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Genre: Third-Person Action Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Players: 1

By Keith B (3rd Dec 2009)

When it comes to making a sequel, there’s a list of things that need to be looked at, but perhaps that one word scribbled across the top of the white board in thick black marker is the most important word of all – Improvements. By and large, a sequel that doesn’t improve on some of the predecessor’s key gameplay points generally won’t succeed - unless it’s Mario - but for the rest of the gaming landscape, you’re only as good as your last release.

Assassin’s Creed made a big splash when it landed, being praised from all corners for the fast paced action and free-running physics, but after a few short hours the cracks began to appear, namely frustratingly repetitive missions and a generally lacklustre story. Thankfully the developers at Ubisoft have made improvements to just about every element of the game, resulting in a thoroughly rounded and exciting package.

You play as Desmond Miles, who must again enter the Animus, allowing him to return to the pages of history to fill the boots of an ancestor, one Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who evolves from a fun-loving 17-years-old into a full blooded assassin, a tale which spans more than a decade. Ezio must hunt down the various people that had his father and brothers murdered in a series of events that also turned his mother into a catatonic mess. It’s all part of a convoluted but well realised story of deceit and vengeance, with the sections outside the Animus thankfully pared back to allow play to rotate around Ezio and his journey.

As before, our protagonist can run and climb like he was born to do so, utilising essentially the same approach as Altair although certainly faster (bordering on the absurd). I know the term gets bandied about a lot, but it’s all rather fluid, and although initially slow to get really going it soon becomes a piece of cake to sprint across the rooftops of Venice, leaping from on high onto assassination victims below. There’s a cinematic edge to everything, making it consistently visually impressive. It’s a shame then that, while the general presentation is bordering on brilliant, the sections outside the Animus look particularly shoddy.



Beyond the cut and thrust of the main plot there are an abundance of side quests to get stuck into. This, critically, is where its predecessor was found out, too shallow to be meaningful and to repetitive to be interesting. Some old favourites like scaling the highest points of the city return, as do other new elements, and the list of things to do becomes simply staggering, allowing so much time away from the main campaign that it quickly becomes apparent that to judge Assassin’s Creed 2 on the number of hours it takes to get through the story is an unfair numerical representation. The fact is that you can easily lose 40 hours of your life with controller in hand.

Breaking up the constant rotation of get mission, finish mission, get mission, rinse and repeat, are random elements which although sounding small are quite fun. Getting robbed and then having to chase the culprit down is often a welcome break, and intercepting messengers for their large purses of gold is another pursuit which was still entertaining to the end. At its heart there remains a finite list of things to do, but there are so many, across many locations, that it doesn’t suffer the same deterioration as its predecessor. Indeed, even the missions themselves have been well thought out. The majority of them are about killing someone, or stealing something, or both, but there are also capture the flag ones, races, and other new approaches that again helps steer AC2 away from repetition hell.



Some of the best elements, though, are reserved for simply making the player feel welcome. Forming a bond with Leonardo da Vinci, who in turn develops new weapons for you, is a consistently enjoyable feature. So too is the wealth of dialogue which is presented, and despite listening to much of it in English, the Italian accents were surprisingly spot on.

An element of micromanagement also features, with Ezio basing himself in the Monteriggioni Villa, a secluded small town in the countryside. As Ezio gathers money he can choose to upgrade parts of the small town, in turn bringing in more and more funds while reducing the cost of items in the various shops. Although the player must travel back to the Villa fairly frequently as the chest can only hold so much, it still works well and considering the villa also houses your weapons and armour, gives a reason to go and fiddle about with the different equipment available. Using the equipment doesn’t really make much difference because all the enemies - of which there are five main classes – are more than a little stupid. Like your generic martial arts movie, enemies form a circle around you and then attack one at a time. Normally, this would infuriate me, but strangely it didn’t. Perhaps it was the range of counter kills available, or the fact that each style of weapon had its own combat approach, but it all just blended so well into the landscape that it seemed, well, right and correct.



It’s also often absurdly easy. In one of the closing missions you must fight different groups of guards (of which there are seven) and one NPC with more health. Completing a combat-dedicated scene like that without losing a single cube of health seems a little odd. I wasn’t complaining though, as I was pushing both my assassin’s blades through someone’s head for the hundreth time.

There really isn’t much more to say. If you liked the first instalment, you’re going to wet yourself over this. If you didn’t, then I still think it is well worth a closer look. Intensely enjoyable, it could be a contender for one of the games of the year.

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