Assassin's Creed 2

[Sean]

Has anyone picked this up and played it yet? My girlfriend got it for me as a Christmas present, and I have to say it's vastly improved over the first. The game doesn't feel linear at all, and in a lot of ways feels like I'm progressing through missions ala Grand Theft Auto IV.

The game feels a lot more open ended, less time wasted traveling, more side quests to do, exploring caves and such for assassin's coins in order to unlock Altair's armor, collecting treasures, etc. A majority of my complaints about combat have been addressed, such as the difficulty of running away while target locked, or trying to climb a wall only to be knocked down repeatidly (Ezio climbs straight things much faster than Altair did)

The storyline seems to be pretty good, both in and out of the Animus this time around. The first game was amazing, this takes everything that was good about it and polishes it.

I'm kind of wondering where the series is going to head from here. All in all I'm probably a little over halfway through with it so far, or so I'd guess.

It feels like a lot of gaming elements from other great games were mixed together for this game, some dungeon/solving climbing events from things like Prince of Persia, more open ended questing system with less linearity and repetitiveness from games like Grand Theft Auto, etc.

If you remotely enjoyed the first one, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up.

[Che]

I just got this today, actually. I'm not far into it, but I've played around (no missions) on my friend's character.

I never beat the first one, but I played it. My friend told me the story and all that. The first one was great, but was very rushed.

This one is definitely more solid of a game.

[Fang]

Assassin's Creed 2 is way much better than the first one. No more repetitive game play. You choose what you want to do.The story is much more interesting than the first one. Weapons can be unlock and bought. There are also lots of quests to do after you beaten the game like treasure hunting, assassination contract and races..I think it is game of the year, no game has kept me playing longer than 3 hours at a time. But this game actually made me wake up from sleeping and want to finish the story.

[Jin]

I've beaten it and have to agree with everyone else here that it's a vast improvement over the first. I liked the story and the core gameplay elements of the first game, but the pacing and repetition was just awful.

It still has a non-ending, so don't expect anything to wrap up at the end. It just produces more questions than it answers. I heard somewhere that they initially intended this as a trilogy and given the sales figures, I can't see why they wouldn't capitalize on that.

[Dr_Flea]

Yeah a definate Improvement over the first it is pretty good and i like the whole Different weapon choices and how you can loot the boddies and hide them and such and nick there weapons!!

So yeah definatly a third and if they can top what they did with this one then it's defintlly going to be good!!

Please don't look at the spoiler if you haven't finished the game!!

Spoiler: But how can you improve on a fist fight with the Pope

Good game!!

~Dr_Flea~

[Block]

pretty damn good game, a wee bit short imo. but HUGELY better than the first game.

Spoiler: best part of the game is during the credits

[Jin]

Really, you found it short? It was like a 25 hour game. More if you decide to collect all the feathers.

[loaf]

Assassins Creed (1, maybe 2) can be short unless you decide to find everything and sync everything. Never finished the first one and barely played the 2nd, but I played the first long enough to know wtf was wrong with it and 2 fixed a lot of it. Plus 2 has an awesome reference.

[Josh_R]

I got this game the day after it came out. I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the first. Both are very good games, but I think the inovations made in the second one makes it a much better game than the first.

[Sean]

Being a collect it all type gamer, this game had massive pacing issues for me.

I was always torn between hunting for available codex pages and doing the assassin's tombs or going on with the story (which I found incredible)


I finished it today, and the last 3 assassin's tombs were so god damn frustrating. I don't mind a good puzzle solver, move this, jump that, however....

The game's controls, as great as they are, still have you jumping farther than intended or in a direction not intended all the time when moving swiftly, moreso in this than the first, I found. Forcing me to rush through darkened sections with barely visible handholds and giving me a VERY brief camera run through (which only shows the direction, not the handholds you're shooting for) and putting a timer on it was just frustrating.

I wanted the Armor of Altair, for the achievements and just for the fact it was the best armor in the game.

The items didn't seem to add much of an improvement. The combat wasn't as simple as the first, there were a lot tougher enemies you couldn't instakill with counter attacks or grab and toss on the ground. While this is somewhat okay, I found it frustrating that even after getting the best armor and weapons the game had to offer I couldn't instakill any guards unless I was assassinating them from behind or before they pulled a weapon.

Granted it made combat slightly more difficult, it was still a frustrating aspect.

That is, of course, until I found the different ways to handle different enemies, instakilling big guys requires a disarm, instakilling polearm users another tactic, etc.

I would've liked to see more benefit to the armor and weapons than just more health bars, which were damn near useless since you could chain pop health potions and if you were good at dodging would never take much damage. You rarely land direct attacks on enemies, most of the times when I was spotted I just ran like a bitch and hid then came back and assassinated, rinse repeat.


Fixing the annoyances of air assassination was a vast improvement. Adding the ability to assassinate from hiding places as well as hanging off a ledge was also a nice touch. Dual assassinations were a great improvement.

I found a lot of joy in the game. It didn't feel too short at all.

My only real complaints were the pacing issues because I was compelled to spend so much time between missions gathering assassin's coins, codex pages, or view points and the annoyance of the Assassin's Tombs that were on time mechanics.

They tried putting more emphasis on stealth missions this time, but it wasn't polished enough, either.


All in all I greatly enjoyed the game, I only found myself truly frustrated when Ezio kept misjumping in the room before the final assassin's coin and I'd have to restart or when Ezio died twice on the same jump in the 2nd to last Assasin's Tomb because he decided to go a little too far left and miss the bar when wall jumping.

Honestly though, they gave me a better sense of accomplishment once I finally finished them.

I didn't have many complaints with the first except the linear feel of it all. Outside of the actual assassinations all 9 missions were the exact same, and this game more than fixed it.

I'm looking forward to the third. I really like the story and how it ties a lot of elements together. I love a good fiction based on facts.

[Block]

assassin's tombs = my favorite addition to the game.

^obvious pot reference

[Reverend Red Mage]

Let's not forget that there must have been a huge effort in the graphics. Italy is downright gorgeous; seeing all the sights from the rooftops and collecting all the paintings has only made me want to visit Florence and Venice before I die.

Also, the story is a bit more fascinating this time around despite the fact that you're focusing more on Ezio's than Desmond's. I don't know, but this time around it just feels like I've got much better reason for making the kills. With Altair, it was simply just following orders.

Anyway, the ending is once again a real cliffhanger. I can't wait to see what they do with number 3.

[vandy160890]

Actually I have only heard about this game from my friends.
But do not have much info regarding this new game.