Assassin’s Creed 2 PS3 6.5/10
THE GOOD: BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENTS AND CHARACTERS
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":673452,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"gbunfiltered,","session":"D"}']THE BAD: CLIMBING MECHANICS
CRAZY ITALIANS: KEEP AN EYE OPEN FOR MARIO REFERENCES
Assassin’s Creed 2, the sequel to 2007’s tumultuously reviewed Assassin’s Creed, picks up immediately where the original ends. From the onset of the game, players step into the shoes of Desmond Miles, Assassin’s Creed’s present day protagonist.
The game kicks off by tasking players with escaping Abstergo, the original Assassin’s Creed’s laboratory. After a brief, unintuitive tutorial and some clumsy combat, Desmond escapes Abstergo and makes it to another laboratory where, through the memory restructuring Animus, players assume the role of Assassin’s Creed 2’s historical character, Ezio Auditore da Firenze.
Ezio, a resident of renaissance-era Italy is a typical angsty young man, and a bit cliche when it comes to video game characters. Belabored with chores that his family assigns him, players learn the basic mechanics of the game. It’s unfortunate, however, that this tutorial continues for as long as it does. Players can expect to spend a solid few hours going through running, jumping, and climbing tutorials before they reach any real action.
After the lengthy tutorial, and a cliche turn of events in the story, Ezio acquires his father’s assassin gear, and the gameplay and story begin to pick up. After some initial missions, however, Assassin’s Creed 2 falls into many of the same problems that plagued the original.
While, overall, there are more missions that actually focus on assassinating other characters than there were in the original, a large portion of the missions still remain fetch quests, especially in the early portion of the game. This back and forth nature between waypoint and objective grows old fast.
[aditude-amp id="medium1" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":673452,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"gbunfiltered,","session":"D"}']
The game combats this by introducing a series of side quests which can be accessed at any time during the game. Some of the side quests are, for all effectual purposes, time trials through the cities, while others include private assassination contracts and message deliveries. These side quests are a welcome addition, and offer a break from the sometimes repetitive nature of the story related missions.
Another issue that wasn’t entirely corrected from the original is the combat. The mechanics feel slightly unnatural, and the target lock is uncomfortable. When the combat target lock is on, the game automatically selects the closest enemy as your active target. While this was a valiant attempt, having free control over who you’re fighting would have been a better option, as some enemies pose a bigger threat than others. It also seems slightly counter productive to the whole nature of the game. Wouldn’t a nimble assassin be able to target whoever he wanted, and not just who was closest to him?
While the combat isn’t the most enjoyable or well polished aspect of the game, it is still fun. While it would have been easy to have each weapon control the same way (since they’re all, basically, sharp pointy things), the developers went above and beyond by making each one feel unique. Being successful with a sword for example requires different tactics than does the dagger or hammers. This encourages a little bit of experimentation on the player’s part, and continually made combat feel fresh and interesting.
[aditude-amp id="medium2" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":673452,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"gbunfiltered,","session":"D"}']
One of the major flaws of Assassin’s Creed 2 are the climbing mechanics. The controls feel clunky and don’t appear to be consistent. While Ezio may be able to swing from one corner of a building to another based on a few handholds, his lack of the ability to grab rungs in some areas that are a few feet apart is baffling. A true sense of what’s scaleable or tactile is the major contributor to this issue, and it also leads to some untimely falls, resulting many times in having to climb an entire structure again.
Compared with Uncharted 2’s climbing mechanics, those of Assassin’s Creed 2 are difficult to comprehend and utilize.
There is no denying that Assassin’s Creed 2 is a beautiful game, however. The draw distance is fantastic, and puts that of Grand Theft Auto 4 to shame. Also, when climbing works, and during successful parkour runs, character animation is nothing less than beautiful. Motion is fluid, and Ezio’s draping clothes move gorgeously with his steps and jumps. The cities and building designs are also amazingly detailed, and seeing a vast portion of the city sprawled below the Duomo’s towering cross was quite a sight.
[aditude-amp id="medium3" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":673452,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"gbunfiltered,","session":"D"}']
Overall, Assassin’s Creed 2 is a tolerable sequel to the original, but it was slightly disappointing to see so many flaws from the original carried over into what was for some, game of the year.
I give Assassin’s Creed 2 a 6.5 out of 10.