Assassin’s Creed 2: Review

How often does a sequel surpass it’s predecessor? In movies and books… rarely ever. In video games, it is perhaps a little more common. To say that Assassin’s Creed II has merely surpassed it’s predecessor would be an enormous understatement. AC2, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is Ubisoft’s highly anticipated sequel to 2007’s Assassin’s Creed. The first Assassin’s Creed met mixed reviews and left many people feeling disappointed. The most recent addition, however, launched last Tuesday and proves to be a more than welcome addition to the series. Read on for our full review of Assassin’s Creed II with a detailed look at what Ubisoft has done right and what they have done wrong.

Unlike most sequels that pick up usually a few weeks, months, or even years after their predecessor, the story of Assassin’s Creed II starts literally seconds after the first one ends. You begin the game as the protagonist, Desmond, hanging out in his cell at the Abstergo corporation. Even though Desmond is the actual protagonist of the game, you spend most of the game controlling his oh-so Italian ancestor, Ezio Auditore. That’s right folks, Altair from the first game has hung up his cloak and retired. As a result of the “bleeding effect” of the Animus however, Altair has left Desmond with his trademark Assassin’s Eagle Vision. After a few crazy plot twists, Desmond finds his body in a new Animus and his mind in the Italian Renaissance.

After an introduction to the character of Ezio, we find that he is a pretty carefree guy. He gets in fights, chases women (yes there is a steamy scene at the beginning… although no hot coffee mod is required to get to it), and generally enjoys being the son of a wealthy nobleman in Florence, Italy. Through his everyday debauchery, you the player learn the basics of combat and free running. You gain an understanding of the city of Florence and different structures that you can and cannot climb. Two things immediately stood out to me during the earlier part of the game. First, this game feels much more fluid then it’s predecessor. The running and jumping animations look incredibly smooth and the collision detection is perfect. The controls blend together to the point where free running becomes second nature to you.

The second part that immediately stood out was the absolute PHENOMENAL amount of detail that went into every aspect of this. And when I say detail, I don’t necessarily mean graphics… I mean every aspect of the game. When climbing, Ezio grabs ahold of fixtures rather than grabbing onto just the wall. When looting the dead, bystanders on the streets curse you to hell for not having respect for the dead. When running on rooftops, you’ll even see things such as birds nests. The actual cityscapes themselves are nothing short of amazing. You could literally spend hours just walking the streets of this game, looking at building and listening to the various minstrels and side conversations in the street. It is remarkably immersive and the atmosphere will have you thinking you’ve stepped into an Animus and are reliving it yourself. I’ve never actually been to Florence or any of the other cities that Ezio travels to in the game, but from I have read Ubisoft did a lot of research into Renaissance architecture to recreate well known buildings such as the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. All of these buildings are merely stepping stones for Ezio though as he climbs to various viewpoints within the city. As an extra bonus, Assassin’s Creed II actually includes an educational side to it, as each time you encounter a significant person or place from history, a database base entry is entered where you can read about the history of said person/place. Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci was allegedly gay? You can learn about him and other ninja turtles all just by playing this game. Thanks Assassin’s Creed II!

So let’s take a look at the gameplay and just how much of a step up it is from it’s predecessor. Lots of people really didn’t like the first Assassin’s Creed. They cried and whined about how it was repetitive, how the missions lacked variety, how it was too linear, and generally how the gameplay lost it’s appeal after a few hours. From the initial impressions, everyone expected to be running around doing things rather than just hanging out on a bench eavesdropping. Assassin’s Creed 2 takes care of these ten-fold. For one, repetition is essentially non-existent in this game. Sure you see a lot of the same places, and I suppose you are doing a lot of the same things, but the key part is that it doesn’t feel repetitive. The maps are a lot bigger and there is a hell of a lot more variety. Aside from the standard story missions, you have a very wide variety of side missions to entertain you. These can be as simple as collecting feathers for your little brother or as fun as beating up a cheating husband or racing a thief across the rooftops. I actually spent a good hour or two of the game just running around climbing things, reading historical facts, and generally soaking in the atmosphere. When you are running around on the streets with the intent of just having fun, it’s like Grand Theft Auto had a baby with Prince of Persia. As a man whose two favorite past-times involve 3D platforming and killing hookers, you can see why this was appealing to me.

Oddly enough, the topic of hookers brings me to another great aspect of this game. In the original Assassin’s Creed, you were given a mission and typically there was only one way to complete it. You had your target and usually it was pretty obvious what method you had to take to eliminate him. Assassin’s Creed 2 however, adds a whole new dynamic to this equation. Rather than just attacking the problem head on, you can turn it into a thinking man’s game. If guards are too close to your target, you can pay the aforementioned prostitutes to distract them while you slip by unnoticed. Or you can throw down some money, causing chaos amongst the local peasants who scramble to pocket it. Or you can get a thief to steal something from the guards and run away, sneaking in as the guards leave their post to chase the thief. Or if you really don’t care about any of that stuff you can just beat the hell out of the guards or climb around a bit and drop in unnoticed. The game really makes an effort to let you know that you have more control over the outcome than you would expect from a video game. In addition to the outright obvious changes, you’ll find smaller detailed changes as well that just generally bring more fun to the game. Instead of an auto-heal feature, you’ll have to seek out a doctor (By the way, the doctors all look like they are on their way to a Slipknot concert. Just play the game and you’ll see what I mean). Instead of randomly gaining health with experience, you will buy upgrades for your armor and weapons to make you a more effective assassin. You are now able to swim which adds a new dynamic to evasion. If you fear water, however, you can always just steal a gondola. You now have nighttime missions that reinforce the amount of detail that went into the game. Quite possibly the biggest gameplay upgrade you’ll find, however, is the combat system. The first Assassin’s Creed essentially limited you to a short sword, a long sword, throwing knives, and your hidden blade. Not only does Assassin’s Creed 2 bring more weapons to the picture, but it makes sure you know how to use them. You don’t even get a weapon until you’ve played the game for about an hour, meaning that you are well versed in hand to hand combat. And when it comes to weapons… oh man are they fun. Of course you’ll get your traditional swords. But you’ll also get spears, pikes, axes, and my favorite, a gigantic skullcrushing mace. All of these weapons come with their own specific animations for disposing of people. In addition to these, you are able to disarm your opponents mid-combat and use their own weapons against them. This just makes you feel like more of a badass then you already are. You also have your trusty hidden blade. This time around, however, you’ve got two (does that mean in Assassin’s Creed 3 you’ll have three? One on the left wrist, one on the right wrist, and one on the… nevermind), so feel free to use those in battle as well. All in all, the combat system makes you say “What were they thinking?” when you look back to the first game.

So of course, this game is not perfect, but it is damn near close to it. There were only a few minor things I found fault with. First of all, the voicework in the cutscenes could use a little work. I’m not quite sure what it is about it but the mouth movements just don’t seem to line up with the voices. I know it might sound a little nitpicky but it stood out to me in the first cutscene the game had. Another thing you will probably notice is that sometimes the camera work can go awry. Mixing this with the controls can really ruin a good moment sometimes. You’ll be running along the rooftops doing your assassin thing and really feeling the momentum then BAM you’ll push one way on the control stick but Ezio will jump somewhere else, sometimes to his doom. It seems like Eagle Vision isn’t the only thing that Desmond inherited from Altair. It really isn’t a big deal though and the more you play the game, the more used to it you get and the less of a problem it becomes. Finally, the only other problem I found was not really a problem. The sheer magnitude of everything you can do is somewhat overwhelming. I know it is ridiculous for me to say “they have too much content in this game”, but it does have a fairly steep learning curve, the action is a little slow to start, and there is a lot of story to understand (on a sidenote, if you didn’t play the first Assassin’s Creed, they give you a fairly decent overview at the beginning of this one to bring you up to speed on the plot). This game is definitely meant for us hardcore gamers, so don’t buy it for your 9 year old son expecting him to jump right into it. You will need some patience.

All of that being said, I gotta say, Ubisoft really blew this one out of the water. Assassin’s Creed 2 is everything that the first one wasn’t, and more. The graphics are some of the most visually stunning I’ve ever seen on the Xbox 360. The sound and music adds to the graphics to make it incredible immersive. The gameplay is fun and exciting to the point where I dreaded having to tear myself away just to write this review. If Ubisoft continues making Assassin’s Creed games of this caliber, my head will explode at what the inevitable Assassin’s Creed 3 will bring to the table.

Tags: abstergo altair animus assassin assassin's creed desmond ezio free run templar ubisoft