THE GREATEST LEAP IN HISTORY
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Out of all the games from all the series I've played,
Assassin's Creed II represents one of the biggest leaps in quality
between entries. (The only competition I can think of is the improvements Yakuza 5 made over Yakuza 4). Everything I bemoaned in my review of Ubisoft's original historical open-world adventure has been rectified. The same goes for
some minor gripes I didn't even deign necessary to mention.
As an experiment, the first game showed great promise, but it felt hollow,
repetitive and unrefined. This direct sequel is brimming with content. It is varied
and quite polished. Some minor gameplay issues remain, but the clever mission design
makes them hard to detect. Whilst adding a lot of minutiae and story to the game world, it
maintains the same sense of freedom and verticality, of climbing impossibly
flat surfaces to get a vantage point, from where you may plan the next step of
your ongoing mission.
This sensation was true of the first game as well, but only in short bursts. Here, it is more or less constant. You feel more in control, the world is much more interactable, and the improved storytelling involves you in a revenge tale of a decades long feud between families in renaissance Italy.
The opening takes us back to the closing scene of the first game, in the
not-too-distant future. The bartender Desmond Miles is trapped inside the
building of Abstergo, a high-tech company fronting for shady neo-Templar activities. In the first game, the Templars used Desmond as a means to
gain knowledge of their ancient foes, the Assassins. They jacked him into a
sort of virtual reality device - the Animus - that allowed him to travel back
to the memories of one of his Assassin ancestors.
As the sequel picks up the thread, Desmond's sole ally
within Abstergo, Lucy, helps him escape. She opens his cell, fights the guards
alongside him and drives him to a modern-day Assassin hideout where they have
assembled their own machine, the Animus 2.0 (the version upgrade is a funny in-game explanation of all the improvements made since last time). By hooking him up to it, they
send Desmond back in time into the memories of another prominent assassin
ancestor: Ezio Auditore de Firenze, born and bred in Florence, Italy, in the
mid-15th century.
As a protagonist, Ezio is a vast improvement over the insufferable Altair from
the first game. He starts off a bit stereotypically cocksure and hot-blooded,
but undergoes a vital change of nature and matures over the course of the
game. His story (which finally comes with subtitles) is more appealing and
cinematic than Altair's, allowing us the pleasure to get acquainted with real
historical people like Leonardo da Vinci and the Medici family
on our quest for vengeance.
The storyline leads Ezio back and forth across Italy on the tail of an ever-expanding and
twisting conspiracy, presenting him with an unending chain of assassination targets. It doesn't stop until he stands face-to-face with the upper echelons of society
in the capital itself. And then it ends in a final WTF-moment that has to be
seen to be believed. It is, frankly, quite brilliant.
Ezio controls the same way Altair did, but feels more likely to follow suit. This
might be thanks to the improved framerate (even on the PS3), but it's apparent
Ubisoft have also tweaked the movement itself, as Ezio rarely does something I don't intend. The climbing mechanics works well enough to warrant
their own simple, yet fun puzzles. The basic combat remains the same haphazard
counter-attacking and button-timing dance. If it isn't fun, it's because you
are supposed to flee and hide in haystacks, rooftop gardens or throngs of city folk.
A few new weapon additions expand upon the standard sword, hidden blade and
throwing daggers, and increase the ways you can approach different
assassination targets. The Taxi Driver-inspired small firearm up your
sleeve is a handy thing to pull out for a quick affair. The poison dagger is
more inconspicuous. It puts the enemy in a crazed state, attacking everyone in
his vicinity before dropping dead - essential for when you need a distraction.
The smoke bombs are great for remaining undetected or escaping a dire situation.
Although it might not feel like it, Assassin's Creed II takes place over
years. The world is huge, with five cities to explore, and a couple of one-off
areas. This is also the reason that the game provides you with a home base, a
villa in the town of Monteriggioni, which you might upgrade to increase its
value. The more valuable, the more income it generates, adding to your
adventuring funds.
New shops allow you to improve your equipment as well as
heal up and restock your ammunition. This economy is a welcome addition to the
series, incentivizing you to explore cities more thoroughly. You shouldn't
miss an opportunity to rob the greedy or accept the odd job for the reward
money.
I particularly love the new Assassin's tombs, with entrances hidden in plain
sight on the side of buildings, castle walls, etc. They remind me of the 3D
Prince of Persia-gameplay, with timed platform challenges mixed with
chase sequences and combat. They are very delicately constructed, requiring you to search carefully for handholds, ledges, chandeliers - anything that can get you closer to your goal. Some of
them even provide you with shortcuts, negating the need to start over from
scratch upon failing. By completing these tombs you get the juiciest reward of
the game (if you have an armor fetish).
My major beef with the game comes with the pacing of the story towards the end. Sequences 12 and 13 - The Battle of Forli and
The Bonfire of Vanities, respectively - were originally excluded from
the game and sold only as DLC. Later releases, like The Ezio Collection,
have them pre-installed with no option to remove them. The game is much
better without them. They add nothing but a pointless, repetitive detour
to an already long game, just as Ezio feels ready to conclude his story.
The Bonfire of Vanities DLC is a particularly bad misfire.
In this sequence you need to dispose of nine assassination targets that you
have no personal connection to whatsoever. These missions are poorly
designed, putting the limitations of the engine in full display. Assassin's
Creed II isn't designed to be a stealth game, but several of the missions inexplicably require
you to stay undetected until you've assassinated your target. If you fail,
you have to start over. And some of them end in chases that depend too heavily on the AI-quirks of the engine, with guards popping up out of nowhere, weird pathfinding and
too much combat.
My advice is to avoid these sequences if possible, as they tarnish an
experience that could otherwise have worked itself to the highest rating.
It's an awful shame, and a prime example of when less really is more.
But don't let that deter you from an otherwise great adventure. I wonder whether
Assassin's Creed II is the first open world action game of the current mold? Is
it what finally cracked the code and set the standard? The line is so blurry now that it's hard to remember, but it incorporates a lot of what we've
come to take for granted these days. The only thing clearly missing is character
leveling, but the weapon and armor upgrades make up for some of that.
To think that I used to loathe these kind of games. Back when they emerged,
I found them to be just like the first Assassin's Creed - big, hollow, and
empty timewasters. The worlds looked pretty, but the outside world was so
much prettier. The stories were decent, but movies were generally so much more
engaging.
But if I'd just held out for one more iteration of Assassin's Creed, I
would've found the game to reform my views. Instead, it got postponed for
several years - probably until my belated first playthrough of Red Dead Redemption around 2012-2013.
Assassin's Creed II uses real history to create an intriguing and personal work of fiction. It even has one of the most interesting lore sections I've
read, provided by one of Desmond's snarky cohorts from outside the
Animus. It details the world and structures around you with their importance
in real history, as you climb their facades to get a better view of the city. The
same careful research has gone into the historical people you meet. Even the
fictional characters come to life in the same careful way - at least until
they meet the end of Ezio's deadly blade, cutting their lore entry short
with three blood-red dots...
[Screenshots from MobyGames:
www.mobygames.com]
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