Assassin's Creed II

[Jiro]

It was a definite improvement, and I found myself completely unable to stop playing D:
I like being able to use weapons too, the long weapons were fun

[Quindiana Jones]

Okay, I don't have the free time to just blast through the game, so I'll review on what I've played.

Holy mother of spaz. This game is magnificent. As beautiful as the last game, with a more intriguing storyline which actually gives you a reason to play. Gone are the crappy "Do these tasks so you can progress" missions. Now you'll find yourself finishing a sequence without even realising, simply because the game transitions so well from free play to missions.

The game starts off a little slow. That's not to say it's boring: it just takes a few sequences to unlock the super cool stuff that you squealed over when you saw the trailer. The first parts of the game introduce the protagonist and other main characters well, and explain why he becomes an assassin, rather than just giving you a character and saying "Oh yeah, he's an assassin btw".

The Old Stuff
Exceptionally well handled free running, as with the first one. There are some occassions of Ezio mindlessly jumping to his death when THERE'S A WALL RIGHT THERE , but these are rare and usually your own stupid fault. The whole game is also beautiful, and capture the period extremely well. Venice, in particular, is breathtaking. Well...that's everything that this game has in common with the old one done.

The New Stuff
Oh God, where to begin? Combat. The combat is roughly the same: X to attack, and try to get combos which end in cool deathblows. Or just stand there and counter everything. However, there are a variety of new features. For one, you can actually use the Hidden Blades effectively in combat. Though there are swords and knives, I found myself using the Hidden Blades the most. I rarely used any other weapon, to be honest. A highly recommended tactic to make the game more fun is to go into every fight with bare hands, as you can disarm opponents and use their weapons against them, leading to different fighting styles every time.

As an Assassin, you can expect Ezio to do some assassinating. And by God he does. Unlike Altair from AC1, Ezio has two Hidden Blades meaning you can kill two guards simultaneously. That's...actually it, to be honest. There was massive hype about this, and it's cool and all, but it doesn't really do anything else and is something defeated by the fact that guards hang around in threes. There are also some blade upgrades. You can add a poison blade, which allows you to berserk someone without anybody noticing, causing a pretty funny distraction, and you can also install a one shot gun. It's insta-kill, to make up for the decrease in power of the throwing knives, but it's rarely used. The best improvements to assassination are the techniques. Air assassination, Hiding Spot assassination and Ledge assassination. All are useful, and all are freaking cool. My favourite moment in the entire game so far was making an air assassination from about 50 feet up. It was ridiculous. I mean, I jumped off a freaking tower onto a guy's face. Now I know how Psy's mum feels. I felt that the final assassinations of a sequence, those being the assassination of an important character, were a little disappointing. I preferred Altairs method of walking up to them and just stabbing them, whereas now you usually have to fight them a little bit. It's a minor thing, though, and doesn't actually take anything away from the game, especially when you consider the fact that the missions in which you must assassinate these characters are really fun.

The economy system is great. It's extremely easy to make money, but there's also loads of stuff to buy so it kind of evens out. Economy system is somewhat of a misleading name though. There is no economy, you can just make money from your villa and buy stuff from shops but hey, it's more stuff than the first one! You'll spend the majority of your money on health and art, though a lot of it will also go towards customising your character with new clothes. Yeah, you heard, new clothes. You don't have to wear white if you don't want to!

There are simply too many things to go into great depth here, as it would take me years. This game improves upon the good points of the first one, and replaces the bad points with something brilliant. Even full price, Assassin's Creed 2 is well worth the money.

[Psychotic]

*fashionably late to the party*

It pisses all over the original AC in terms of quality. Infinitely less repetetive and all the more fun for it. Had so much fun tackling monks and high society ladies in the middle of the street and throwing them into market stalls "Ezio didn't kill civilians" my ass. Most fun was when I nailed a brute with a poison blade and he went mental in a crowd of people. Just started smashing everything. People, walls, the floor, was hilarious.

The only things I can criticise are 1) smurfing camera zooming in and rotating about like mad in Assassin's Tombs, messing up my jumps. smurf off. 2) And the story. The story of Ezio was kind of dull after a while and as for the ending, well, yeah, that was the stupidest smurfing ending I have ever seen. Other than those, everything about this game is delightful.

EDIT: Oh and sprinting and instead having Ezio try to run up a wall when I am chasing someone on the ground. That was wank too.

Top game, and if they continue improving at the rate they have, ACIII will be Game of the Century.

[Shiny]

Pretty much agree with Psy. Nice that it wasn't repetive and even more boss it was set in one of the best places in the world imo. Yet, the ending was the most unfulfilling anti-climatic thing ever (well since the first game). I mean wtf. I don't even get to stylishly kill a villiam? effff you Ubisoft.

[Jessweeee♪]

I thought the ending was awesome. I mean. Desmond is like, Jesus! And then you get to be Desmond and kill a bunch of people. He's not useless anymooore~



We had a lot of fun picking out guards that had large weapons, poisoning them, and throwing money at them to draw large crowds while they swing their spears and stuff around. Like one guard leaves fifty bodies.

[Psychotic]

Well no, that part of the ending is smurfing awesome, eee♪, and I have been waiting for that since the start of AC1. But the bit before that, the cutscene, was the most dire thing I have ever seen in a video game this year! ...well, last year.

[BarelySeeAtAll]

My bro had the first one, and I was never really that interested in it. Now, I heard about ACII and saw the trailer and my jaw dropped haha.

Ezio fangirl inDEED, so naturally this Christmas I was practically begging for it and drooling all over the cover in the games shops (I'm sure they didn't particularly mind some goth gamer staring at the video screens, watching Ezio jumping all over the place). Screamed like a 14 year old when I opened the ps3 game and begged my brother to let me play it (because yes, that's right, I can't afford a ps3. My brother has the only one in the house) and he did, so a few days after Christmas I was playing it all night. Sure, (SPOILER)the first mission of beating your brother to the top of the church was indeed something of a task, having never played the first one I had no idea how things worked and such, but I soon learned and now I can't get enough of leaping, jumping, climbing (and yes, falling from a massive great big building to your death).

Sometimes it's more fun to get swarms of guards chasing you all over Italy, than to do any tasks. My playtime must be pretty awful but hey! I'm adjusting.

Absolutely loving it so far, so smooth and the weapons are gorgeous and awfully fun

<--- the face to sum up my opinion of the game

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

The only things I can criticise are 1) smurfing camera zooming in and rotating about like mad in Assassin's Tombs, messing up my jumps. smurf off.

The words that came out of my mouth as I tried to do those parts...Seriously, the camera messed me up a few times too many.

[G13]

I bought this game for my girlfriend for Christmas and ended up getting further in it than her. I'm banned from playing it now. I need to get one for myself.

Has anyone played Bloodlines by any chance? I heard it came out a few days after ACII. Altair's Chronicles was so I'm hoping to hear about Bloodlines before I potentially waste my money.

[Madame Adequate]

Just picked this up yesterday when I realized I had a wodge of wonga I could only spend in the US (Gift cards, don'tcha know) so yay AC2 is now an Xmas gift for me.

And it is god damned awesome. I'm not so far into it yet but I loved the opening stuff. It was nicely paced, slow enough to set the scene, but short enough that it wasn't boring. And haha I felt like such a badman when I first stepped out dressed properly.

I liked AC a good deal but this just pisses all over it from an extraordinarily great height itbt. Paul's assessment about the rate of improvement is correct.

Hopefully one thing they do with ACIII is make the assassinations more like Hitman though. I mean yeah an assassin can be all in-your-face as long as he gets the job done, but I do want to be a sneaky Tenchu/disguisey Agent 47 cock who does things like a stealthy git.

And I died laughing at "It's a-me, Mario!"

[Skyblade]

Hopefully one thing they do with ACIII is make the assassinations more like Hitman though. I mean yeah an assassin can be all in-your-face as long as he gets the job done, but I do want to be a sneaky Tenchu/disguisey Agent 47 cock who does things like a stealthy git.

I totally agree. There is far too little stealth in this game. Despite everything you learn about blending and staying hidden, they are rarely useful (except on those annoying follow-the-leader quests). Targets are so heavily defended that getting to them undetected is usually impossible (or, if it is possible, you'll be detected during a cutscene instead).

I loved Tenchu: Stealth Assassins for the way it let you actually act like an assassin and stay hidden while you killed stuff, and I wish it was that way in AC.


Oh, and I played Bloodlines. Gameplay is nearly identical to AC1, but the fact you only get one Analog stick hampers it somewhat. Not sure how well the game plays on it's own though, since I got it after ACII, and if you do the transfer data to Bloodlines, the game is so pathetically easy you don't have to try. The pistol transfers as an instant-cast, 1 hit ranged kill with your Hidden Blade. Sure, it uses a throwing knife, but you can just pick one up from the guy you just shot. Other transfer bonuses let you counter kill and block with the Hidden Blade (and any non-boss enemy will die from a Hidden Blade Counter kill, even if it would take 4 or 5 Counters with the sword). So the game is ridiculously easy.

[Quindiana Jones]

We had a lot of fun picking out guards that had large weapons, poisoning them, and throwing money at them to draw large crowds while they swing their spears and stuff around. Like one guard leaves fifty bodies.

Just quoting this because it's awesome.

And I agree with the whole stealthy thing going on. In Venice, during the festival, you (SPOILER)kill a guy by using your gun during the fireworks. The whole point of this is so that the guards don't notice that you've killed him. Except in then goes into the random cutscene thing (HOW DID EZIO EVEN GET THERE???) and I'm instantly Notorious. Stealth in this game is utterly pointless, considering the fact that you could probably wipe out an entire city of guards (as they all try to kill you at the same time) with your bare freaking hands.

Hopefully in AC3, Desmond won't bother talking to them. Maybe he'll have some hunt down, interrogate then kill missions to do? I think that'd be cool. And actual interrogation scene. Yeah. Punch punch, cut.....ahem. The point is that I want Desmond to be able to kill his targets without anyone even noticing like a proper assassin. And I think it'd be amazing if you could Hitman it up and change outfits. But, having said that, I want to be playing AC and not Hitman. Tough balance.

[G13]

Indeed. I was incredibly disappointed when I realized stealth kills aren't gonna be happening in this game. I tried a ton of different ways for the first two assassinations but didn't get anywhere. Every time I felt like I should restart and try again.

[Skyblade]

Also, did anyone else find the "run from the guards" segments rather boring? I mean, you don't have to track down a hiding place or anything. Just run really fast, toss in a little bit of climbing, and you will eventually outpace all of them. Gathering a large number of guards is nearly impossible, because they will just give up before you can reach enough. It makes the instant-notorious bits after an assassination rather dull and pointless.