Okay Geek Farm
PS3 Review: Assassin's Creed 2
Alex Tretrop
The first Assassin's Creed was, in my opinion, a very good game with some annoying flaws that kept it from achieving what could have made it an excellent game; frustrating mechanics and ridiculous amounts of repetition. Still, I thought that the story was very interesting and that the game was very immersive -exploring and climbing up a huge tower, or castle, to take a look at the great view can really get you into the experience. And it looked pretty nice at the time too. Those were some of the best parts of the original Assassin's Creed but the question is, did the developers listen to the critics and players and improve it upon the sequel? Or should Assassin's Creed 2 just be assassinated altogether?
Story
In Assassin's Creed 2 (and the original) you played as a man in the near future named Desmond Miles, who experiences the life of his ancestors via a device dubbed the Animus - a machine that sync's people minds with the past lives of their ancestors. In Creed 2, the game essentially starts off by doing a quick run through of what happened in AC1, but if you didn't play the original, but are still interested in the story (which is much more improved and interesting in AC2) you might just want to read about it on the internet or rent the first one. The game doesn't do a very good job of explaining the previous tale and it quite literally starts the moment the last game ended. The story plays out as if AC1 and AC2 were one game, so it assumes you remember everything from the first one.
After the tutorial you head into the Animus 2.0 where for almost the entire game you play as Ezio Auditorre de Firenze. Unlike the first game where you played as the master assassin, Altair, this time you are placed in the shoes of a wealthy banker's son, who has a ton more personality than that of the stoic Altair. Ezio has a strong family, is skilled with a sword, and he's a natural born climber and quite the ladies man. Big things start happening and after a series of horrible events, Ezio has found the assassin's armor of his father, explained in Assassin's Creed Lineage. If you liked the intriguing and suspenseful plot of AC1, you'll love AC2's even more.
Since Ezio isn't an Assassin, when the game begins you really start to connect with him as he learns how to cope with becoming a killer. It also helps that the character's all have very memorable
personalities. Also, it's just plain cool that you can meet real people in 1400 Italy; people like Leonardo Da Vinci and the Medici family.
Gameplay
The gameplay is the bread and butter of AC2, and unlike AC1, took out all the repetition and traded it in for a much more interesting style of play. There are much more varied missions (none of which are ever boring like the first game). There are also a very large amount of new and interesting weaponry and armor; from blades, maces, and clubs, to daggers, poison, and knives - and finally there's actually a very good reason to collect all the collectibles (the Assassin Seals) this time around.
The exploring and adventuring aspect is probably my favorite part of this game. At any time you can decide to go and explore anything you want, with each building or castle you see being scalable to the very top. And since some of these real life (at least in 1400's Italy) basilicas can be massive you really feel a sense of achievement when you get to the top.
And although the gameplay is much more polished time around, there still are a bit of problems. The combat still feels a little too easy to execute, and the control scheme is very confusing at first, which can result in some frustrating jumps off of cliffs, or very tall buildings, before you're used to it. Also, despite Ubisoft's attempts to keep repetition out of this game, there are still the same types of missions in every city - but having 100 story related missions, and an extra 100 side missions ain't that bad. Assassin's Creed 2 delivers at everything the first game fell short of.
Audio/Visuals
Almost everything in the Audio portion of this game is undoubtedly top notch. The voice acting is always (with a few exceptions) amazing, with actual Italian being spoken during the majority of the game - keeping an authentic atmosphere. And since there is so much foreign verbage going on, I would would definitely recommend that you turn on subtitles, that's unless of course you speak Italian fluently.
The music was great, as it captured the time period well, and never took you out of the experience. Since most of the game is spent in Italy, you don't get much techno sounding stuff, which is nice to not hear for once in a high paced game. As for problems, however, it can start to get a little annoying and irritating when characters begin repeating the same thing over and over again, as when the same person yells, "Money, Money, Money!" every time you throw some coins. The same goes for some missions when minor character repeat multiple times what they just said - sounding like a broken record. Still, for the most part AC2 delivers on audio.
Another thing that impressed upon me immensely was the graphics. The impressive structures, basilica and castles are kept exactly as they were made in their day. Considering this game takes place during 30 years of Ezio's life, from the 1460s though the early 1500s in Italian history, it's literally breathtaking to return to a city and see a large castle or monument finally completed. Or when you see a new locale built from the ground get a little bit higher as the months, and eventually years, go by. Seeing the amount of detail put into the architecture and environment makes you appreciate all the work the developers put into making this game.
However, there are still problems with the graphics. There's a very large amount of texture pop, and it happens very noticeably sometimes. The framerate is usually all over the place depending on where you are. But to be fair some of these cities are so massive, with buildings as detailed as they are, well, I'm willing to forgive them for those problems. One more issue I had is that in just about every cinematic the faces of the characters don't look very lifelike, and it just doesn't compare to other hit games such as Uncharted 2 or Mass Effect. Still the good outweigh the bad.
Difficulty
Assassin's Creed 2's difficulty is pretty easy, for the most part. The only time you ever really have a chance of dying is from missing a jump or near the beginning of the game when you don't have too much health. If you're new to the series then the controls might be a little confusing at first, and you just might die a few times as you're getting used to it. In terms of the combat, you won't have too much trouble killing everyone fairly easily, because you have such an awesome array of weapons at your disposal. If you were looking for an insanely hard game you aren't going to find it here.
Rent/Buy/Pass
This game takes the best parts of the original Assassin's Creed, like the excellent open world exploration, and impressive story, and improves upon them, all while keeping itself original with more varied missions, plot twists, and a ton of different weapons and armor that make it just that much more enjoyable this time around. There are only a few problems like the confusing control scheme, the bad looking facial animation, and sometimes too easy combat. Still, none of these problems are terribly noticeable when you're scaling huge towers, assassinating targets with your wide arsenal of tools, or just experiencing and picking apart the complex, yet enjoyable, story.
This game is an absolute buy for fans of the first game, and even if you didn't like the original you should still, at the very least, rent this game to check out all the improvements made on this heck of a sequel. What I wouldn't recommend is missing out on this excellent game, and it's my hope that Ubisoft Montreal listen to the fans and critics again, and fix the very small number of problems for the next chapter in the franchise.
