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Does Assassin’s Creed 2 take the series higher? or was it simply a leap of faith?

The original Assassin’s Creed took gaming to a whole new level, with its free running/climbing mechanic. Now two years later comes Assassin’s Creed 2. Ubisoft has listened to its fan base, improving a lot on some of the flaws from the first, but does this make it a game in which the first one should have been?

Story
Assassin’s creed 2 picks up exactly where 1 left off, Desmond in his bedroom at Abstergo staring at the symbols of blood on his wall, in literally a minute of playing the game you are escaping from your Templar captors. After escaping Abstergo with Lucy you are taken to a warehouse where you meet up with 2 other assassins, though they don’t play a massive role as you only ever really come out of the animus a total of 2 times, 3 if you count the 4 second relapse where Desmond demands to go back. Though these characters do provide you with information through out the game in the way of voice overs and database entries, not much is known about them. This game however is now set in 1467 Italy where you play as another of Desmond’s ancestors, Ezio Auditore De Firenze. The whole game is basically a revenge story; Ezio’s father is killed, he dons his father’s robes and learns to become an assassins from various characters and relatives. Though the story is a bit weaker than the first, sometimes it is hard to determine why you are killing half the people you are killing — only that they are Templars.

Being set in Italy you will visit places like Venice, Florence, Tuscany and a few other smaller cities. Unlike the original there is no maze like connection between the cities, instead it’s a vast open plane of grass and small villages which is definitely an improvement on the “Kingdom” from the first game. Very early on in the game reference’s are made to Altair about how he has held a piece of eden, etc; all the stuff from the first game. Although, in the game is a set of Altair’s armor which is supposedly the armor he wore after the end of the last game when he became a master assassin.

Gameplay
Assassin’s Creed 2 continues with the free running/climbing aspect of the game with this being both good and bad. They have most definitely improved it, faster climbing, more fluid animations, and overall more realistic. Unfortunately it’s automatic nature can sometimes get annoying where running to close to an edge can make Ezio decide to jump off the building and at a 90º angle or make him perform a leap of faith where you didn’t want him to. Probably the biggest improvement is the swimming — yes you can now swim. Water is not only good for getting down to street level fast without needing a haystack, but it can also be used to hide as diving breaks your pursuers line of sight enabling you to get away.

Combat is essentially the same, using the speed kill system from Prince of Persia: Two Thrones. The addition of hammers and maces mixes up the fighting somewhat, along with the ability to disarm guards. The wrist blade can now also be used in standard fighting, being able to attack, block and counter enemies, so it’s not completely useless in open combat. It also seems to be easier to assassinate guards while fighting as they don’t always block it, which can be good. The addition of the second wrist blade can make for dual assassinations or some pretty brutal finishers which are really quite fun. The addition of new weapons gives more variety in combat where the weapons include your dual hidden blades, Poison upgrade for your hidden blade, Hidden “Gun”, sword, hammers, maces, daggers, knives, smoke bombs and money, in a way, money is used to distract guards or lure civilians to you for you to blend with. Smoke bombs on the other hand will blind and stun your opponents allowing you to easily assassinate anyone caught by the smoke bomb without resistance.

This time around there are loads more assassination missions, which really does make sense considering the game has “assassin” in its title. As opposed to the original which had only 9 assassination targets and those dodgey little side missions you do for informants. The assassination missions are still fun, even the side quests you get from pigeons. And while they are essentially the same they all feel different. Some you need to chase down, some you just walk up to and stick a blade up their nostrils, whilst some call for you do remain undetected by your target, and instead of being shown exactly where they are, you are given a general area and you must find them, making use of the eagle vision. Let’s face it eagle vision in the first one was pointless, you never HAD to use it as Altair. Also the Bleeding effect in this game is quite an interesting concept, al the Ezio learns, so does Desmond

Presentation
Assassin’s Creed 2 looks great. It’s an improvement on the first yet nothing that hasn’t been seen before. The textures are high quality, animations are realistic and convincing, the models are astounding, and the voice acting is amazing. In the short time as Desmond out of the Animus the voice acting is incredible yet maybe thats because it’s the same guy who did the voice acting for Nathan Drake in “Uncharted”. The voice acting by Kristen Bell as Lucy gives natural conversation between the two. Overall Ezio feels more “Human” than Altair, probably because Altair is a trained assassin whereas Ezio is just a normal guy. His interactions with other characters are more than just a few lines delivered with the same tone of voice.

All the cities are replicas of their real life counter parts. While not an inch by inch reconstruction all the major landmarks are very well made. With detail that goes into some of the buildings that will blow your mind. The addition of Uplay in Assassins Creed 2 is good, through out the game you will get points to spend in the Uplay store. Available are things like an xbox dashboard theme, more throwing knives and the original armor of Altair from the first game. Although it is a direct paste, all the animations stay the same as Ezio has 2 wrist blades with the second not appearing which can look a bit strange at times, but it was a good idea.

Conclusion
Assassin’s Creed 2 is a vast improvement on its predecessor removing a lot of things that people didn’t like about the first but still keeping all that people loved. While it has its flaws, Assassin’s Creed 2 is really good. If you liked the first, you will love this one; if you didn’t really like the first, I would still recommend giving this a go. Overall it’s a fantastic game — very good looking, solid game play,  and a interesting if sometimes confusing story. It’s definitely going in the top 5 games for many people.