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Review: Assassin’s Creed II

Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on PC, PS3. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Published by Ubisoft.

In 2007, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed, a much hyped open world game set during the Crusades. Known before release equally for producer Jade Raymond’s appealing smile and interesting premise, the game received mixed reviews and sold like gangbusters anyway. Despite the problems (a very by the numbers mission system and repetition), a sequel was assured and two years later, we have Assassin’s Creed II.

Pic- Ezio Auditore- Assassin, lover, pickpocket. Hey! My wallet!

Assassin’s Creed II builds on the strong fundamentals from the original game in a way not seen often enough in videogames. Desmond is now free of Abstergo and working with a fish lipped Kristen Bell avatar and Switch from the Matrix and Wesley Windom Pryce from Angel, using their own Animus to delve into the world of the Templars. Here, Desmond enters the mind of Ezio Auditore, a Renaissance lad-about-town in 15th century Florence. Ezio becomes an Assassin and immediately sets off on a quest of revenge, intrigue and adventure. Make no mistake, this is firmly rooted in the world of Ezio with the ‘modern world’ only coming into a play a few times.

The free-roaming and combat have been refined slightly- they were pretty well done in the first game but polished a bit more here. You have high profile and low profile actions. Low profile means walking and gently pushing people out of the way, high profile means parkour, sprinting and battle and being badder-assed than Charles Bronson on a Jest Ski. It also will pique the interest of guards- they were profiling even back then. Climb on the roof and the fuckers will hunt you down like a dawg.  You will gather an array of weapons throughout your playtime such as hidden knives, daggers, swords, etc and can earn money to buy them from Blacksmiths in each town. You can also buy better armour as you progress, change the colour of your robes, buy maps and even paintings to display in your villa (more later).

So if you played the first game you know how it all works. Here you don’t need to go to the Assassin’s Guild in order to be given a target, it happens far more organically. There’s more of a story being told, even if it’s the same deal- kill ‘x’ targets bit it doesn’t feel anywhere as quantized as the original game. Unlike the first one, missions are more asymmetric in that you don’t have three towns each rigidly cut up into three quarters and  there are the same numbers of each type of mission in each area. Here you visit half a dozen locations but some are larger and more important than others. You will be spending most of your time in Florence and Venice with some sojourns to other places such as Tuscany, Forli and your family Villa in Monteriggioni.

Story missions are far more varied this time around with a good mix of things to do. Early on at least, you will will want to earn some money so side quests are useful if you want to be a courier, assassinate someone for money, beat-up a straying husband or race someone.

Pic- Ezio hangs out with his homes

If you don’t feel like doing that, the world is ridden with treasure chests, maps of which are available from art dealers. There are many many things to collect such as feathers for your catatonic mother, but most interesting are the six tombs which are necessary for the story’s resolution but not part of the main quest. Some tombs focus on combat, some on puzzles and others on tricky platforming. This mix of things to do and collect means you can spend quite a lot of time in this world or sneakcraft. Another of the non-optional collectibles are the codex pages, which help you on your quest via health and equipment upgrades from your friend, Lenny DV. The beauty of ACII is that the game gives you enormous freedom and lots of ways to achieve your goal (and hide from the law afterward). You can blend with crowds, hire mercenaries, thieves and courtesans to lure guards away, use bombs to get in close to an objective, etc. It’s a well designed game in almost every way. Just one question. WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE DONE THIS TWO YEARS AGO, UBISOFT ?!?!
Combat has many options such as being able to block, dodge, disarm enemies, etc. But you don’t need half of them since you can have so many health boosts that you can get by with just pressing the same attack button over and over if that’s your bag. I suppose if you want more of a challenge, don’t upgrade your medicine pouch’s carrying ability at the tailor.

Since you earn money, one of the things you can do is upgrade the town of Monteriggioni. Why? Your renovations increase the value of the town and as Lord of the manor, you earn money this way. Later in the game you earn so much from missions and finding treasure and your rental income from the villa exceeds what you need to stock up on consumables like medicine, poison and the like that you can also end up collecting artworks. And that all adds to the brilliant atmosphere conjured by UbiMon. You feel like you’re there so much that some gamers have taken to playing the game with Italian audio on. This option does also cancel out Kristen Bell’s voice in the modern scenes, and unfortunately, Uncharted Guy.

Uncharted 2 has garnered many awards for beautiful graphics but I think ACII is right up there with it’s open world that’s not only technically brilliant but gorgeous to look at. The only major graphical sin is some fairly obvious pop-in when moving though the cities, even with the games fantastic draw distance (evident when you synchronize on a viewpoint). The framerate is smooth throughout though the latter stages of the game (like many games) do tend to have some areas where scripting and cutscenes seems somewhat rushed.

The sound is also worthy of consideration as it’s very slickly produced and although there’s still way too much repetition from some of the NPC’s, it’s not as bad as the first game where you had the exact same lines been repeated in different accents depending on which area you were in. I do know Luigi the fish merchant can’t be beaten for prices or the freshness of his catch. That much I have learned from this game. Here, almost everyone has an Italian accent, mostly convincing ones at that. And no matter what language you play the game in, the script features copious amounts of Italian dialogue which is why the subtitles come in (I did think the line “what, no fucking ziti?” was out of place). Ezio may sound like a reject from The Godfather but it never grates the way Altair’s bland American accent did in the first game. Ezio has passion and sensitivity. Altair was a cock. Of course, in the few short present days scenes outside of the Animus we have the voices of Kristen Bell and Nolan North AGAIN (we was also Prince of Persia and Drake and Shadow Complex guy).

Pic- Of course, Ezio is unlikley to appear in the next game so here he is carrying his stuff home in a cardboard box after he was let go.

If Uncharted 2 hadn’t been so great, I could have seen this is as a GOTY 2009 quite easily. Why? It’s a very good game that fixes almost everything that was broken in the first game. ACII is a must play.
Controller1.com rating 3/3