations, which isn’t a problem here. Whether you are chasing a group of Templars on horseback through the Tuscany hillside or walking the rooftops of Venice at night, AC2 manages to weave an exciting story with many great distractions should you ever get bored. The game manages to be an accomplishment that stands above being a simple refinement of its predecessor.

It’s not too often that we see companies in this medium take chances on new properties, so it came as a surprise when Assassin's Creed came out in 2007 with record sales. While it was original in many ways, it was frustrating in many more. So, I approached the sequel with trepidation only to be completely surprised with the amount of detail, depth, and thought that Ubisoft instilled into the game this time around.

First off, the setting of Renaissance-era Italy has to be one of the most inspired and well-realized virtual worlds of its generation Even better is how the game takes you on a history lesson, giving you detailed backgrounds on real world locations and historic people you will meet throughout the game.

The biggest complaint of the original was the lack of variety in missions and locations, which isn’t a problem here. Whether you are chasing a group of Templars on horseback through the Tuscany hillside or walking the rooftops of Venice at night, AC2 manages to weave an exciting story with many great distractions should you ever get bored. The game manages to be an accomplishment that stands above being a simple refinement of its predecessor.

Ezio is my favourite character in all of gaming and easily a top Ten character of all time this story is perfect it's executed so well throughout the franchise we see Ezio from his birth to his death while simultaneously following the modern day Desmond stories.

the majority of the game takes place between 1476 to 1499 with familiar historical figures like Leonardo da vinci, Niccolo machiavelli (The Prince and the Discourses on Livy), Caterina Sforza and Rodrigo Borgia as well as the Borgia's rise to power which I do believe was covered in more accurate detail in the games successor Brotherhood.

The plot of this game follows Ezio and his uncle Mario after the unjust execution of Ezio's family at the hands of the Templers Ezio must murder his way straight to the top while remembering the importance of keeping his families values intact during these prevalent circumstances.

The best part is those moments of humanity the speeches, the human moments and of course assassinations, cause nothing says assassin's creed like throwing Francesco de' Pazzi off a fucking 50 storey roof and watching him hit the ground, and be hung anyway. I mean it's a important historical event but speaking of that some things if you do know history you know how shit's going to go down take for example the church massacre of the Medici family it's brutal and tense but also historically significant probably one of the most important events of the era and the game does it perfectly.

AC2 pretty much improves upon everything the original game tried to do.

The parkour is leagues more fun than in the original, the story is full of charm and manages to find a sweet spot between more light hearted and serious stuff unlike a lot of ubisoft games and features some of the best and most memorable characters in the series.

It feels like a really fast paced game, there isn't much downtime where you just do useless quests. Throughout the game you consistently unlock new areas and abilities to keep the game fresh all the way to the end. Also there's some ridiculously fun missions like the one where you fly into the enemy base.

My only issue with this game really is the combat which yes is a bit better but still not perfect, it turns into smashing attack really fast, after a while I noticed that sometimes if you don't engage in the fight and you have allies fighting you can just go behind enemies and kill them as if you were playing stealthily and it's kinda cheesing the game but oh well it saved me some time so I won't complain too much, also the game is really easy 90% of the time, I don't think I ever bought an upgrade or new weapon or anything throughout my playthrough and still beat it no problem.

Honestly wanted to give it a 10 because even with the combats flaws, I still enjoyed it, but my god did the game fuck it up at the end, basically it doesn't let you do the last mission until you get all of these codex pages, there's around 30 in total and I only had half of em so I had to spend half an hour getting the rest, idk I never liked when games just tell you fuck off, come back when you collected all of this shit

Oh well, still an amazing game though, hell I'd say it's worth it for the story and parkour alone.

Within the first 10 minutes of playing this game, you realise that Ubisoft has fixed a lot of the issues that were wrong with the first game. Straight away, the characters seem much more likeable and the story has more substance. There's cut-scenes with subtitles! Damien walks faster and can run! Combat is more varied and now features combos! Missions are more varied and interesting. There's even an option to quit the game and return to the desktop!

The modern-day story is a continuation of the first game, although you're not missing much if this is your entry-point to the series. Lucy helps Desmond escape the Abstergo research facility and makes their way to an Assassin hideout. After a quick introduction to Shaun and Rebecca, Desmond enters Rebecca's Animus 2.0 which allows him to learn the abilities of assassin's from his memories. Desmond views the life of Ezio Auditore who lives in Renaissance Italy, who becomes an assassin in order to seek revenge on the Templars that killed his family. The voice acting has improved; Ezio has an authentic Italian accent, and the dialog often slips in Italian words (with translations in the subtitles) to add more authenticity to it.

Once Ezio begins life as an assassin, your Uncle's Villa becomes your headquarters. This Villa and the surrounding town can be invested in to reap financial rewards over time. Investing in shops allow you to purchase weapons, armour and medical supplies at a discount. Although the system sounds good, the amount of money the game throws at you means you will have purchased all the upgrades by midway through the game.

Controlling Ezio is very much like controlling Altair in the original game. Each of the basic abilities are mapped to a specific limb; feet, head, free hand, weapon hand. Jumping over obstacles is automatic, and the impressive climbing animations allow you to traverse most buildings as there is always something for Ezio to cling onto.

The 'Blend' mechanic has changed so now you have to walk close to a group of people rather than simply holding a button and giving guards a wide-berth. I rarely used this feature, only really making use of it during the missions where you need to follow someone.

Committing crimes in a city increases your notoriety bar which determines how much attention the guards will pay to you. The lower the meter, then the closer you can walk to the guards. At a low level, they may be curious and walk towards you, but if you have high notoriety, they will begin chasing at first sight. You can lower the notoriety by ripping wanted-posters from the walls, killing officials or bribing the heralds. It's an overly simplistic system which means you don't really need to care about your actions since it's easy just to revert the situation back to normal. When guards give chase, you also have the option of running out of a set area to evade them. This means it's no longer necessary to hide in the hay, bench, or roof-top shacks; meaning you don't really get those tense, epic chases from the first game.

The exploration element of Assassin's Creed remains the same. There's a large environment to explore, and scaling buildings is easy. Your map lacks detail unless you climb the tallest buildings and 'synchronize'. At this point, points of interest such as quests, shops and notoriety-reducing-elements are marked on your map.

The quests are mixed up more which makes them far more satisfying than the original game. There's still time-trial based events such as races and package delivery, Interrogation-style missions in the form of 'beat the cheating husband', and Assassination where you have to take out a few targets.

The health system is overhauled with the addition of doctors and medicine. You start off with far less health, and your health only regenerates if the health gauge is fractional (half a health point will generate). You can only replenish full health points by using the medicine items, or visiting a doctor. I found the 5 medicine vials you can carry to be rather generous, and this limit can be extended by purchasing better pouches. You can increase your health points by purchasing better armour which can also be temporarily broken until repaired at the Armourer. These elements actually makes the game easier than before since the system is overly generous in every aspect.

The combat has been tweaked to add more variety. There's a decent range of weapons you can purchase, with various daggers, swords and axes to play with. You can also customise the theme of Ezio's clothing by dyeing his clothes via the Tailor. There's now a basic combo system to the combat, but the counter-attack move still remains the most effective and easiest option. The enemy variety does result in different strategies, but ultimately it resorts to similar behaviour to the first game where each character takes turns in attacking, allowing you to pick them off easily. Assassinations have improved since you now can kill from hiding places, ledges and rooftops for some satisfying and strategical kills.

Scattered around towns are groups of Warriors, Thieves or Courtesans which you can hire. Warriors can fight but are limited to the ground, Thieves are weaker fighters but can follow you over rooftops, and Courtesans give you a moving group to blend with, and will distract guards with their charm. Although this sounds like a good idea, just like all the other ideas; it's overly simple. It means getting past guards or escaping from them is too easy, given that you can just run a short distance, press a button to hire them and let your hired group deal with the guards whilst you just flee the scene. The cost to hire these groups is far too low. Given you often get a few thousand for completing a mission, paying 150 to make the combat easier just seems silly.

There's a good amount of collectibles. Instead of flags, you now have feathers which Ezio's little brother collected. There are also many chests which contain money or tomes. Finding the money chests is easier if you purchase a map from the merchants. The tomes are essential in order to complete the game. These tomes can be decrypted by taking them to famous painter/inventor Leonardo Da Vinci who befriends Ezio and features prominently in the plot.

As a side-quest, Ezio can recover Altair's armour from the Assassin Tombs. These are small Prince Of Persia style areas where you will be climbing and jumping around structures, possibly taking on a few guards in the process. It doesn't quite reach the complexity of Prince Of Persia, or even match its design, but it's a nice change of pace.

You can find glyphs on the sides of important buildings. These glyphs will contain various puzzles which will give you extra history of the battles between Assassins and Templars.

There's new ideas, lots of improvements and tweaks to the formula which makes Assassin’s Creed 2 feel like a huge step forward. The game is still too easy though. Even though they have removed some of the tedious nature of the combat, and made the chases much less frantic, it's become even easier than the first game; and that wasn't exactly difficult. It is definitely a better experience though but still drags on for far too long. Expect to rack up 20 hours or so, when 12 hours would have sufficed.

2007's Assassin's Creed was a notably flawed game with some exceptional ideas that resulted in a successful new IP. The only way to go from a starting point like that is up. Assassin's Creed II goes up and above its predecessor in just about every imaginable way. The world is more alive, the content is more enticing, the story and characters are better, and the overall package is simply a step up. Following the story of Altair during the Crusades, Assassin's Creed II puts you in the shoes of Ezio Auditore during the Italian Renaissance. The story begins giving you far more stock into the character of Ezio than the first game ever gave you in regards to Altair, and such an immediate connection instantly makes you feel more attached to the game the second you start it.

Without going through a complete plot summary, the storytelling is far beyond what the first game could achieve. Exposition outside the Animus is kept to a minimum, meaning most of the story is told through the eyes of Ezio, and more importantly, so is most of the gameplay. The general concept of Assassins vs Templars is enunciated and expanded with global conspiracies hidden in various sections of the game world and plot progression that brings you from mildly curious to entirely all chips in. Ezio himself is written so charmingly that you feel proud to play as him, and you feel like every single assassination is a satisfying stage of your overarching revenge plot. To say it's above what was provided with Altair's storyline is an understatement.

A number of gameplay enhancements come with Assassin's Creed II, as well. The movement system is for the most part the same, barring a couple handy unlockable abilities. Combat, however, is overhauled quite a bit. Multiple different weapon types can be purchased from stores, and you've got additional tools such as poison, and even a gun to fall back on. The whole counter system feels much more forgiving and satisfying as well. If you didn't like the combat in the first Assassin's Creed, it's unlikely to win you over here. But the tweaks made heavily contribute to a more playable product.

Outside of combat, the game is also notably more full of extra activities to partake in. A basic shop system is now in place, and you're given a manor to fill full of extra goods such as armor, paintings, and other collectibles. These aren't all necessary to collect, of course. Along with this, there's a greater variety in side missions. Some of the staples from the previous game make a return, but almost always with more purpose and additional hooks to keep you interested. Yes, you'll still have to tail enemies through the city. But a number of gameplay changes make this more fun than it ever was.

Enter the newest addition to the social stealth mechanics. Unlike Altair, Ezio can blend in to any group of civilians as needed. If it's a mobile group, simply walk into the middle and Ezio will walk with them automatically. If someone is about to catch you following them, step into a group of people holding a conversation. Along with this, the general populace can also be used as a tool by throwing money on the ground and creating a loud distraction so your attention can be focused elsewhere. In short, every aspect of the crowds feels more alive and interactive. They're no longer just soulless NPC models that exist to get in the way, but now a tool.

The game design is quite good in Assassin's Creed II as well. You're given multiple cities to explore, such as Florence, Venice, Flori, and a couple other lesser locations. Admittedly, some of the city streets in these cities feel a bit mazey and samey, but when you find that certain landmark you were hoping would appear, it's a great feeling. Italy is portrayed beautifully, if not someone awkward to navigate. Poor areas feel exceptionally dingy, and a section of Venice dedicated to Carnivale is downright magical. It is worth noting that a majority of the content in Flori was cut for the base game, so unless you own all the DLC or a deluxe edition, some parts of the game will feel strangely sparse.

As a whole, Assassin's Creed II exceeds its predecessor in every way. It goes from being a glorified tech demo to a fully realized experience. Like the previous game, your enjoyment will depend entirely on how you feel about The Ubisoft Approach. But if you want something that you can play with minimal thought and simply have fun running across rooftops, Assassin's Creed II is a sublime experience. However, it's still repetitive in its nature, and still suffers from the same movement quirks and bugs as the original. Not at all perfect, but now in the realm of a game that everyone should consider at least trying out at least once.