Assassin's Creed II

So guess what I have been doing lately?

When the first Assassin's Creed came out I jumped all over it. It had its drawbacks and shortcomings, most notably of which were the monotony of the smaller 'missions' such as tailing someone, picking someone's pocket, or beating information out of someone's sorry hide. While each of these tasks were fun the first few times, the game made you do them over and over for each mission. This is such a perfect example of how realism does not equal fun. If you were a real assassin of course you would need to do all those things many times in order to learn your target's habits and haunts. But it doesn't really matter what is realistic or not to a gamer. We want variety and panache. If a game becomes tedious or boring a gamer is liable to just insert one of his other games and let some dust collect.

This problem has been completely solved in AC2 by simply removing the whole thing (I haven't finished the game yet so I don't know for certain if it pops up later). Your character simply finds allies (a simple matter of getting to a location) and talks to them; they have already done all your leg work for you. There are still plenty of mini-missions, but they are completely voluntary now. The closest thing to finding your own information now is getting a bit of information from your primary targets.

The other major problem with the first game (for me) was collecting all thousand or so flags if you were a completionist. Collecting these had no positive impact on the overall game and since they didn't show up on the map (or mini-map) they were a complete pain in the hiney. This game still has plenty of things to collect but most of the show up on the maps (once you buy treasure maps) and they all have import, such as collecting treasure chests which give you money to spend on upgrades. I always felt that the challenge should be GETTING to a location which has a collectible, not so much FINDING it. The game, at its heart, is a free-running platformer, so moving around should be tantamount.

Where both games really shine is in movement and combat. Both can be muddled through by a clunky player, but if you hone your skills you turn a good game into an excellent one. The whole combat system becomes this dance of death against multiple opponents where timing and weapon choice are critical. There is a counter-attack system which involves striking just before their attack lands, but incoming attacks vary in strength and speed and timing it just right to get through a fight against a dozen guys without them touching you always leaves a good feeling. AC2 has really ramped things up by adding lots of new combat tools into the mix: smoke bombs, throwing money on the ground to incite the crowd, and being able to pick up any weapon that an opponent drops really adds depth and flavor to an already great system. As for movement, even small differences in directional input result in a different interpretation by the game and it doesn't really care if you leap to your death. Most of the time this doesn't hamper the player but it really pays off to figure out your path before you start jumping around like an idiot. The pathfinding for climbing could be a little better. A couple times I have been climbing and my character stops because he cannot go up anymore and the next handhold is just a bit off center from him and I need to slide right or left to continue my climb.

The game picks up exactly where the first left off. If you haven't played the first game then the major plot twist is that you are a modern descendant of an Assassin and you lie on a machine that can help you relive your ancestor's memories which are stored in your genetic material. Kinda hokey and they tell you all this during the first cutscene so it's not a surprise. The problem is that the game would probably have been better without any of the modern stuff; it was confusing to try and keep track of two main characters and what they were doing, and every time you were the modern-day guy you pretty much just got out of the machine and went to your room to sleep, woke up and went back to the table. The game was intended from the beginning to be a series so hopefully this second game will have more stuff to actually do in the 'real' world. As for the memory stuff in AC2, once you go in you stay in until most of the missions are done. I am probably halfway done with the game and I am still in for the first time. This really helps the game because the player isn't forced to switch gears every 20 minutes.

The bottom line is that Assassin's Creed II is compelling and fun, as well as being extremely rewarding to the more dedicated player. If you want the whole story you had better play through the first one but don't make me twist your arm as that was an outstanding game as well.