I was a huge fan of the first
Assassin's Creed.
The visuals in the game were
amazing, it was presented well, it
had a griping storyline, and for the
most part the gameplay was
remarkable. The sequel to the game
not only has all of those qualities,
but it corrects the game’s few
wrongs and adds an extreme amount of
depth. Ubisoft definitely has a
winner in the second installment of
Assassin's Creed.
Your normal character in this one is
the same. You’re Desmond Mason, a
man that’s trapped in a war between
the Templars and the Assassins. In
the first game, Desmond was
kidnapped by the Templars and forced
to go into a machine so they might
learn where a powerful object is. In
the first game you were engaged in
battle in the middle-east through
the simulating machine. In the
second version of
Assassin's Creed,
the simulator takes Desmond into the
role of another one of his
ancestors, Ezio Auditore in 15th
Century Italy. Desmond’s taking on
the simulator this time so he can
learn to be an assassin, and that’s
just one of the ways that this game
feels more complete than the
original.
Not only are the
loose-ends in the story tied up;
Ezio actually has a back story
unlike Altier, they’ve explained the
war in modern-time slightly better,
etc. The loose-ends in gamplay are
tied up too. The training experience
is tied into the game and you don’t
get all the way through it until
about an hour in. The free movement
in the city feels more realistic and
looks more realistic this time
around. The combat is more
realistic, AND how you get out of
sight from your enemies and the
guard is more established too.
What’s interesting
in this game are the add-ins that
really weren’t thought of with the
first game. There’s a monetary
system now, you get rewarded for
looting and accomplishing main
objectives and side missions. With
the right amount of money you can
buy yourself cover, you can buy
equipment, and you can
upgrade/restore your home base to a
more presentable aesthetic.
The only problem
with this game is the free range
movement. In the first game you
could fly around the city. And
although it didn’t feel as reel and
it didn’t look as good, it did the
trick. It was still fun. Here the
camera suffers in free range
movement and if you’re trying to go
fast from building to building,
you’re going to lose a lot of
health.
Assassin's Creed II
is just as impressive as the first
game was to a lot of people, but
this time the game is about twenty
times as deep and all of the errors
with the first game have been fixed.
With this being such an amazing game
more and more people are going to
become fans of the title, as it
should be. All I can say is I can’t
wait for another installment.
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