[360/PS3] Assassin's Creed II Review

[AgtFox]

Assassin’s Creed II Review

Title: Assassin’s Creed II
Platform: 360/PS3 (coming to PC Q1 2010 supposedly)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
ESRB: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 (360/PS3)
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek

What's Hot: Graphics are step up from original game in my opinion; voiceovers are well done even with the Italian/English accents and the Italian spoken parts (w/English translations if you have subtitles on) throughout the game; Almost all issues from first game are cured; game is as long as you want it to be because you can do all missions or do whatever side missions you want at any time; story is fantastic; simply more impressive and flowing than original game

What's Not: Loose controls still give some fits here and there, although by the end I was once again one with Ezio; inability to skip cutscenes hurts when you have to replay after dying; you MUST turn on subtitles or you won’t understand the Italian spoken words which are translated in the subtitles; glyphs are difficult to find and they connect to something quite interesting in the game

I loved the original Assassin’s Creed, but noted that there were significant problems with repetition in the game which kept it from getting a 5/5 and instead got a 4/5. The assassinations were too dependant on having to do mini-games in order for the assassinations to begin. Everything I had heard up to the point of playing Assassin’s Creed II got me excited that Ubisoft Montreal had fixed the problems from the first game.

I’m happy to say that my thoughts are correct. Arguably the mini-games could be seen as repetitive, but they are no longer mandatory in order to build up to an assassination. Instead, the assassinations are integrated into the game as you go along the actual memory missions in the DNA sequence. That pretty much eliminated my two problems with the original game and Assassin’s Creed II is longer than the first game a grand experience to enjoy. Of course it will be hard for someone to come into this game from scratch because although there are hints at what happened in the first game, they really don’t spell it out for you. It would be smart to seek out a synopsis of Assassin’s Creed if you’re interested in the backstory.

The game starts off in Italy circa 1476, although the initial Animus connection is when Ezio Auditore, the main character, is born. Yes, you get to move his appendages right after he is born and honestly it is a bit freaky. When we next meet him he and his brother are jumping around Firenzi - or Florence, Italy - chasing each other. Ezio’s next business of the day is to bed a local lady. Yes, he is a ladies man and quite charismatic. He starts off running errands for his father that will get you used to or re-used to the gameplay mechanics of the series. For the most part, the controls are the same as the last game. Ezio has more tricks than Altair did since he is able to purchase new weapons and armor (and easily change them via the Right button) and his friendship with Leonardo da Vinci gives him a bunch of new accessories throughout the game as Leonardo deciphers the codex pages and creates weapons from them. The game takes place in several Italian cities and it is obvious the development crew has done a good job with the local landmarks of the time period. The documents you can look through via the Back button when a small window shows up or in the Start menu gives you the history on many of the landmarks and characters you meet in the game. It’s totally up to you whether you want to read all this stuff or not, but much of it is quite interesting to read through. I’m not up on my Italian trivia, but the way the documents read many of these characters are real life ones.

It’s hard to do a review on a game like this because you really can’t get into the story because it is full of so many spoilers. I feel safe in saying since it happens so early that Ezio’s brothers and father are publicly executed by the Templars after Ezio gives information to a supposed trusted ally of his father. After this Ezio starts to find out that his father was part of the lineage of assassins that includes Altair from the first game. He finds his father’s white assassin robes and starts on his quest to take down the people responsible for the deaths and obviously a larger conspiracy is afoot. Of course the conspiracy goes far deeper than just the group in Florence and it spiders out to other areas in Italy.

The game is much more open than the original and you can take as much time as you want with it. You can blow through only the story missions, never touching any of the side missions if you want. I believe the Codex missions are needed though since they play an important role later in the game. I have no clue how long it will take you to beat the game doing just the basic things because I undertook side stuff. I was pretty compulsive about hitting all the Viewpoints in the first game and I did that here as well, although it didn’t garner any achievement points (d’oh!). I would in fact hit the Viewpoints before hitting story missions just to unlock more of the map of the area.

I also made it a point to hit any Codex mission whenever one became available. I didn’t do all the side missions. I wasn’t too excited by the races, the beat ‘em ups, the assassination contracts (tried a few) or keeping my notorious level down by tearing down posters in the area, bribing people or killing officials. There are other side missions that I won’t discuss here since it moves into spoiler territory, but let’s just say that the story is well laid out and is even deeper than what was presented in the original.

Desmond is of course back after the events from the last game. In fact, you start the game as him escaping from Abstergo with Lucy and going to another building with a new Animus in it. After the initial time with Desmond, it’s a good while before you come back to him. It was almost 10 game hours before I took control of him again, a stark departure from the first game where you were constantly going to Desmond after an assassination for him to go to his bedroom and elsewhere at Abstergo to get information. Here since the assassinations are woven into the overall game I was very surprised how long it took to jump back to 2012. Also interesting is as Ezio’s story is being told years pass by. The game starts in 1476 and ends in 1499, or at least that is the last date given as the Animus builds the cities from memory. That’s 23 years of memories that you play through.

Also of note is that Ezio takes his surviving sister and mother to his uncle’s area of the country where he owns a villa. At the very top of this villa is Ezio’s room where you can see portraits of all his major assassinations and the year or years they happened. Along with this the villa is also home to Ezio’s side business. I forgot to say that this game has money in it, although it should have been obvious when I said you could buy weapons and armor. You receive money every time you complete missions or find the plethora of loot chests all around the game area. With this money you can purchase the weapon and armor upgrades, as well as art for the villa. Inside the villa you can also pay to upgrade the buildings in the area, including a brothel, get discounts at the stores in the area and get a larger amount of money as you upgrade the villa area. You get paid every 20 minutes in game time, but you have to go back to the villa to take the money from the chest. This means you will be making several trips there, but it also holds all your weapons and armor that you have since upgraded (you can go up and switch to a different weapon if you want), any art that you purchase and a wall full of all the codex pieces you’ve picked up and had decrypted by Leonardo.

There are always problems even with the greatest games, the only ones here that I see are the continued loose controls that create frustration early on and in a specific mini-game option that I can’t spoil here, but it has a lot of jumps involved. The other problem I had was that the glyphs on some of the landmarks are often hard to find. You will see a red eye in the window where you can hit the Back button for info. Once you find the glyph you then have a puzzle to solve that will open up an interesting extra in the game. Finding these glyphs are important to the overall story because it opens up an interesting section of the document section called “The Truth” that are clues left by Subject 16 along with audio recordings he took while in the Abstego program. Subject 16 is the person before Desmond who undertook the Animus and left the information with his own blood on the wall in Abstego at the end of the original game when Desmond realized he could use the Eagle vision through his time as Altair.

I’ve gone all this way and not said one word about graphics or sound. The music and voiceovers are really well done. Nolan North and Kristen Bell are back as Desmond and Lucy. Kristen even in the first scene says more than she did in the first game. The music is nuanced and well done. There are some excellent tracks present. With the graphics I am seeing a lot of people moaning about them. I think the graphics are a step up when compared to the first game. Yes, there are jaggies present and there is some draw in, but you have to remember there is a lot more polygons being pushed in this game because the cities are bigger and more busy in both civilian and building areas than the first game had. The Italian landscape is very beautiful, including the water that Ezio can swim in. As a funny side note, enemies once you knock them into the water are dead no matter how much health they had left. Was that homage to the fact that Altair could not swim in the last game? I think maybe it was.

Even though I didn’t talk much about the story, Ubisoft Montreal has fixed enough in this game for me to give Assasssin’s Creed II our highest score and the esteemed Editor’s Choice Award. It truly is a fantastic experience and sits right up there with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Batman: Arkham Asylum in my mind (haven’t played Dragon Age as of yet. It is going to be awfully hard to choose one of these as Game of the Year and really 2009 has turned out to be an excellent year in top notch gaming.

This game is certainly the longest of the three I talk about as it took me a little over 18 game hours to beat, but I’d say I played over 24 hours total as I don’t think the game time takes into account the cutscene time because they can’t be skipped. Also, Assassin’s Creed II is probably the most story rich of them and has as crazy of an ending as the original did. There is no doubt there will be a third game in the series and I can’t wait! Even if you didn’t like the first game because of the repetition, I feel enough has been done to fix these problems. There are still problems, but every game has them no matter how great it is. I highly recommend this game and am honestly surprised with how fantastic this game turned out to be. They could have rehashed the original game and not added any extra stuff like buying weapons, armor, art, etc.. However, more story and more options simply make this one of the best games of the year. Enjoy!

Score: 5 out of 5 CoGs

Loren says, ”Assassin’s Creed II is a must buy for those that liked the original game no matter its problems. For those new to the series I would recommend reading a synopsis on the first game before getting into this one. Even those that disliked certain things about the original game should find enough fixes here to enjoy their time. The game flows better and allows you to do what you want when you want to.”

*Note - Review based upon the Xbox 360 version of the game

[Goronmon]

Awesome game. I enjoyed the first quite a bit so this was an easy choice for me. They've added so many nice touches, like upgrading the villa, that I'm getting even more addicted to playing this version.

[bapenguin]

Too many mother friggin games! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[AgtFox]

Originally Posted by bapenguin

Too many mother friggin games! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yeah, just realized I've played over 40+ hours of in-game time on three games within the week (MW2, Ratchet and this). I did not expect this game to be so long, but then again I allowed it to be this long. Most people are saying if you blow through only story missions and related side missions that must be completed you can beat it in 8 hours. I have a hard time believing that though.

[jpublic]

On one hand, ^&@#$&^*&@^*!! Ubisoft for delaying the PC ver to 2010. OTOH, thank god.

[Goronmon]

Originally Posted by bapenguin

Too many mother friggin games! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I cannot remember gaming ever being like this. I am currently trying to play Assassin's Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Left 4 Dead 2 and just added Demon's Souls to my list.

[Kelegacy]

I think Dragon Age will win RPG of the year, though it will be going up against Demon's Souls--which less people have played and it is also more of a niche title. It will be an easy defeat probably.

For GotY overall, I still bet on Uncharted. That we have so many games to choose from for GotY is an awesome thing. This is why I don't think we need another console anytime soon. A few more years at least. We're still producing such incredible games.

I was thinking of renting AC2 this coming week, but I might just wait and buy it instead a bit down the road. Liked the first until I got to the halfway point and realize I was just doing the same stuff over and over--I still beat it and enjoyed it though. AC2 sounds better, but I don't know if I'm confident enough to go out and buy it right now, even with the glowing reviews. Or, I should say, even if I had the money.

[Ink Asylum]

I don't see anything in this review that I disagree with. I'm only past my second assassination but I am so impressed, and I already loved the first game despite its faults.

I would like to mention that along with giving you more options for weapons and items, the game also adds a lot more stealth options. The blend ability especially is greatly improved. Whereas in the first game you could only blend with people on benches or wandering groups of monks you can now walk into the middle of any static or wandering group of people and become effectively invisible from the guards. It is a lot of fun, albeit slow, to move from crowd to crowd in order to pass guards on the ground.

You can even hire a group of courtesans to act as a player controlled group, although one would think a quartet of scantily clad ladies dancing around you would be more suspicious. Perhaps people think you're their pimp. It's also fun to sic the courtesans on guards, distracting them to allow you to stride right past. The same trick can be achieved by hurling a handful of coins on the street, and considering you can easily pickpocket that back it's tempting to abuse the tactic seeing how well it works.

[Iron Past]

Once you find the glyph and go into Eagle vision

I don't know if you just typed this weird or if you looked for the glyphs with your 'regular' eyes, but they are much, much easier to find in Eagle Vision (which you can now move around in). They glow red and shoot off little sparks. In fact, all collectibles are neon in Eagle Vision, which is nice against the gray background.

I totally agree with the review, though.

[AgtFox]

The glyphs I did find I used regular eyes. Not a fan of Eagle vision because everything is too dark for moving around except for the colors on people. I attempted to use Eagle vision a few times and it didn't help me at all with finding the glyphs. I do plan on continuing to play and find the glyphs though.

I changed the wording slightly. I'm not 100% sure if you have to be in Eagle vision to actually hit the Y button in order to go into the puzzle. It's been many hours since I did a glyph, I just gave up on them when I figured out they were somewhat difficult to find. I'll go back and finish that part off, but for now I need some much needed down time.

[Iron Past]

Originally Posted by AgtFox

The glyphs I did find I used regular eyes. Not a fan of Eagle vision because everything is too dark for moving around except for the colors on people. I attempted to use Eagle vision a few times and it didn't help me at all with finding the glyphs. I do plan on continuing to play and find the glyphs though.

I changed the wording slightly. I'm not 100% sure if you have to be in Eagle vision to actually hit the Y button in order to go into the puzzle. It's been many hours since I did a glyph, I just gave up on them when I figured out they were somewhat difficult to find. I'll go back and finish that part off, but for now I need some much needed down time.

Ah, I see. Eagle Vision is tough to move around in (I assume on purpose), but I'd usually go get a good vantage point then turn it on and scan around; like I said, just look for glowing red or the white swirly things that swim around them. As long as you're in Eagle Vision, you go right into the puzzle when you step in front of them. I've done seven, I think, but the hardest so far were those circular ones that would change more than one line. Tricky bastards.

[Telefrog]

Dammit! I am not going to get to play this until Christmas. Grrr...

[AliasRomanian]

Yeah this is going onto my xmas list as well. I wasn't a fan of the first one because of all the repetitiveness but it seems like this on has more unique missions.

[ElektroDragon]

Originally Posted by Goronmon

I cannot remember gaming ever being like this. I am currently trying to play Assassin's Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Left 4 Dead 2 and just added Demon's Souls to my list.

What are we going to do about the deluge of good games? Are we going to do the rational thing and stop buying new games until we catch up? I'd have to go for a good 5 years without buying a new game, I think. I'm having trouble just with AC2, Dragon Age, Demon's Souls, and the rest of my huge unplayed list. Some games like DMC4, Ninja Gaiden II, RE5 I bought new a year ago and haven't had time to touch for more than 10 minutes. I have over a dozen games like that.

[ElektroDragon]

And speaking of this review.... does a high profile game like this that everyone knows will be awesome really need a review? Was anyone really on the fence about this game?

[Superman's Dead]

Originally Posted by ElektroDragon

And speaking of this review.... does a high profile game like this that everyone knows will be awesome really need a review? Was anyone really on the fence about this game?

I'm gonna go with yes. A lot of people had misgivings about the repetition and loose controls of the first game, and I think the insights here would help clear some of that up for folks.

[Grifter]

Originally Posted by bapenguin

Too many mother friggin games! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

All's I have to say is, "Thank God for Gamefly!"

[johnperkins21]

Originally Posted by AgtFox

What's Not: Loose controls still give some fits here and there, although by the end I was once again one with Ezio; inability to skip cutscenes hurts when you have to replay after dying; you MUST turn on subtitles or you won’t understand the Italian spoken words which are translated in the subtitles; glyphs are difficult to find and they connect to something quite interesting in the game; can't skip cutscenes

I take it you really hated not being able to skip cutscenes.

[Kielaran]

Good to see such a glowing review. This one is on my 'Must eventually buy' list. I have too much other stuff right now to warrent a purchase and I figure by the time everything has slowed down, I should hopefully be able to get it for 40$. Then again, I can always see myself breaking down and buying it on a whim one day.

[Harv]

Originally Posted by ElektroDragon

And speaking of this review.... does a high profile game like this that everyone knows will be awesome really need a review? Was anyone really on the fence about this game?

The first one got glowing reviews from various outlets even before it came out and then after it debuted a number of reviews came out labeling it boring and repetitious. So, I say the more reviews the merrier.

I purchased the first one for around $20 only to find that I did think it was boring and repetitious. Even after all the good reviews for this one I'm still on the fence about whether I want to get it or not.