Assassin's Creed II

                           

Price – PS3 - $3.99 , Xbox 360: 320 ($4.00) Microsoft Points [DOWNLOAD HERE]

 

 Ever since the announcement that there was DLC coming for Assassin's Creed 2 I've been skeptical  that it would add anything new or interesting to the game. AC2 had extra content bleeding from its pores, so the DLC really couldn't add to that, and unless it was related to the overarching story of the Assassin's Creed series I couldn't really care less. So with a careful, yet hopeful heart I entered the DLC with the thirst for something interesting to hook me back into this world. Unfortunately I found nothing of the sort, and worse the DLC made me downright angry in a few places. 

So you know that cool, morbid-looking town of Forli that you wanted to explore, and that neat Caterina Sforza lady who had a pretty bloody history that you wanted to hang with? Well now there's an actual story for you to explore here instead of rushing past Forli just to get to Venice. If only it was any good. The DLC starts right after Ezio gets the Apple and decides to hide it in Forli, but unfortunately the city has been taken over and you are tasked with helping Caterina with taking back the city from the commanders of the invasion force, the Orsi brothers.   
 
 It sounds like a nice set-up, but unfortunately the entire chapter seems more like a poorly written fan-fic than an actual story that is anyway related to the complex story of AC2, and has a predictable cliff-hanger that leads into the next piece of DLC, it just adds nothing new or interesting to the main plot.  The new mission memories also have nothing interesting, and are down right terrible as you go from escort mission to escort mission fighting off huge waves of enemies over-and-over again. At least the DLC now adds the option to use da Vinci's Flying Machine so the people who missed the 'Fly Swatter' achievement/trophy don't have to run through the entire game again,  
  

Now to give a little backstory, this DLC and the second piece of DLC are both the missing chapters from the main game and I was curious in why they removed these chapters from it, but now after playing through the first one I can safely say I know why. Battle for Forli suffers from not just poor mission design and some odd new glitches which manage to stick Ezio to walls, but also slowing down the exciting and incredible story of AC2 to a grinding halt of mediocrity.

  
 The best part about the entire DLC is that Caterina at one point goes crazy and starts cussing out the invaders which is pretty hilarious, but the DLC ends at an obvious cliff-hanger that'll lead into the next piece of DLC that left a sour-taste in my mouth, I don't see any reason for anyone but the hardcore AC2 fanatics to buy it and finish this uninteresting story thread. Unless you were one of the few people who missed the 'Fly Swatter' achievement/trophy, or if you're  really just dieing to play some terrible escort missions.