Assassin's Creed II Review

 

"Magnificent!" my game rating- 9.9 / 10 ...

Ubisoft's release sequal of Assassin's Creed brought the gaming world to it's knees in 2009. The art department of AC knew that they must recreate environments that players would feel as though they were actually there. This also applied to it's NPC'S animations and combat. Despite the game being released for over 4 years, it still fascinates players and communities worldwide to this day. This review is designed to evaluate the game once more. Is the game truly great? Have the fans demands been met? Is the standard of a high quality? And what is it about this game that captures the positive response from fans and critics alike? In an earlier post, I asked you guys your opinions as to which Assassin's Creed game you liked the most and why. Your responses will be included in the review. So here we go!

 

 You are Ezio Auditore, a young Italian noble who lives with his sister (Claudia), Mother (Maria), oldest brother, younger brother and father (Giovanni) in Florence. In the first hour of gameplay, you and your friends are in the middle of a fist fight with the Pazzi and their friends. During the conflict, Ezio sustains a lip injury and heads to the doctor with his older brother. Once healed, he races to the church roof against his brother exclaiming "it's a good life we lead brother." Moments later, Ezio climbs up to the window of a young noble lady named Christina Vespucci and spends the night the her. Upon returning home, your family give you errands. After completing these ping pong missions, you discover that Giovanni and the rest of Ezio's brothers have been arrested. Thankfully the maid, mother and sister are safe within the Palazzo's office. After several events and escaping the city, you meet your uncle Mario who gives you a nice looking villa and extra training. The villa he gives you is part of the upgrading system for the town, shops you renovate will also grant you 5-15% discount as well as increasing your revenue. Within the villa, you also have a spacious gallery where the paintings you buy appear here, a nice looking armory, office, and a sanctuary where you are given the opportunity to recover the assassin seals to retrieve the armour of Altair.

 

So far, there is a lot to take in. Your understanding of the Assassin and Templar organisations are more complicated than first realised. The Templars firmly believe in order and stability whereas the Assassin's believe in man's freewill and wisdom. Indeed there are huge similarities between them. Some of you may ask: If they are so similar then why don't they work together? Well, you soon learn that this was tried and failed as each organisation have different way of approaching situations. Are the Assassin's really the good guys? These men and women are trained to kill their target whatever the means needed, no matter who they are. However; as Rebbeca Crane pointed out: "Sometimes all it takes is one death to improve the lives of others" Does this mean therefore that the Assassin's have a strong moral compass? That they only target men and women of evil minds? It would seem so.

If any of you ask which side I would want to be with, it would be the assassin's. I believe in freewill, not matter what religion or sex you are etc. Their history is rich, full of detail as well as mystery. Did an actual war exist between these two groups? Sadly, this isn't clear. However; we know the rise and fall of the Templars and their deeds during conflicts in cities such as Acre etc.



What I liked about the game

Their choice of theme and time for the game to take place. I believe the Renaissance was a hugely important period for man at this time. This was known as the "rebirth" of learning, from history to classics, inventing, mathematics, science, English, art and astrology studies. The amount of research is evident towards every aspect of the game, weather that may be environments, to attitudes, clothing, shops and even real life characters such as Leonardo Da Vinci. To me, the amount and the attention to detail is staggering. The storyline, is very good. Of-course it would have been nice to rescue or spend some more time with your other siblings. However; I think that if the father and brothers didn't die, then there would be no storyline or no where near as affective. There are some nice looking textures, not just in the fabric of the cities but also in the clothing and waters surrounding these magnificent fortresses. Combat has dramatically improve since the first game, the animations also compliment this area. Other likeable areas are, the atmosphere, the history, the violence of combat, the upgrading system, the behaviour of guards and other NPC's, the variety of maps and environments, the Assassin tombs, shops, paintings, weapons, armour, overall size of maps, the ability to free run and explore at your pace when you choose,  side missions, over hanging gardens, voice acting, sound effects etc.



And the negatives?

Don't worry, these are very minor negatives. Take for instance the set camera modes while your completing a climbing challenge against the clock, sometimes, these can make me feel disorientated. I was disappointed to realise that there was no official art-book, except those that come with the collectors edition. Surly, for such a release they would have considered an official art-book?  The other issue evolves around distant buildings and overall feel. Sometimes buildings look very blurred and usually when I walk through Forli, close ups are quite blurred yet I understand that this is to create the overall feel and perspective for the game. My last concern relates to how to collect your money instead of venturing all the way to Claudia. Could we have a headquarters in every district as a means of communicating through letter to Claudia, enabling us to collect income and provide her with instructions.

Your Feedback!

Gabe Zune

 

If you haven't guessed, mine is AC2. I felt it did exactlty what good sequels are supposed to do, improve all aspect such as visuals, gameplay, and further the story. It had the most improvements and additions since its predecessors and can be described as the renaissance of the series (see what I did there? xD. Literally everything was improved! The fighting, the atmosphere, the climbing, the visuals, and even the character had more personality than the previous piece of cardboard. All other games have just provided small improvements such as ACR's great music and AC3's good graphics. But in the end, everyone will remember the start of Ezio's journey xD

Carl Johnson

 

I recently started playing the whole series out in the living room, as my dad watches. Suffice to say, he finds the story fascinating.

Thank you to all the people that got involved! I shall be continuing the Assassin's Creed Reviewing process so if guys have any questions or suggestions, please let me know! :)