from Amazon.com

Assassin’s Creed II

Format:
360, PS3 and PC

Release Date:
North America (November 17, 2009)
Europe (November 20, 2009)
PC (Q1 2010)

Assassin’s Creed

In Assassin’s Creed, players are introduced to Desmond Miles, a barman who is kidnapped by Abstergo, a pharmaceutical company. Desmond is designated as “Subject 17” and forced to enter a machine called the Animus. During these sessions in the Animus, the subject enters a kind of virtual reality where he or she can experience memories of their ancestors that are stored in DNA. In Desmond’s case, he relives several days as Altair, an assassin during the Third Crusade.

from ign.com

Players follow Altair as he is disowned by the Assassin’s Brotherhood and begins the long road to regain favor by completing a series of nine different assassinations. After each assassination, players return to the present day (2012) where Desmond has a few opportunities to learn more about Abstergo and their intentions. It is during these explorations that Desmond uncovers hidden clues and cryptic texts in his room left there by the previous occupant, “Subject 16”.

Players were left wondering what Subject 16’s hidden messages meant and what was in store for them in Assassin’s Creed II.

The Story

Assassin’s Creed II starts off right where players left off as Desmond stares at Subject 16’s wall of hidden message. Within minutes you find yourself fleeing Abstergo with help from a familiar face. You travel to a secret hideout where you are assisted by present day members of the Assassin’s Brotherhood. They have built a new Animus 2.0 and need Desmond to re-enter the Animus in order to become a deadly assassin who can assist them in the future.

from giantbomb.com

And so begins the adventure as you enter the Animus, this time reliving the memories of your descendant Ezio Aditore, a young Florentine noble.

from photobucket.com

Gameplay

Is the game repetitive? This is probably the biggest reservation of gamers considering the gameplay of the first game in the series. Ubisoft has taken great strides in adding more diversity and more content to the sequel. The main story line is still progressed by completing required missions which more often than not do involve assassinations. However, no longer are you required to do a, b and c as part of an investigation before proceeding to the actual assassination. Main missions can be a pure assassination mission to something more complex where you need to discretely follow a individual to secret location and then upon arrival infiltrate a meeting and assassinate said person.

from gamespy.com

Outside of these main missions, there is a lot for players to do in this open world. Ubisoft had said there were around 200 missions, but that number seems a bit inflated as the total number is closer to 130. Half of those are secondary missions. These activities are found in the same matter as the first game; climb up a viewpoint and synchronize. By synchronizing, players reveal more of the map including secondary missions (beat-up events, races, courier assignments and assassination contracts), codex pages and assassin tombs. Codex pages are encrypted scrolls hidden around the city that are protected by several guards. Assassin tombs are stand alone levels that are setup very much like Prince of Persia. Ezio must navigation his way through the tomb to find the treasure room at the end of the tomb.

A lot of your time is still spent simply running around the various cities. Climbing and jumping is still the same with players holding down a combination of buttons and Ezio making the moves himself. Your only real influence on his movement is which direction he is running. On several occasions, Ezio would seem to leap off a building for no good reason. While it is your instinct to run away as fast as possible, many times, slowing down and taking the correct path will save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

Horses still make an appearence in the game and occasionally you’ll accept a mission that requires you to use them in order to complete your task in time. No longer do you have to worry about drowning as Ezio can swim very effectively. With the large amount of water in this game, there has been the addition of gondolas which Ezio can row throughout the canals in the city.

Combat

from giantbomb.com

The combat hasn’t changed much from the first game. You are still encouraged to either sneak up on opponents and assassinate them quickly or take a slower approach and time your attack perfectly in order to counter your opponent. What changes were made to the combat seem to have been done so to make you a better assassin. You can now hide in a haystack and wait for an enemy to walk by and pull them in to perform an assassination. You can hang from a building ledge and wait for an unknowing guard to walk by and pull them off. During combat you can disarm an opponent, pick up weapons dropped by the dead or simply toss sand into their eyes. And maybe the best addition to the whole combat system is that you are now equipped with a hidden blade in each hand allowing you to perform double assassinations with ease.

Additional moves and skills can be learned at the training grounds in the Villa. Such advanced skills will allow players to use long and ranged weapons. Players can choose to buy better weapons, improved armor and upgraded belts which bring us to the addition of an economy.

Economy

from msxbox-world.com

Players now have the ability to earn money by performing missions, pick pocketing or opening treasure chests around the city. Mostly money will be used to improve your Villa and buy upgrades for Ezio, but players can also buy paintings, dye their outfit and buy more supplies like throwing knives and medicine. Some players may find it advantageous to hire groups of thieves, courtesans or mercenaries to assist them during missions.

Notoriety

Sneaking around on bank buildings or killing a guard in the middle of town are sure to draw attention to you. Doing such acts will increase your notoriety level making guards and towns people more suspicious of you. To reduce your level and once again go incognito, you can take down wanted posters, bribe heralds into saying good things about you or assassinate corrupt officials. And this brings me to one of my biggest complaints about the game…the developers went out of their way to place wanted posters in places no person would ever see them. They hardly ever appear on the street level and instead are often on the 2nd floor of buildings. I know they placed them up high for more of a challenge, but it takes away from the realistic feel that you are wanted around town.

Collectibles

from msxbox-world.com

So who was disappointed like me when it was revealed at E3 that there were no longer going to be flags in the game? Well let me assure you, there is still A LOT for you to collect. And if you want 100% synchronization in this game, you’ll be doing quite a bit of exploration. You can collect codex pages, painting, models and portraits, feathers, seals, statues and glyphs. The nice thing about collection items this time around is that you are rewarded for your kleptomania habits with new items or more understanding of the story. And here comes my warning…resist the urge to collect the glyphs (hidden messages left by Subject 16) until after you beat the game or risk having the ending spoiled for you.

Glyphs

from wikimedia.org

I’m not going to say much about these because I think they are the greatest part of the game. However, they are so different from the rest of the game I thought they were worth mentioning. As stated above, glyphs are hidden messages left by Subject 16. When a player finds a glyph it activates a puzzle to solve. The puzzles vary and require quite some thinking. So if you aren’t a fan of puzzles, you’ve been warned.

Atmosphere (including graphics and sound)

True to form, the scale of this game and its attention to details really makes you feel as though you are in renaissance Italy. You will encounter famous people and building in Italy’s history. These encounters are then saved in your database which you can access to learn more about your surroundings. The view from the various viewpoints is no less breath taking the second time around.

from gamespy.com

Spoiler includes image that shows how much detail went into recreating these locations in Assassin’s Creed II. If you don’t want to know where the story will take you, don’t look at this until you have finished.

Spoiler: from gamespy.com

The game is gorgeous from a graphical standpoint and it’s not just technically. The graphics are very detailed in its historical representation of renaissance Italy. A few problems do occur with images (like boats on the water) popping into place as you pass by. Also, during the night cycle, when you are standing at street level, it becomes so dark that I found it almost impossible to see anything. This also occasionally occurred while navigating the underground assassin tombs. One final note on the graphics, there has been several reports that the PS3 version has some serious issues with screen tearing. I played on a 360 so I’m really unable to discuss this in more detail.

from giantbomb.com

As with the graphics, the music and sounds adds to the whole atmosphere. I was especially impressed with the voice acting. Several video game veterans lend their voices including Noland North (as Desmond) and Carlos Ferro (as da Vinci). While the voice acting of Ezio is exceptional, some players might enjoy switching the game over to the Italian voice track.

DLC Maps and Uplay

Three extra maps were developed and used as pre-order and collector bonuses. The maps are already on the disc and simply unlocked with a code; no download required. Prior to their release, there was much speculation as to what these maps might be. Basically, they are assassin tomb levels that reward only money for their completion. Ubisoft has promised these maps will be available to everyone within a few months, but no word on their costs.

from gamespy.com

Assassin’s Creed II also marks the debut of Ubisoft’s new “play and win” reward system, Uplay. Interested players can visit uplay.com and either use an existing Ubisoft username or create a new username. As players complete specific actions (linked to achievements/trophies) during the game, they are rewarded points which can be used to unlock special content like an extra map or Altair’s in-game outfit. Points can also be saved and used for upcoming Ubisoft titles. At this time, Assassin’s Creed II, Splinter Cell Conviction and R.U.S.E. are the only Ubisoft titles using this feature.

Achievements and Trophies

Some of you might still have nightmares of you searching for that last flag. You can sleep easy this time as achievements and trophies are much easier to obtain. Several achievements are tied to the story and completing assassin tombs and several more for completing various combat techniques. There are still four achievements related to the collectibles, but with the reduced number to find, these achievements don’t seem so bad. Ubisoft has also done away with the missable achievements during the cutscenes so you can watch and enjoy this time around. There is only one missable achievement and that is kicking a guard while using the flying machine.

from joystiq.com

Replayability

Players sticking to the main story only should be able to finish the game in about 18 hours. This game differs from the first in that you can’t go back and select to replay a specific memory or assassination again. So, if you are uninterested in collecting and seeing everything then there probably isn’t much replayability for you. However, if you are the other type of gamer after you have finished the game, you can go back and finish up any remaining side missions or missing collectibles. I was able to achieve 100% synchronization in just under 30 hours.

Final Thoughts

If you are a fan of the first game then without a doubt you MUST play this game. Rent it, buy it, borrow it from a friend. It doesn’t matter, simply get this game and play it. Everything you loved about the first game is still there and then some.

If you hated Assassin’s Creed because it was repetitive and boring I would strongly encourage you to seek out this game. It is so vastly improved over its predecessor in that area that its worth giving the series another go. If you were unable to finish the first game, I would encourage you to look at a few sites regarding the Desmond storyline as it is that story line that is continued in Assassin’s Creed II.

from gamespy.com

Many know that I was beyond excited for this game as I loved the first game. My experience playing this game was so much better than I ever could have imagined. In my opinion, Ubisoft made leaps and bounds with the story and I have bought into what they are doing so much that I just cannot wait for the final chapter. In the end, this is the best game I have played all year and I would not be surprised to see this game come up in multiple Game of the Year discussions.