How is it that in 2010, I'm playing a game that is so well done and generally so smooth, yet the entire progress of the game hinges on me battling it out with the poor in-game control design platforming system?
 
I played countless hours, day after day. Having a great time. Looking forward to completing the game. Then I get to the carnival and the "timed checkpoint free run mission". You know - the one where you have to hit 16 checkpoints in something like two minutes -- only everything is dark as fuck and just when you're sure you have it nailed down, you go one way and the character goes an entirely different way -- a different wall. A different grapple. Falls off. Leaps up when you want to go to the side. Drops to the ground when you just want to drop to a ledge. Whatever.
 
Maybe I'm just too old for this shit. Maybe I just don't have the reaction time anymore. Who knows? But really -- what a major flaw in game design for you to take what was a pretty strong and consistent momentum in game play and progression and just throw it into a brick wall with this one "can't go any further, until you do this!" bullshit gimmicky "mission".
 
After several days playing it non-stop and then giving this mission about thirty failed attempts itself, I took the disc out. I put in Mass Effect -- which I had never played through since I bought it on launch day -- and played through the entire game in two sessions. Had a fantastic time. And now I'm sitting here debating whether to put something else in. . . or (and I'm exhausted just contemplating this) . . . return to Assassin's Creed 2.
 
And I thought the capture the flag mission was bullshit (how many times did it start me off facing the wrong fucking direction in a competition where the split second required to turn around can mean the difference between winning and losing?). That was nothing compared to this.

I completed that mission on my second try.
 
Oh yeah, watch my e-peen grow.

I have to be honest, while I didn't enjoy that part of the game that much, I didn't find it that difficult. My character would go off in the wrong way every now and again but I felt the time constraints were just about lenient enough to allow for that.  
You really should keep playing, just grind through that part, it's worth playing until the end.

The night scenes are fairly light and especially in the carnival you should be able to see what is happening.
 
Anyways it was just one free run. The game does a great job in melding in side missions to the normal narrative. This is the only spot where it appears you must complete these tasks to advance where every time else it is melded nicely into the fiction.
 
I rarely had issues with the grappling of items and if their was an issue it was because the camera did not move and adjust well enough and I fell. I played that mission maybe two or three times and it was mainly that i had to remember where the next checkpoint would be at. Try again or check out a vid: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaPJCpUAbS4

Yeah, I wasn't fond of that mission and the other contests that followed all that much. Reminded me of Mirror's Edge, because I failed a bunch of times, but when I got it right, it looked damn cool.

That mission was the least of problems with that game. Many other factors made the experience much less enjoyable than what it could have been, that is not to say that Assassin's Creed II is not a great game. Because it is. Awesome.

I had no problems whatsoever with that race. I only found the first one in San Gimigniano to be a REAL bitch.

Bro, calm down. Take a deep breath. Repeat after me... ! "I CAN DO THIS!!" In all honesty, I did those missions on my first try, heck, I don't even remember having a hard time on the "go-and-get-back-the-flag" mission. Oh, and lol @ Mass Effect, that game is sooo janky.

I can see where you are coming from. I found the Carnival to be my least favorite segment, especially with that weird and somewhat out of place CTF mission.

I'm with John: a positive mental attitude goes a long way in a video game. Not to mention in life. Just come back to it in a couple days.

It's not a matter of it being a small element of the game. Lots of games have a bit here and there that detracts from the overall experience, but is easily forgotten or forgiven in the overall experience. The problem is in making that one idiotic and absurdly difficult (or at least, due to occasionally frustrating mechanics) a roadblock in the central path of the game. Sticking it in there as a hurdle that you must pass -- not to get a shiny bobble or extra experience or "gamer score", but to actually even progress through the game.
 
And if it was something intresting, I'd actually feel challenged by it and intrigued. But it's the most gimmicky game mechanic from every game, thrown right in as a great big annoying hurdle. I suppose I might pass it if I sat down and tried another 170 times . . . but frankly, I haven't touched the game since I took it out at that point. I've played Mass Effect again. Godfather again. Godfather II for the first time. More Borderlands. Assassin's Creed II is sitting there on the rack... just can't bring myself to jump back into something I know is going to piss me off for another few hours until I randomly slip past the "parkour" race test thing.

I think you're making it into a bigger deal than it is...to complete that, just take your time to make sure you jump where you need to.  I tried to rush through the first time only to jump off and get completely messed up...next time, I simply took a second there to make sure I knew exactly where I was going and had no issue with it whatsoever.

i do agree that one wrong move and your screwed
and ezio doing the wrong thing has happened several times
but anyway, i bet that race on my 2nd or 3rd try

I vaguely recall where you mean, i think i narrowly got it on the second turn.
 
Try not to rush it so much? Practice the route you take?
 
I'm really not sure how to help.
 
@ArbitraryWater said:

" I can see where you are coming from. I found the Carnival to be my least favorite segment, especially with that weird and somewhat out of place CTF mission. "

If I remember correctly, I beat it on my second try. Not saying your no good though, far from it. Having played Assassin's Creed 1 (and I'm sure I'll be out-voted on this one) I feel like I can say that it had better controls. See, the best way I can describe the controls, is "magnetic". As you run towards things, the game creates a magnetic pull that brings you toward wherever you're supposed to be going. Take the leaps of faith as an extreme example. Are you always pointing exactly at that haystack? Nope, you're pointing away from the ledge and jumping, and you end up in a haystack. This same mechanic is sort of seen in the free-running. As you are about to perform a jump, the game guesses what you're aiming for, and puts you there. This is the problem with open world free-running. If compared to, let's say, Uncharted 2, we can see that it avoids these problems by having one possible movement. So, when you jump, there's only one magnetic point, and you always get to where you're supposed to be. In AC2, on any jump, there could be ten or 15 magnetic points. So, the game has to guess, depending on where you're pointing your joystick, which of these points you really want to go to. It gets it wrong. Often. But usually this problem is easily forgiven, because really, you're just trying to get somewhere, and the fun of free-running outweighs the annoying falls. 
 
In your specific case, or any cases I would assume (I finished the game without playing a single optional race) the game expects you to finish a race in a given time. In order for the developers to decide on a time, they created a course. There is one way of going about the jumps that will get you to pass this mission. The problem lies in the fact that they didn't alter the way the game is played in this segment. What I mean is, it's still an open world. Where usually there are 15 magnetic points, the developers want you to jump to a certain one. Jump to a wrong magnetic point, and there is little time to course correct. The problem is, simply put, that there are multiple waypoints. In an open world, there should be ONE waypoint, and you are allowed to take any actions necessary to reach that goal within the time allotted. The other answer is to instance a race. Create borders along the area you want the player to race. This reduces confusion, and eliminates all unnecessary magnetic points. Either of these solutions leaves any failures squarely on the players shoulders. 
 
I'm sorry that such a little thing is ruining your enjoyment of the game. It really is an awesome game, having just finished it. It has its problems, but all open world games have problems. I believe this will be the last time you'll be forced into a race mission, and you can get on with what you love from the game. It's worth it. If you want advice, here's why I passed on my second try: I played the race, and I was able to nearly make it in time. In the first try, I was careful to notice all the jumps that I was meant to make in order to achieve a win. On my second try, even after making a few mis-jumps, I finished with ample time.  
 
Edit: and I'm sorry this was so long, I always seem to start off on forums with a small idea, and can't stop writing.

I know what you mean. The remote controlled air plane mission in San Andreas took me literally a month to get past. 

I honestly don't even remember that part, so it must not have given me much trouble.

" I know what you mean. The remote controlled air plane mission in San Andreas took me literally a month to get past.  "

That part was a little annoying, but it didn't take more than 3 or 4 tries for me.  I can't think of any time a game has been to hard for me to progress, except just a few times in games with puzzles where I just stopped trying then got it my first time the next day.

Necropost...

This mission annoyed me so much, on a grand scale the platforming works really well but I found that small movements dont really work all that well. It never really came up during many missions but this mission was one of them, so many times I was telling Ezio to move forward but instead jumped 90 degress off a wall and down two stories which made me lose the mission multiple times. I did it eventually but I never felt like it was anything I did that choose between success and failure.

I went back to it two months later and did eventually beat it after three tries. The point still remains that it's ridiculous to place such an inane stumbling block that has very little to do with anything other than being a time filler to pad out your game, yet hold you back entirely from further progression. And it's not like I haven't been playing games for the better part of my entire life, so I have every reason to expect to be able to get past such things in a reasonable number of tries.
 
The other part of that series of competitions has some stumbling blocks, too. For instance, when you have to race against the other guy to grab the flag.  Good luck being the first to get to it if you are in the unfortunate situation of the mini-game *always* starting you out with the camera facing the opposite direction. The tiny amount of time it takes to manually re-orient your camera so you can see where the hell you're going is more than enough to lose you the race by a mile. And yet, on another save, it always started me in the right direction. Go figure.
 
I found the rest of the game to be enjoyable, except for the entire series of carnival events that I found flat out stupid and a waste of my time. I'll likely return some day to finish the tombs, but I have absolutely no intention of touching any of the worthless DLC.

I agree, whenever you had to do something quickly, like chase someone down or checkpoint runs, I too often got screwed over by the controls. The solution is to take everything a bit slower than you would really like to, but so the game reads where you wanna go better. 
 
 
And yeah that CTF part was horrid. I think that segment had rubber banding AI, because I'd capture 2 easily, then he'd get to the flag a lot quicker and I had to tackle him. The most annoying part of that segment for me was that the barrier was like 2 feet away from where you started, so the bad direction reading once took me off through the barrier and so I desynchronized right there. It was a really frustrating moment.

" you go one way and the character goes an entirely different way -- a different wall. A different grapple. Falls off. Leaps up when you want to go to the side. Drops to the ground when you just want to drop to a ledge. Whatever "

You're a bitch

I didn't mind the carnival missions. I played through the game twice and don't recall having a problem either time. By that part of the game you should be pretty familiar with the controls.  
 
Now, that stupid flying mission, that was awful. 

" You're a bitch "

Those carnival missions were probably the most tense missions in the game for me.  I hate being timed or having to race in a game where I can stab dudes in the face.

I loved AC2 but the weak combat and it being almost impossible to die held it back for me