The Sequel to Assassins Creed, ‘creatively’ named Assassins creed 2 immerses players in the wonderfully vibrant and gorgeous world of renaissance Italy. One thing to note before even considering to buy the game is that the newly developed DRM protection requires a constant connection to the internet as all saved games go through ubisoft’s online servers. The adverse effects? If you disconnect from the server, you can't save your game and lose all previous data. Or in some circumstances, the ubisoft servers crashes and you can't play the game and have to waste your night doing productive tasks such as assignments or having a life. A big round of applause to Ubisoft for coming up with this ingenuously stupid idea.
Putting away the monstrosities of the DRM protection made by Ubisoft, Assassins Creed 2 delivers to the hype it received. Assassins Creed 2 to transports players to renaissance Italy, which is a nice change from the bleakness and bareness of the Middle East in Assassins Creed. It takes place during the Renaissance period and craftily uses many references to history to create an intriguing storyline. Your best friend will be no other than the world-renown, world famous, Leonardo Da Vinci who later on in the story will craft new weapons and even a flying machine for you. Another very interesting moment worth a mention is the introduction to your Uncle Mario. I won't spoil it; you'll have to play the game itself to experience the hilarity of the first line he says in the game. However getting back to virtual reality, of course, you are still in the animus and are continuing on from the first game and Desmond is still training to become the incredible James Bond super human character as before.
Assassin Creed 2, introduces many new aspects of game play, that might I say, were much needed in the first game. First of all you will notice a new currency system. Currency can be used for buying new equipment, getting healed, or upgrading your villa later on in the game, all those usual things. Where this concept unfortunately crumbles, is the fact that money is so abundant in the game in the latter stages of the game, that collecting money from your stash in you villa becomes a chore. What's this stash you talk of, I hear you ask. Well another newly introduced concept into Assassins Creed 2 is the ownership of an entire town. Of course, like it is in every game, what you get isn't too flash, and it is up to you to rebuild and refurnish it. Once you upgrade the particular buildings, you will receive more cash every twenty minutes and the inhabitants/workers that use the particular building, will begin to populate the area.
The game play itself has not changed dramatically, the basics are still the same. Climb on buildings and roofs, fight and kill an imcomprehendable amount of guards, and assinate your target. If anything, Assasins Creed 2 has shifted its focus from running away like a pathetic coward to standing and facing your challenges. Often it’s easier to fight your way out of situations watching Ezio, the Italian Assassin, perform uncanny fight moves in a close up and bloody mini cut-scene. The combat now introduces different swords with different damages and attributes to each one. In addition to these new swords (not that you can really tell the difference), you can now fight and block with not 1, but 2 assassin blades. These were my weapons of choice due to their speed and classy and very painful executions, e.g. dual blades through the cheeks of your face. OUCHIES!
This time, Ubisoft have opted for a more free roaming feel towards it, with many side missions such as being a delivery boy, stripping down posters to decrease your notoriety, and assassinating certain people. The main missions however have more of a storyline behind them and the format contrasts to the first games. You don't need to find certain bits of data to help you assinate the person of importance this time. You basically just follow the game's missions to advance through the story. This is a much better feel compared the first game where the collection of information through tedious missions that required minimal amount of intelligent human interaction such as eavesdropping or merely bashing up a guy. Another aspect that this game improves on from the first, is that you will need to complete a fair bit of the game to acquire the complete set of weapons and skills of Ezio. This gives a motivation for players to keep on playing and stops the game play from become excruciatingly repetitive.
The storyline is amazing. Absolutely amazing, and leaves you in complete suspense at the end. So what is it about? Well it happens to be the old revenge plot again. Ezio's family is plotted against and his all males in his family executed for false reasons. Ezio vows to get the bottom of this and that is where his journey begins, slowly killing off his father’s conspirators until he reaches the head conspirator. When it finishes you feel as though you need to march right into the Ubisoft office with a shotgun and demand the writers to tell you what happened in the end (while you’re at it you could also demand the removal of the DRM protection). Fortunately, there will be another game and work has already commenced which is a good sign. How long must we wait? No clue. Sorry for giving you hope before.
Graphically Assassins creed 2 does not differ much from the game it succeeds, but the vibrancy of the colours in the cities and the overcast foggy atmosphere of the outer grounds really does add an atmosphere for the game. You probably won’t need some awesomely tripped out rig to play this game but make sure you do have a decent computer. Soundwise, the thematic music really puts you in the mode in certain missions. The voice acting adds an extra element to the characteristics of the characters and they mostly have beautiful Italian accents.
All in all, is this game worth the money you paid for it? Well if you haven't played Assassins Creed, you will be dumbfounded by it and be drooling with your mouth open for several consecutive days while you put away your life to try to find out what happens at the end. If you have played assassins creed, your symptoms will not be as bad but you will definitely have to put time aside to kill your curiosity as you probably are already used to confusing endings with huge suspense. It’s definitely worth your buck and it’s a relief to a gamer after so many feeble attempts at games have come out over the past few months.
GF365: "Oftentimes, video games have characters who are antagonistic and really not very pleasant. Here are some of the friendliest characters in games where you might not otherwise expect to find them."
This weekend from August 10-14, players can play for free Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, Revelations, Black Flag and Valhalla on Xbox, PlayStation and PC (availability dependent on platform).
GF365: "Most games are not perfect and that may be because of a character or an enemy. Here are 10 mediocre bosses in great games."
The Pursuer from Dark Spuls 2 was great, I think the author just sucks at games.
