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Despite the huge success of Assassin's Creed in 2007 , there's no denying the game's weakness when it comes to enemy AI and mission variety. Two major problems made lots of gamers including myself less excited about the sequel that was released on November 17th. Does the new game still hold the same mistakes of its predecessor or Ubisoft guys did manage to overcome them ?
Before getting into the gameplay evaluation, I'd like to start with what Assassin's Creed franchise is the best : THE STORY.
Assassin's Creed 2 starts with a big event where Desmond escape form the Templar jail and get introduced to the Assassin's of the present. At their hideout, the Assassins possess the same technology we saw with the Templar in the first game but what is different this time is that they are no more interested with what Atair did but with the events that happened during Ezio's life, a new Assassin form the 15th century and whose subject 16 was always interested in. In a summarized way the story follows the mystery of the events that happened during this Assassin's life (conspiracy, prophesy, ...) in addition to the discovery of an encrypted video divided into a series of files that where uploaded into the program. I won't talk about the story much longer cause I'm sure it is best for you to discover it on your own, but I a have a little comment concerning the end : It is very flew and the "wow what just did happened" style. Personally I can't figure out what Assassin's Creed is about for real, it makes me a bit disappointing and in the same time more attached to this game series.
The creators used true, existing, non-fictional characters in a very logical clever way; to express the power and the evilness of the Templars they used Rodrigo Borgia who is considered the worst Pope ever to enter the Vatican as the Templar boss, and characters like Leonardo Divinity and Machiavelli (will have a big role in the DLC) as Assassin's.
Pickpocket, delivering messages, beat up, eavesdropping where the only missions you've accomplished while playing the first Assassin's Creed. The world was divided into three almost identical cities that where in their turn divided into three districts : rich, medium and poor . That was the case in 2007 but not in 2009. In Assassin's Creed 2 these things does not exist anymore.
The main missions are all different, none look like the other even if sometimes there is a resemblance in the objective : Assassinate, tail someone, ... . The reason behind that is that the missions are now linked to the story; you feel the existence of an interaction between what you are playing now and what is happening and how the story will evolute. You set your targets, your next move according to the info you get form the missions which was not the case in the first game where it was predetermined that you have to kill nine people. The traditional missions of the first game does exist as secondary missions and remarkably it was fun to beat them all. In addition to that other side quests are available such as:
* Collecting the 20 encrypted files in order to reveal a video : "The Truth"
* Exploring the six assassin's Tomb in order to get Atair's Armor. These missions does feel like your playing "Tomb Raider" with all those timed climbing.
* Rebuilding your uncle's Villa.
Assassin's Creed 2's gameplay is strongly based on the previous game with some changes that cannot be ignored and are not considered as radical.
Similar to a GTA style, every time you break a rule you gain felony that will allow the guards to recognize you faster. When felony limit is reached you'll have no where to hide, guards will directly know you and start chasing you. At this point your only way to evade that is to blend. Well blending is much realistic this time: gone are the days where you had to walk so slowly in order to blend, instead now you have to take advantage form people walking around and walk between them. To lower your felony level you have either to bride some dude talking in the streets either remove "wanted papers" hanged on walls. Here I have a big complaint about the "Wanted papers" places: All of them where placed in some irrational, non-logical place where no people can reach and read them (they where hanged in high places where you have to climb to get). I would preferred seeing them in low grounds where people were always looking at them to make it feel more realistic.
Another important addition to the game was the economical system: As in GTA every mission you play, every collection you make is rewarded with money. This allowed the developers to introduce shops where you can buy weapons, shields, paintings for your villa (since we are in the renaissance age), medicine, cloth. Allies on the streets are available to be hired so they can help you in your missions or chases.
Weapons are important in Assassin's Creed 2 and there are plenty of them. Every weapon has its unique animation in the counter attack move and since we are now in a more advanced age new technologies are available such as hidden pistol, smoke grenade, poison blade. All these new techniques can be combined in assassination missions to create you own style of killing.
Sadly most of the time you will forget about the new added stuff due to the game's difficulty which was very easy: In a chase most of the time you will be able get clear before being able hire some group to help you. In fights having weapons or not won't make that difference; personally I found that the most effective fighting style was using no weapons at all. And in assassination missions, the poor enemy AI made the game easy. Although poor AI is generally a big problem in a game, its presence in Assassin's Creed 2 did not affect the quality of the game. the reason is that through all the game you will be busy exploring the world you play in.
Climbing is as impressive as in the first game in addition you will learn a new ability that will allow you climb previously unreached higher places. While climbing is fluid and easy, running fast was annoying. This is due to the controls: To run you should hit the RT and A button and move your LS in the way you want to move which leaves no place to control the camera so in some occasions and when the camera angle isn't where you want it you will sometimes be taken to places you don't want to. Another bothering thing in the controls was the weapon change; every time you want to change weapons or take medicine you should hit the RB button and choose form the huge list you have, while from the 8 D-pad buttons only 3 are used for quick weapon change. They should have used the 8.
When it comes to graphics Assassin's Creed 2 isn't the best one. Looking at the environments form a distant angle was great but when they zoom out low resolution textures appears. Plus while walking you will always see details appearing in front of you which can be very annoying sometimes.
The game's presentation was very impressive and easy to learn. Using Geometric shapes in the menus was clever since we are in the "La Renaissance".
The game's music and sound was awesome. If you have the game, just walk in the streets and listen how the environment sound is clear and variant; people are talking, ..... .
Verdict
For the gamers who where disappointed by the first game I say that they should consider playing this game and change their idea about thefranchise. For fans I'm sure that they noticed the great improvements the Dev team had made. Just it is the game you cannot afford to miss
Scores:
Presentation: 9/10
Graphics: 7.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Fun Factor: 10/10
Overall (not an average): 9/10
