Submitted by Los

Back in November of 2007, we were given a game that was said to be innovative, monumental, and one of the first “true next-gen experiences.” Instead, to the majority of gamers who picked it up, it turned out to be a misleading, repetitive, and slowly paced title. Personally, I was so excited about this game and what it was suppose to be, it almost felt like I caught my girlfriend cheating on me when I saw the credits rolling. I was so distraught and saddened, by not only the game itself, but by the story and its cliffhanger ending that left a huge, gaping hole of unanswered questions, unfulfilled promises, and not one ounce of satisfaction that made me feel like it was all worthwhile. While others have pushed aside all of its flaws and saw it for what it was aiming to be, I am still standing here acknowledging Assassin’s Creed as one of my most disappointing games of this generation.

But, that was 2007. Flash forward to today, and its amazing how a sequel can make you fall in love with a name all over again.

Assassin’s Creed II accomplishes everything the original tried so hard to do, and does it perfectly. It is executed in a way that leaves you with the sense of wanting and needing more in the end, when the original just made you want to use the disc as a coaster.

We’re back in the mind of Desmond Miles. Only this time, instead of the Holy Land, its Renaissance Italy, almost 300 years after the events of the original Assassin’s Creed. The world has changed and so has the way things are done. You play as Ezio Auditore da Firenze (rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?), who is out to make the wrong things right, and in the process uncovers a conspiracy that leads him to things you will not believe even if I told you. The game spans roughly 23 years. And within that span there are a few years not accounted for which will be revisited as DLC. But more on that later.

The story takes place throughout 5 different cities in Italy and then concludes in a final city. The world feels much more open now because of the lack of redundancy. Every city you visit has random assassination missions, races against thieves, guards to lure away with mercenaries or the local brothel, and so on, but even though it’s the same in every city, they are not required so you can do these little side quests or ignore them. As for main story missions, there are a few that repeat. More than once you may have to follow someone without being noticed or escort someone somewhere and protect them, but missions like these are spaced out and done in ways that they don’t feel repetitive, which is a big plus and a lesson learned. The overall pacing of the story is so well done and intriguing in ways that are so natural you don’t think about it at all, which proves true since you can play for hours on end and not realize how long you’ve been playing until you notice that you’ve pee’d your pants.

There is a lot of customization as far as Ezio goes. You can go to a tailor and dye your robes (different colors for different cities.) You also have a bunch of different weapons to play with, including smoke bombs, different attachments for your wristblade, which there are two of now, all contribute to good killings. Another fun, but short lived addition is that you are in control of your own small city. You get to use your money you collect to refurbish and rebuild the small town where your family Villa is located. This Villa is your homebase where all the weapons and armor you purchase will be kept and it’s where you have to go if you’d like to swap something out. You can fix up the shops in the city and get discounts on whatever they are selling, and in turn, they generate money for you. So the more you build it up, the more money you’ll be getting in return. It was a fun little venture but once everything is built there is nothing more to do but collect money, which leaves you with heavy pockets and nothing to buy once you acquire everything. Would’ve been nice if that was an ever growing town and you didn’t run out of stuff to build.  Also, throughout the cities there are six Assassin’s Tombs where you do some heavy platforming, a la Prince of Persia, to find tablets that are in the tombs of great Assassin’s. Collect all six and you unlock Altairs armor, which might I add, is BAD ASS! These little platforming areas were challenging at times but were very fulfilling when completed. I wish there were more of them but at the same time, six was enough and here’s why…

My gripe with the game is one that I couldn’t take lightly anymore. I got so fed up with it I had to shut the game off a few times. Since its open world and Ezio is jumping rooftop to rooftop like a beefed up monkey with a pack of Sugar Stix, you tend to get a little too excited. When you’re in the moment and are either sprinting across roofs or running away from guards, you tend to run into the very unforgiving problem the game has and that’s jumping/grabbing/falling over, onto, or into places that you didn’t want to. This hurts the most when you have to get somewhere before a clock runs out (Assassin’s Tomb) or you are chasing someone (one of the story missions.) You see what you want to do and where you want to go but you try and get there too fast and you either run up the wall or jump off the ledge which will kill your momentum (or just kill you entirely) and make you have to start all over again. This is something that can be avoided by taking things a little easier but at the same time, this game was meant for you to string together all these ninja like skills in one fluid motion, so it’s hard to not run into messing up your flow. Maybe if the camera was a little tighter it wouldn’t have been so frequent. But it happened to me so much I’ll have to look at it as a flaw.

Aside from that, there’s nothing I can say that is bad about the game. The story and settings are spot on. The characters, along with the historic buildings you encounter all have a back story that you can access and read up on. Back stories so detailed you’re tempted to look it up yourself to see if they’re true. There’s plenty to collect and solve. I highly recommend finding the 20 glyphs that when found, a puzzle must be solved for each. Once that’s done you unlock a brief 1 second clip of a video that was left to you by Subject 16 (you, Desmond Miles, are Subject 17.) These clips, put together, show you a video that when watched will drop your jaw. I can sit here and tell you about it but like I said, you won’t believe me. If you are into the story and what’s going on, you NEED to unlock those clips and watch that video. The contents of whichyou see, coupled with what happens at the end will blow.. your… mind!

As far as the DLC goes, I am not a fan of hearing about DLC right after a game comes out, but I’ll make an exception for this. It is so cleverly done it’s almost not right. The years that are missing from the game are acknowledged in game as missing, and the characters even say they’ll get back to it later. The years are skipped and the game continues on without a hitch. And since it’s such a smooth transition, it shows that nothing really happened during those years that are of any importance to the main story. So the DLC will come out as a simple add on that if you want to go see what happened during those missing years you have to pay to play it, which sucks. But at the same time, its not going to contribute anything to the main plot. At least, nothing too significant. The story started, went on, and ended pretty smoothly and was a fairly good length (about 23 hours to complete it and get a Platinum Trophy [sorry, had to brag]) so for that reason, them taking out years from the game and making it DLC doesn’t really bother me. If the game was a lot shorter and felt like something was missing then yeah, I’d be pissed. But that’s not the case. If you’d like more info on the DLC check it out, http://kotaku.com/5416419/assassins-creed-ii-dlc-raises-questions-possibly-fills-gaps

Something else to check out: Before you get started on the game this is definitely something to watch. It’s a pretty high production value and the actors are the same as the ones that did the game. Its an awesome introduction to what’s going on.

 
All in all, I consider Assassin’s Creed II to be an amazing ride. I hand it to Ubisoft for seeing what they did wrong and fixing it. It’s a great game, and a great story with a flaw that is annoying and will get you angry enough to take a knife and assassinate your pillow, but will be forgotten with the payoff at the end. The end… ha! More like the beginning.

Oops, did I say that out loud? Sorry.

The Verdict:
4.75 Water Bottles Full of Pee, out of 5

Tags: Assassin's Creed 2