However, these great moments are spread too thinly over the game’s long running time, strewn few and far between by busywork and missions that have absolutely no point. The sequence where Ezio rides Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine is a terrific change of pace, and every now and then an assassination mission will lead to a considerably satisfying conclusion. The game’s chase missions, where you have to pursue a fleeing target and eventually run him through, feel incredibly cinematic and have been scripted remarkably well. To its credit, Assassin’s Creed 2 does have some really good moments. The game tries to be Grand Theft Auto, offering all sorts of optional missions, but those missions are taken from a stock of three or four variants, and take the form of incredibly unimaginative tasks such as “race this guy” or “hit this guy a few times.” Sure, there is more variety than the last game, but it is still repetitive as Hell and feels incredibly boring.
Some missions consist of climbing up a building and climbing back down again, all in order to find out something that could have been explained with half a minute of dialogue. You just follow a character slowly around a portion of the city and that’s it, mission done. So many of the new missions are pure filler, with a number of them literally consisting of walking around town with nothing else to do. However, Ubisoft has most definitely cheated in this regard, employing some of the cheapest time-wasting methods in the book to drag the game out to tedious lengths. There is no denying that Assassin’s Creed 2 is a far bigger game than its predecessor. It’s really nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is.
It just would have been so much better without the pretentious sci-fi stuff. While the story is mostly forgettable, a few of the characters threaten to be likable, and the scripts humor occasionally hits the mark. Most of the game is set in Ezio’s time period of 15th Century Italy, and players will control Ezio as he attempts to foil a plot that seems ripped right out of The Da Vinci Code. Having escaped capture by Abstergo Industries, Desmond meets up with some modern day assassins who put him in a new Animus so he can relive the life of Ezio Auditore da Firenze and train to become a killer in a matter of days.Īs usual, the rather embarrassing Animus stuff seems tacked on, pointless and totally unnecessary. When strapped into a magical chair known as The Animus, Desmond can replay the memories of his ancestors for wonderfully convoluted reasons. In case you’re unaware, you play as Desmond Miles, a man whose ancestry is riddled with notorious assassins.
However, as old problems are tackled, new ones sprout up to take their place.ĭoes Assassin’s Creed II solve old issues while successfully maintaining control of new ones, or does it try to do too much at once and fail on all counts? Read on as we give this game the full review.Īssassin’s Creed 2 (PS3, Xbox 360 )Īssassin’s Creed 2‘s plot is just as contrived as the last one.
Fortunately for Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed became an unexpectedly huge success, and the series now has a chance to fix its problems.Īssassin’s Creed II definitely sets out to address the problems found in the first game, and the once-repetitive game is now a sprawling, quasi-open-world adventure full of variety. Despite earning praise for its visuals, concept and unique story, the 2007 title was criticized for its repetition and tendency to bore players after significant periods of time.
Assassin’s Creed is generally considered to be a solid, if somewhat flawed, videogame.