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The Podcats: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

Talking about Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.

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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

Video: Assassin’s Creed II Video Review

Today Controller1.com presents a video review of Assassin’s Creed II via the medium of interpretive dance

So there’s other other stuff out there

So you don’t want to jump on the MW2 bandwagon. What do you play if you’ve already played Trials HD, Infamous, Uncharted 2, Shadow Complex, ODST et al to death?

NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS Wii (Wii)

A 2D Mario game along the lines of All New Super Mario Bros for the DS. let me repeat that: A 2D Mario game along the lines of All New Super Mario Bros for the DS!!! Now with a 4player coop mode similar to Legend of Zelda Four Swords. But it’s a mother fucking Mario game. And a motherfucking Mario platformer and a motherfucking motherfucking 2D Mario platformer! 2.5 D is the new 3D. Super Mario Galaxy was pretty good but I still enjoy the 2D mario games more (despite generally preferring 3D games).

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS (PC, 360, PS3)

EA/Bioware’s return to a fantasy-world hardcore western RPG. A tweak everything, serious, 100 gazilliion hours single player experience that makes Oblivion’s single player look brief. If you love RPG’s, have a lot of time on your hands and DON’T play WoW, you’ll probably love this.

BORDERLANDS (PC, 360, PS3)

Poor Gearbox. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride. Gearbox show that there is something for Fallout 3 fans this year. A shooter RPG with more weapons than Denmark (to paraphrase). The loot whore in us all can take heart in the post apocalyptic wasteland, and then shoot the shit out of it.

ASSASSIN’S CREED 2 (PC, 360, PS3)

Now, the first one was promise unfulfilled incarnate. If you loved doing what you did in the first hour enough to do it for another 15 with less variety than scenes in Groundhog Day, then you would have loved it. For everyone else there were lots of other, better games released then. Ubisoft say they’ve learned lots of lessons from their past mistakes. ORLY?

FORZA 3 (PS3)

What is likely to be one of the better regarded driving games of the year. So if you like driving games. Get this. If you don’t like driving games, get this and return it for store credit and get something you do like. Or don’t. Or do. I don’t care.

Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)

Overshadowed by Uncharted 2, there is a new R&C game out. And it may well be the last time Insomniac even attempts making a 60fps game. It’s not Resistance so it’s worth getting.

Saboteur (360, PS3)

I might be the only person interested in this game. I like WWII history. I find it an interesting subject (unlike many). Saboteur looks to be a fun take on the open world genre that has flummoxed Pandemic technically in the past.

A decent selection to be sure. And once you clear those there will be Mass Effect 2, Splinter Cell: Convictions and Bad Company 2 and much, much more… Bring it on!

E3 2009- part 1. I Need to Change my Pants

Controller1.com is not a news site, its a blog so rather than being your one stop shop for E3 news, we’ll just have some opinion. The show hasn’t opened yet but half the big publishers have already had conferences and briefings so I’m going to change my pants, recap my reactions to the news from MS, Activision, EA Ubisoft and others.

EA

Lego Rock Band and The Beatles Rock Band shows that EA and Harmonix can do the exact thing as Activision/ Neversoft- that is make a game once  and then reskin 15 times. Brutal Legend was demoed and I still don’t know what the hell the game is about- apart from Jack Black being involved somehow.  Is it a driving game? An action game? Saboteur from Pandemic has been on my radar for a while and hopefully its not just Mercenaries 2.5. Mass Effect 2 looks to have more awesome than an awesome star going supernova. Crysis 2 is coming and its on consoles as well. APB (from the makers of Crackdown) coming early in 2010 should be fun. I might need to get a gaming PC this year.
Dante’s Inferno seems to be another hellish God of War game but Bioware made a splash with the Old Republic trailer that made people who want Ewok porn care for Star Wars again.

Left 4 Dead 2!!! A Valve game where there’s been a yearly update. And it looks like it does everything Dead Rising didn’t do. I am looking forward to this in a way most Valve MP-focused games don’t ‘click’ for me.

Ubisoft

Red Steel 2 looks like Motion plus might actually be a worthwhile pickup for the Wii. But while Assassin’s Creed 2, if it fixes the flaws of the first game might be a great game, its Splinter Cell Conviction that looks to be THE Ubisoft game you buy at full price. The rest, you just wait for a few months to get it for a third of the launch price.

Activision

Wow, another Guitar Hero game. I could pass this year and just stick with Beatles Rock Band. Tony Hawk Ride, with its fancy controller, doesn’t appeal at all. But Modern Warfare 2 looks just as good as anything Infinity Ward have done to date. It will be a HUUUUGE game in 2009. Wolfenstein looks great, despite the fact the trailer tries to hide the fact its a WWII game.

Microsoft
Halo 3: ODST came and went which should be fun, but then Bungie and MS are doing Halo: Reach.
Buy ODST and you get a MP beta invite for Halo: Reach so things look interesting. Forza 3 for you hardcore racing fans will make the 360-owning revheads reaching for the tissues. Considering its likelihood to go up against GT5, it has better be impressive.

MS also showed off their new camera based controller. The thing is, it doesn’t use an actual controller. Natal looks to be goofy, Eyetoy-esque and fun for all the family. There needs to be more info. Peter Molyneux was there to talk about his new project with a boy called Milo. Its a virtual prisoner in a pit so the sadists should be satisfied. I’m still wondering why you would want to with Twitter and Facebook with your 360 but if it lets you do screenshots for sites like this, I’ll be interested. Alan Wake is coming early next year, and I continue to be intrigued but there’s Crackdown 2 from Ruffian games. Not only am I interested, but Cameron won’t be shutting the fuck up about this for the next year.

Oh and there’s a Metal Gear game on 360 featuring Raiden. To me, it sounds like a Ninja Gaiden style game but that’s just pure speculation.

And the show hasn’t even started yet.