Wicked Game Review
Assassins Creed is a great IP. An open sandbox world that's rich, detailed, highly populated, and full of
potential. With its go anywhere climb / anything mentality, Assassins Creed was one of the best IP's
that have come out in the last several years. Unfortunately it was plagued with some spotty
platforming, repetitive missions, boring combat, and a very dry main character. On the flip side the
assassinations were fantastic, the story was very engaging and was intriguing till the very end, and the
combat (while repetitive) was very visceral and bloody. Now that we have Assassins Creed 2 we get a
new character (sort of), an expansion of the story, more combat and a evolved experience that is well
worth embarking on.
Story:
Again you are following the story of a modern day bartender Desmond Miles, who is a descendant of a
ancient group of assassins. AC2 picks off right were Assassins Creed left off. After you break out of
captivity you are thrown into Animus 2.0, there you are told that you need to learn how to be a assassin
(because the first game was for fun) by living through a different ancestors memories in 15th century
Italy, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Ezio character starts out as spoiled nobleman who is care free and
childish. Very shortly in the game, his life is shattered when his family is torn apart and he is forced to
uncover a conspiracy of the ones involved. During the quest for vengeance he goes from spoiled brat to
full fledged assassin while killing off everyone responsible. The story is fairly unique in the way that it
tells it though great cinematic events that you take part in. From seeing how Ezio is born, to helping
Leonardo Da Vinci move to Venice, or even testing out Da Vinci's famous flying machine, the set
pieces help draw you into the experience. To help add to that, towards the end of the game you are
thrown curve balls in terms of story that are contrast to what you would expect to see from the AC
universe. Leading up to a grand finish that left wanting for next game right then.
Presentation:
In terms of graphics, they haven't really changed much from the first game. But they do look better in
terms of the details of the characters, foliage, buildings, and water: but only slightly. Its not bad
because for all the activity on the screen of you running and the people below you walking around, it
still looks beautiful, and runs at about 40-60 frames. Going along with that everything is animated very
fluidly. From Ezio running and jumping from roof top to roof top, combat, climbing up the sides of
buildings, Ezio's movements are stunning. Some of the normal pedestrians do suffer from being stiff
and lack of emotion but there just pedestrians. The people that you hire through out the game are nicely
rendered and are very believable with the exceptions of thieves whom look a little robotic and and do
not animate well when they are free running (platforming). Wide open fields make a appearance
outside of all the towns but they feel mostly unexciting and rendering is a little dull compared to the
rich towns. However it is very nice to ride a horse outside at night (a night and day cycle was added) as
it can give you a sense of calm. One of the biggest faults of the first game was that some of the voice
acting was flat. The main character Altair had a American accent when everyone else had a middle
eastern dialect. AC2 surpasses its predecessor in every way with Ezio's voice sounding excellent going
from young teenager to old man with a spice of revenge, makes his character even more believable. All
the dialog from the other characters is very convincing and feels genuine. In all the graphics and voice
work feels every evolved from Assassins Creed and is a great step towards the third installment.
Game Play:
The biggest change between the 2 games has to be in the game play. The combat is brutal, climbing is
fluid, a new economy system are great additions. One of the best features added to the game is the Dual
Hidden Blades. Not only does it let you kill 2 people at the same time, it lets you pull off some amazing
finishers that will make you go ouch. The combat was revamped a bit with the addition of different
main weapons, and hand to hand weapons. Being unarmed is a little daunting seeing how everyone has
sharp edges and you only have fists. Well that's fine because you can disarm your opponent and use
their weapon to kill them. That can range from swords and hammers to halberds and pikes. That makes
combat free flowing, brutal, and satisfying. How ever the bad guys will still attack you one at a time
instead of trying to swarm you. To add variety they made clubs a weldable weapon that have there own
unique feel to combat, though the best weapon in the game is a sword. To help make the game more
expansive, a economy system was added. While broken, the economy system is a very nice addition to
make it feel like your not doing random missions for nothing. You can buy health potions (as your
health no longer regenerates), throwing knives, weapons, armor, escorts, mercenaries, and plenty more.
The biggest problem is that its to easy to accumulate money. The village that you fix up is your main
source of income. After about 3 hours into the game, my village was giving me 15k gold every 15 min
for just running around and doing nothing. While not a bad thing, it really wasn't much of a challenge
to get the later weapons and armor. The biggest complaint that everyone had for the first game is that it
had the same 3 repetitive missions. Those have almost disappeared. Now you just have Assassin
Missions, Mail Courier, Speed, and beat them up missions. Every mission has there own twist/story to
them to never make them repetitive and boring. The platforming took a big roll in AC2 as one of the
main side quests make you go through assassins tombs that require precision and coordination to reach
the prize of a new piece or armor for each tomb. While precision is a little hard to accomplish which
makes the tombs harder, the platforming is still fantastic. The system all together culminates in near
perfection, with some very small glitches.
Conclusion:
Assassins Creed 2 could be looked at as what the first game should of been. With great story, graphics,
game play, AC2 is a great combination of elements that can keep anyone occupied for many hours.
Even through its faults I'm waiting for the downloadable content for AC2 and the 3rd installment that
will help cap off this amazing series.
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