Assassin's Creed 2

[Steven W]

Please refer to the sticky thread before you post in this thread.

This is your chance to tell us your opinion on Assassin's Creed 2. PC version due to launch soon, but opinion on any platform is fine.

Reviews will be published on the main gaming channel. We'll let you know in this thread when they go live.

Thanks!

[Rob_B]

PLATFORM: PS3
REVIEW:

On the surface AC II is a very good looking game, there is freedom to do whatever you'd like & plenty of side quests to complete however delve a little deeper & things don't look so rosy.

Firstly I have a big issue with the first few hours of the game, you run around doing very similar missions (kill so & so, go to point A, go to point B) with very little guidance. It drags on for far to long before suddenly giving you training on things you probably worked out yourself a long time ago (how to pickpocket, blending in etc)

By the time you've got under half way into the game you can be pretty much unstoppable if you've collected enough Florins to buy upgrades, after this point money ceases to be an issue & the game throws it at you far too quickly meaning you never need to worry about having enough to buy your latest Sword/armour/etc

This leads me onto the concept of your base of operations, the Villa. This is presented initially as a crumbly old Villa in need of repair, as you earn cash you build it up, upgrade it & can purchase paintings to increase it's value which in turn increase the amount of income it generates for you. Simple acts such as collecting feathers or buying upgrades for Ezio also increase its value. By a certain point early in the game you are earning more than you can possibly spend & the sense of achievement quickly dwindles.

The missions, although engaging at first soon become very repetitive. This isn’t to say they are bad, just that there is not enough variation on them basic themes of Assassinate/Go here/Collect items. Most of your time will be spent running from point A to point B to start the next mission, this can be frustrating when you end one mission in the company of an NPC then have to run halfway across the map to see the same person to start the next one.
There are plenty of sides missions such as Races/Assassinations/Fights/Glyphs & Feathers (the latter two being the only ones to actually provide advancement to the story albeit non-essential) & you could spend hours completing all of these.

The AI isn’t the best I’ve seen. Some enemies spot you a mile away while others don’t always seem to care that you’ve just killed their comrades standing near to them. After a while they also become repetitive & easy to kill once you work out how to do it, I rarely used any other weapon apart from the hidden blades & secondary sword even with the more armoured varieties and escaping an alert is far to easy.

Running across rooftops & the free-running moves are fun & I didn’t get tired of those as the citys are pretty big & there is always something new to clamber over. The mechanics are ok if not great, sometimes a simple jump can end in you falling to the ground or your character seems to want to climb onto walls/ladders even if you didn’t ask him to but these are minor annoyances.

Overall it’s a good but not great game. The graphics and textures are well presented & the citys are beautifully crafted. The main story is engaging & does contain some half-decent plot lines however there is repetition in both this and the side missions which could annoy some people. The AI is flaky & provides no more of a challenge as the game progresses.

SCORE OUT OF 10: 7 - One to take your time with.

[Stephen C]

Assassin's Creed 2 picks up where the original left off, although I highly advise playing the original first there is however a few cut scenes at the beginning to bring you up to speed on the storyline.

As it was in the original, you take control of Desmond Miles, a young man caught in an ongoing war between the Assassins and the Templars. Although the story is centered to Desmond, there is no escaping the fact that the person we're interested in is Ezio, Desmond's ancestor.

Desmond is able to relive and take control of Ezio's memory through a device known as the Animus. Set during a 30 year period spanning from 1470 to 1500 in Renaissance Italy, Assassin's Creed 2 tells an awesome story of revenge and corruption.

There has been a great amount of thought and effort into bringing Renaissance Italy to life, the mood of the period and setting have been captured perfectly. On your journey you'll even get to know such historical figures as Rodrigo Borgia, Leonardo Da Vinci and Marco Barbarigo, all adding that little bit extra to the game.

The game mechanics are pretty flawless, free running meshes seamlessly. One of the flaws with the original has been addressed, no longer can you simply hold a button and become invincible, dispensing foes without the blink of an eye. However! Even with the diverse additions to the combat and AI the game has just been made too easy. Not a single battle met me with any level of difficulty, most of the time it was a simple case of running up to the target from behind, pressing X and escaping without so much as a scrape.

The missions are somewhat varied, unlike its predecessor.
In this outing we'll see our hero steering a runaway carriage and even flying over the beautiful city of Renaissance Italy in Leonardo Da Vinci's flying machine. Despite these clear alterations to make the game less repetetive than the first, it all seems a waste of time with the ease of the combat system.

Free running, parkour..
I played through so many missions where the fastest route was by ground, few were the moments where the game required me to take a path along the rooftops as opposed to just toddling along the ground, isn't parkour supposed to be the huge selling point of this title?

All be it I have a few niggles with this game, don't let that put you off, overall this is indeed a fantastic game with a captivating storyline. Definitely one of my favourite titles.

8/10.

[Steven W]

Both of these reviews have now been published

If anyone else wants to contribute please do.

With the PC version coming up at the end of March it would be good to hear how that stands up to the console versions.