Assassin's Creed II

PUBLISHER: Ubisoft
DEVELOPER: Ubisoft
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Like the first one, but better.

Liked:
- Story (both parts)
- Environment (Past)
- Hirelings
- Upgrade system
- Puzzles


Disliked:
- Some Quirky Controls
- Feather Hunting (it's optional)


On The Fence:
- Length
- Travel system

AC2 picks up mere moments from AC1, that is to say the "present" part of the story line. You start pretty much where it left off - standing in the bedroom/cell where the "present" character was stuck. Lucy, the Animus tech, returns to help you escape but not until they unlock another distant relative's memory bank - Ezio. You get out of the lab and off to a secret location where a rag-tag group of characters have created the Animus Version 2 - a slimline dentist chair looking device that works better than the cold slab table you were on before. Once into the memory bank you assume the role of Ezio, a sex-crazed, carefree punk of a guy who just does whatever he wants... and that comes back to bite him in the ass.

Long story short, corruption causes him to lose his brothers and father. The same old "Piece Of Eden" story comes into play. In the modern world, the Templars are still looking for you and you can acquire skills by learning them in the Animus - somewhat of a Matrix-style, they download into your head.

Liked
The story and environments are great. I know I say this a lot, but it's true. Someone really paid attention to 1490's Italian architecture because it looks fantastic. The places feel alive, with people all over the place, talking to each other, buying stuff at stores, etc. There are groups of people you can interact with - courtesans, thieves and mercenaries - who are not passive scenery dressing. They can be commanded to attack or distract guards, allowing you to enter restricted areas with out starting a fight. They can be used to help you blend in and hide amongst the crowd.

The upgrade system was great. It's all money-based, and you gain cash by doing missions or repairing your uncle's home. His home town is in a sorry state and you can improve the local shops, thereby bringing in more business from out of town. Taxes go right into your pocket, which you use to upgrade more buildings or buy more weapons or armor. Each personal upgrade has its pros and cons (until later, where you get your hands on Altair's sword and armor) and you can swap out weapons at any time just by visiting the villa.

One rather odd but nifty feature is the addition of a new unseen character - "Subject 16". He's the one who left you all those strange symbols on your cell wall, and now those are embedded in Ezio's memory. You can find them scrawled on buildings when you search in Eagle Vision. When you interact with them, a puzzle mode is unlocked. There is an overall solution spread across 20-odd symbols, but each symbol has its own odd solution. Sometimes it's a series of rings with a picture on them that needs to be lined up. Sometimes it's a code wheel that has to be deciphered, then used to decode another part of the riddle. Sometimes you have to find a common theme amongst a series of paintings. The later puzzles were a stretch - I have yet to understand WTF the last couple mean or how you're supposed to figure them out. I had to look them up to solve them, and I tried for about an hour each.

Disliked
Not much to really complain about on this one. The wonky controls from the last one are still present, though refined. I had a few issues where, even when holding the proper button configuration, Ezio didn't want to jump from rooftop to rooftop like I told him. Instead he'd stop dead, act like he was going to fall and sometimes slip and cling on to the edge. Other times he fell - sometimes to his death. It was frustrating, especially when running from the guards.

The feather hunting business is stupid too. I get it - it's to unlock a cool reputation item. They should make it possible for me to buy a map showing me where they are. I wouldn't care if it was $10,000 a region... I hate hunting for things like that. I think I'm up to 71/100, and I know I'm missing 1 each in two towns. Will I ever find those? Probably not. Like Blast Shards from inFAMOUS, I'll probably give up and never play the game again. *Update: I found them all. AC2 is the only Platinum trophy I have.

On The Fence
The length of this game is short. Not Bioshock 2 short, but short nonetheless. Sure, I could have dragged it out more by chasing the feathers in each region before going on with the story, or doing all the side quests as they came up, but after a while you just want something fun to do. At least climbing towers wasn't boring. They weren't always the same, and some required skills acquired later in the game in order to climb!

The short of this is - it's a great game, so much so that I'd give it 8/10. Some of the frustrating elements and the length give it a couple points off. I'd steer pretty much everyone to play it. You don't need to play the first one, but it helps. Buy it? Maybe if it's on sale, but totally not worth it for $60.