InsaneBear

Review: Assassin’s Creed II

Score: Good
Time to beat: About 25 hours with a fair amount of side-questing
Loved the most: Awesome platforming of the Assassin’s Tombs.
Hated the most: A general lack of innovation from the first game to this one.

When Assassin’s Creed came out in 2007, its insanely fun free-running parkour mechanics were so revolutionary that they essentially created a new sub-genre. However, the repetitive and incomplete nature of the game polarized gamers everywhere and the title was really seen as more potential than product. Now we fast-forward two years, and I’m happy to report that Assassin’s Creed II has addressed almost every issue gamers had with the first title in the franchise. Unfortunately though, it doesn’t really do much beyond that, and with other games in the sub-genre innovating further and offering more diverse packages, ACII feels more like what the first game should have been than what the sequel could be. So once again, we’re left dreaming of the awesome potential in this franchise instead of a simply awesome game.

ACII picks up right where its predecessor left off with Desmond and Lucy escaping the Abstergo corporation’s grasp and making their way to an Assassin safe-haven. Desmond’s parts actually feel just as good as the rest of the game now, so it’s sort of disappointing that we don’t get to play as him for more than a half-hour or so throughout the course of a 25 hour game. Putting the clunky controls aside, I rather enjoyed the mysterious nature of Desmond’s sleuthing activities in the first game, but maybe I’m alone there.

Anyways, it’s not long before we find ourselves in a fully-realized 15th century Florence and in control of a complete bad ass. The graphical upgrade this sequel offers is subtle, much like Gears of War to Gears of War 2, but the difference really is pretty substantial. The world of Assassin’s Creed II is a sprawling and seamless one with citizens that organically go about their business, a day-night cycle that features one of the best looking moons I’ve seen in a game, and superb lighting effects to boot. Every building has as much detail as the last and repeated geometry is masked well enough that I didn’t really notice it until around 20 hours in. For all intents and purposes, the famous Italian cities that constitute this game-world come together to form what could be the best looking sandbox game ever.

But while the game-world may look great, character models aren’t quite as fantastic. True, the body-animation is the best out there if we forget Uncharted 2‘s other-worldly animations, but the models themselves are a significant step below the likes of MGS4, Resident Evil 5, and of course, Uncharted 2. It’s not a big deal, but worth noting. What is a big deal though, is just how bad facial animation and dialogue in general looks. For a game that relies so heavily on its characters, it just seems strange for them to look so ridiculous every time they talk. The alarming amount of texture pop-in is a little jarring as well.

The same could be said for the quality of the writing in dialogues. The voice acting itself is actually quite good throughout, but the lines the actors have to work with are either dull or total head-scratchers. I think a completely unnecessary and totally boring interactive sex-scene early in the game gives one a good idea of where the dialogue’s heading. There’s also a few too many repeated lines constantly spewing from citizens’ mouths, albeit with some infrequent comic master-strokes.

The sounds we hear most often though are the entirely serviceable grunts of intense climbing, the clangs of steel swords parrying each other, and the echo of stone shingles under Ezio’s swift feet. All of these audio effects resonate realistically without standing out too much. The score falls into the same anonymous boat as the rest of the audio too–it’s all good and forms a cohesive whole, but there’s nothing really striking to stand out. Overall, the sights and sounds of Assassin’s Creed II are pretty good.

But without a doubt, where ACII stands head-and-shoulders above its precursor is in the department of gameplay/mission variety. Gone is the repetitive sequence of “view tower, eaves-drop, interrogate, assassinate”. This time around, the story-missions flow into each other seamlessly without the requirement of any secondary activities and manage to provide a fair amount of variety along the way. Ezio’s story is also more fleshed out than Altiar’s and gives the player a reason to go forward, as thin as that reason may be. It’s also a much lengthier campaign that even has a few set-pieces sprinkled in here and there. The set-pieces aren’t very good (sorry Da Vinci, but your flying machine blows), but they do serve as a nice change of pace. I wish there had been more to break up the rather mundane action of stabbing everything in sight.

But that’s what the side-missions are for! Assassinations, races, courier assignments, fist-fights, and Assassin Tombs all serve to spice things up along the way. Most of these secondary activities are poorly fleshed out and quickly grow tiresome with an utter lack of overarching context, but the Assassin Tombs are truly brilliant. There are six in the game, and they task the player with traversing epic platforming challenges in the vein of the Prince of Persia games. The mazes are well-designed and strike a perfect difficulty level, unlike the rest of the game, which is far too easy and unpunishing. And there’s a worth-while reward for players who persevere through every tomb, so they’re definitely the high-light of the game. In addition to the tombs, the search to discover 20 hidden messages in the game-world and decode them through some pretty contrived puzzles offers up a nice mystery to follow, although the end result is just as disappointing as the conclusion of the main story. And as if all that isn’t enough, there are also 100 collectable feathers that garner a stupidly infuriating reward. Plus, there’s an in-game economy!

The economy concept is pretty typical at first–players can upgrade weapons and armor (of which there’s a great variety) as well as buy health and so on at local shops, but it gets really interesting when Ezio’s family villa is introduced. We have the option to slowly rebuild the run-down mansion and surrounding village with our own hard-earned blood-money, and it’s actually pretty fun. I really enjoyed watching the town transform before my eyes as I poured money into re-opening brothels and churches, invested in local shops, and collected fine art for my imposing mansion. The whole process gives a nice sense of progression that isn’t as prominent in the rest of the game.

But for as many words as I’ve devoted to all these interesting secondary mechanics, the core gameplay of ACII remains the same as it was in ACI–we parkour our asses around town and stab stuff in brutally satisfying ways. The free-running stuff seems pretty much unchanged from the first game, which is all good and well other than the fact that the contextual controls frequently misinterpret what I want Ezio to do. I didn’t take issue with the controls as much in the first game because it was relatively new territory, but this time around there’s no excuse for not refining them. I was yelling in frustration all too often as my character leap to his death through no fault of my own. The chase sequences of the game also suffered from the imprecise controls, and it’s really too bad. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that the joystick on my controller tilts slightly upwards, so that may have contributed to some of my frustrations, but it hasn’t really caused any issues in other games I’ve played, so I think it’s safe to blame the game on this one.

But on the bright side, the combat in this game is even better than the last. I absolutely love the movement and counter-based system Ubisoft uses here, as it feels so much more real than any other sword fighting games out there. It also helps me feel like a total bad ass without having to memorize ridiculous combos. Everything just feels right, and the presentation is delightfully gruesome. The huge arsenal of weapons really keeps things fresh too, although the exclusion of a bow still perplexes me.

And unfortunately, true stealth has managed to somehow render itself invisible in this game, just like the one before it. I simply don’t understand how someone can make a game about assassins and boil the essence of stealth down to hiding in groups of four people or more. Where are the disguises? Where’s the lurking in shadows and sneaking around patrolling guards? There’s not even the ability to press up against a wall and peek around the corner for crying out loud! The path of least resistance in this game is to just kill every bad guy, and that’s not what being an assassin should be about. This franchise would really do well to take some tips from a game like Hitman. I want an actual choice as to how I take down my target. I want to be able to plan out the entry and exit points, the weapon of choice, and how much discretion to use. As it stands now, the core gameplay amounts to climbing over a big wall, killing all the guards, and then stabbing the target with Ezio’s hidden blade. Duke Nukem could be stealthier!

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that while this game is packed full of variety compared to the first one, it’s all skin-deep and gets just as repetitive. With the exception of the Assassin’s Tombs, there’s nothing that really feels new. I think this franchise would benefit greatly were it to adopt some RPG elements to help flesh it out, because stabbing guys, as great as the diversity of enemies is, just gets old and tiresome after a while. That can’t happen with a 25 hour game.

The longer campaign also helps to establish some likeable characters this time around. Ezio’s story is much clearer and more driven than Altiar’s, but I do feel that it reveals a little too much at times. The mysterious nature of the first game, largely because of Desmond’s segments, really appealed to me. ACII‘s story is more conventional and easier to follow, but it doesn’t have that curiosity factor. Or at least it doesn’t until the end when everything hits the fan and Desmond, voiced by Nolan North, sums things up perfectly when he exclaims, “What the fuck!?!” I won’t spoil anything, but the story sort of takes a radical turn that I don’t think is nearly as fun as the conspiracy-charged Templar vs. Assassin arc. Guess we’ll find out more with Assassin’s Creed III.

As for the value of this package, I suppose it’s up to the individual. There’s probably 30 hours of gameplay if one does everything, and there’s actually a free-play mode after the credits roll, so no more reloading memories like in the last game. However, I don’t necessarily think I’ll be returning to the world of Assassin’s Creed II any time soon–I’ve got my 1000 gamer points, the side-missions are too boring to care about, and there aren’t enough thrills in the main story to warrant a second play-through. I guess it comes down to how much fun one derives from running around the world and killing stuff with no real objective.

All and all, Assassin’s Creed II was a bit of a disappointment for me. It’s certainly a good game, but as someone who really fell in love with the potential of the original, I had hoped there would be more to the sequel. Instead, we got a game that corrects most of the first game’s problems but doesn’t take it to the next level and do anything new. But hey, they’ll have to change the game-mechanics if they move into an era with guns, right? Right? Oh god, they’re not going to turn this franchise into a third-person-shooter, are they?

Author: Cody

Tags: assassin's creed ii, review, ubisoft, ubisoft montreal