Ubisoft gets it right this time around!
Ubisoft gets it right, here's for my review of one of my favorite crack addictive games of the year. Available for the Xbox360, PS3, and sometime next spring for the PC. I give this game a well deserved 9/10.
The Good - So Ubisoft took what was a solid engine built to be the first title and made a real game out of it. What ever do I mean? Well, part 1 had a fairly nice graphics engine, cool premise, huge open world, and probably one of the best climbing mechanics I've seen in a game. Problem? There were like 3 or 4 objectives that you could only do and once the novelty of playing as an assassin, scaling roofs and whatnot got old....there simply wasn't much game there, repetition was the worst enemy of that game.
Fast forward 2 years, we have the sequel, which has you playing in Italian Renaissance times. You're a guy in the present, in a machine, tapping into the memories of one of your ancestors who happens to be in a lineage of assassins. You'll spend most of your time as Ezio, who dons a hood and cloak much like Altair in the 1st game, but much more stylish of course. Not only that, Ezio is way more interesting, his storyline in drawn out with interesting turns that really make you give a damn. Once you're built up to full assassin status, it's straight bad-assery here on out.
Just about all the problems most people had with the first game are fixed here. The cities are interesting and bubbling with life, there's ton of missions/objectives to do...not only are they not repetitive, they're pretty fun to do. It's one of those games that'll have you going, "just one more mission". You can change and upgrade your weapons load out now, along with armor, and even change your look by going to tailors and have them dye your gear. It really taps into that vanity of games some of us just get sucked into.
Of course the big stars of the show, the climbing and actual assassinating. Climbing feels pretty much the same as I remember, which is fun and dynamic as Ezio grabs whatever's nearby to maneuver. That system still works pretty well. Fighting I feel is improved, it's easy to get down the rhythm of things, and complex enough that you might not even do half the moves unless you take the time to learn them. And the assassinations are as satisfying as ever, you get plenty of different ways of dispatching your enemies. It's easy to get out of 'notorious' status to resume operations, unlike the first game. So you're not always on edge, the game wants you to have fun.
Finally, there's fast travel....no more riding horses for 10mins. at a time and worrying about getting attacked. Overall the game is pretty forgiving in it's difficulty but challenging enough to still be really fun. Lots of hidden stuff keeps you coming back for more. Long review here I know, but hey, the game's great and it's huge and the campaign is really long, I'm only scratching the surface.
The Bad - As solid as the controls are, there are times where Ezio will make a jump or turn where you just didn't want to. As you learn how to perfect the controls, you'll see most of that is your own fault, but it shouldn't be so easy to screw up. Minor beef there, hopefully will be fixed with the next game. The flying that was made so much as a big thing this past E3, is only present for one mission, that's disappointing.
The Ugly - Trying to remember what actually happened in the ending.....man, they take such a left turn and try to cram so much info is so little time it's insane. It's like taking a person who got sucked into the 1st season of Lost, then flipping the script being like "you know they're gonna be time traveling 4 seasons from now right?" Totally caps your head up.
