Review | Assassin’s Creed II
The scale means a decent length, too. It takes a good 14 to 15 hours to complete Assassin Creed II, and with the huge amount of collectibles and side quests available, several more hours can be tacked on for the completionists. Feathers, codex pages, weapons, armour and items are all available to collect from each city, and at your uncle’s villa is the option to renovate the area, so as to create a fair income of florins. With all that and the mountain of side quests involving races, assassinations and deliveries, there is more than enough to keep you busy if you fancy a break from the linear main quest line.
Assassin’s Creed II has seen many improvements to its narrative and design, but the majority of the core mechanics and presentation remain unchanged from the original, bringing along all its charms and faults for the ride. Three elements in particular, however, have seen large improvements over Assassin’s Creed. The blend mechanic now allows you to blend into any crowd of people, with some groups such as thieves and prostitutes being available to use to distract guards or even fight by your side. The mission structure and variation has been improved, with many missions now consisting of multiple sections with checkpoints in between, making them more involved and less repetitive; and water is now an interactive element of the game, allowing you to swim and fall into it without the fear of the instant death the original enforced.
//Been there, done that
Combat sees no improvements, except a few new animations. It’s all very smooth and looks great, but suffers from the same dodgy AI and easy kills that the first game did, with almost all enemies standing around waiting their turn to attack you and being easily dispatched with a counter attack or dodge swipe manoeuvre.
The controls remain mostly unchanged, and so the parkour continues to struggle with fluidity and precision jumps, and the simple fact of the matter is that it’s not as awe inspiring as it was two years ago. The automatic jump and wall-scaling mechanics still work well, but with other games such as Infamous and Prototype proving the experience can flow far better, it’s disappointing and surprising that Ubisoft have yet to conquer the smooth nature parkour is famous for. It’s still a decent control system for the most part, but when precision is required, it can often lead to some very frustrating moments.
And graphically, it’s a mixed bag. While the architecture looks impressive and characters appear fine from the ordinary view, when zoomed in everything falls to pieces somewhat, lacking detail and suffering from clipping issues. The vegetation looks artificial, too, but the lip-syncing is mostly excellent and really adds to the experience. Considering how much talking is involved, Ubisoft have been exceptionally smart about the attention paid to making each bout of dialogue believable, both visually and audibly.
Assassin’s Creed II has improved a fair selection of the original game’s experience, ensuring the narrative remains interesting without the gimmick of any obvious twists, and eradicating the repetitive nature of its predecessor’s missions. But small, grating faults with combat and exploration still remain, and while the original might have got away with them two years ago, the sequel will struggle to justify the lack of refinement in certain areas. There’s a lot to love here, definitely, but there’s still the feeling that not enough has changed to elevate the series among the industry’s best and brightest. It’s a good game, but a few tweaks away from being a great one.
7/10
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Wow! Someone didn’t have time to play this game properly, then.
I agree with Greg 100% on this review.
One of the things that has been bothering me since I got a few hours into the game was how everyone else (other sites) have rated it 9’s and 10’s, these being the same sites that rated the first game poorly. Yet hardly anything has changed!
I’m a huge fan of the series, having finished the first game on four separate occasions and other than it being set in Italy, having a few more collectibles and better construction in the story, it’s the same game. While not really a bad thing, it has had me confused on reviews, but Greg nailed exactly what I was thinking.
I deeply disliked the first game. Found it to be more pretentious and inpenetrable than any art game you care to offer. How’s this one in the brick-wall-fist-in-mouth nonsense stakes?
I’m curious as to why you didn’t mention his villa. I thought having a customisable mission hub and upgradeable weapons was a big, much-needed addition to the game, with the pointless weapon choices of the first relegating most players to the sword fairly rapidly.
I also think the fast-travel system should be removed altogether. I understand it’s convenient for a lot of people, but I don’t understand players who want an open-world game environment and then refuse to actually travel through it. Why have it open world? Why not simply have linear levels instead? The two wants/needs contradict eachother, I think.
I grabbed this at the duty-free on Saturday, and I’m due to play through it tomorrow, so we’ll see how it plays out, but I commend you for being honest. I played the original countless times and loved it, personally, and I look forward to seeing it again, but thank you for not following the IGN route and giving it a nine whilst saying it has a long way to go. Nice writing, Greg :).
I think you’ll enjoy this one a little more than the first one Lewis. As far as “brick-wall-fist-in-mouth nonsense” goes (awesome phrase by the way) the narrative whilst inside the Animus is much better, and much more very believable, a lot of effort seems to have gone into it this time around, but it’s still based on the same core elements of the original, so with you disliking the first one it’s hard to recommend this one.
I make mention of the villa and the economy involved with the renovations but you right in saying I didn’t mention the weapons upgrade system, mainly because although it sounds like a great addition, it didn’t really effect the game in any tangible way. Combat remained the same regardless of weapon and although health was upgraded along with armour, it still didn’t matter that much because your enemies didn’t have a clue how to hit you.
Thanks for the support with the score guys, I genuinely can’t understand why so many other publications are scoring it so high. Don’t get me wrong it’s still good, but not enough has changed.
The fact still remains however that when you put it up next to a majority of other titles, it is a better looking game, with better game play. I would play this any day over the clunky and dated gameplay of L4D2, which for all intents and purposes, is the same game…and just awful.
Lewis: My own review will be up on HG shortly (Jason seemed pretty eager to get it posted), and hopefully that will address your concerns. Was it the narrative you found pretentious, or the design itself? I’d say “interesting premise, but handled poorly” applies to pretty much every aspect of the original game, whereas AC2 in my mind hits all of the right notes.
I disagree with the assertion that nothing’s changed, to the point that I think it does an injustice to all of the complaints Ubisoft addressed in the sequel. The mechanics are mostly unchanged, but were they ever the problem? For me, it was the monotonous, unimaginative design the turned me off the original AC, whereas I finished AC2 a couple of days ago and I STILL want to go back and play it right now. It’s honestly one of the best sequels I’ve ever played, because it rights nearly all of the wrongs of its predecessor without undermining the elements that make THIS franchise distinct from any other.
i agree, whats the point of having a massive world and jumping from place to place just to save time
Have now played the entire game, and I have to agree, you do find yourself using fast-travel later on, though I did ride around occasionally for the sheer enjoyment of the horse-riding. At the moment, finding feathers and glyphs. Game of the year, for me.