REVIEW: Assassin’s Creed 2

Assassin’s Creed was one of my favorite games of 2006. It was like a child to me; I loved it despite its flaws. And, yes, I can admit that Assassin’s Creed was flawed. The mission structure was repetitive to the point of monotony and the swordfighting system was a bit bass-ackwards. (you basically wait for your opponent to attack and perform an insta-kill counter move. By the third time you pull this trick, you’d think that your enemies would get the point and flee.) But amidst all the criticism and hatred, I could see a game that had polish, a game that was fun to play, and a game that signaled a new venture of video game storytelling into adulthood. (Not the Grand Theft Auto type of adulthood, where you beat hookers with used heroin syringes while reciting all the known euphemisms for “penis.”)

Assassin’s Creed 2 promised to deliver a game rid of all the flaws of the original, the game that the creators wanted to make in the first place. While some of the niggling little quirks of the original are still present (more on those to come), Assassin’s Creed 2 is a major leap beyond the first game and could easily rival Batman: Arkham Asylum as my Game of the Year*.
The basic concept is the same: you play as Desmond Miles, a bartender in the future whose family tree is possessive of the longest list of professional killers since the Gotti clan. He’s the central figure in a war between Assassins and the Knights Templar, which has been raging since recorded history started (apparently) and could have the fate of the world at stake. In this game, he must regress back to the Italian Renaissance to relive the memories of Ezio Auditore, a young whipper-snapper turned neck-snapper after he survives the betrayal and murder of his family. You spend the rest of the game out for revenge, a la Kill Bill, and “The Truth,” a la Fox Mulder (depending on how deep into side-quests you go).

Assassin’s Creed 2 is high functioning when it comes to the usual stuff: walking around, interacting with people, camera work, etc. Several parts of the game are improved from their first edition, adding to the variance in gameplay. For example, in Assassin’s Creed, as long as your opponent had lost sight of you, you could sit on a park bench and eye little girls with bad intent in broad daylight while the guards loudly wondered where you went to. In Assassin’s Creed 2, some guards will search for you on benches, in bales of hay, and all the usual Assassin hiding spots. In order to be safe from the guards, you have to get out of a pre-determined zone before the guards will give up chase, similar to the system employed in Grand Theft Auto. Plus, while Altaïr had just his hidden blade, his sword, and throwing knives to help him, Ezio has two hidden blades (one of which is laced with poison), a sword, throwing knives, smoke bombs, a smaller sword, and even an antique pistol! Ezio is a walking factory of death, most of it unnecessary since hidden blades and swords are all you need to make corpses. Still, variety is the spice of life. Assassin’s Creed 2 also tosses in a Notoriety scale. Whereas Altaïr was either invisible or Public Enemy #1, Ezio has varying levels of Wanted-ness he’ll have to deal with if he chooses to litter the streets of Italy with bodies. Even then, you can go about it in a few ways!

Despite all that I have good to say about it, there are some parts that annoy me. First, and definitely foremost is the free-running. I complained in my review of Assassin’s Creed that the free-running mechanic works about half the time. The other half of the time will be spent leaping off of buildings to certain-death drops and hanging stupidly off of ledges while guards used you as a Middle-Ages piñata. In Assassin’s Creed 2, nothing changes. In fact, it’s made worse by the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. The rooftops have a slight slant to them that is easy to miss if you aren’t looking out for them, so a desperate run from the Fuzz could easily end in you misjudging your jump and faceplanting right in front of a minstrel, who will still try to sing for your florins. Added to that is Ezio’s almost unhealthy attraction to walls. He loves walls. In fact, if you are free-running and you get anywhere close to a wall, he’ll leap onto it like a child that has just spotted Cocoa Puffs at the grocery store. Again, this leads to some almost comical runs from the polizia that should be set to the Benny Hill music.

(Just for the record, I know that it’s difficult to do free-running in a game, especially a game with the physics and structure of Assassin’s Creed. But, if this mechanic isn’t fixed by Assassin’s Creed 3, I’m going to flip my lid.)

Up next, combat. Another thing not changed from Assassin’s Creed is the sword-fighting. This brings up mixed emotions in me because the fight system is competent, but feels a lot like turn-based combat but without the obvious dice rolls. Again, your best bet is to goad your opponent into attacking, block or dodge said attack, and run your sword through them. It works, but this is one time where some hack-n-slash might do me good. Also, one of my favorite parts about the original Assassin’s Creed was that the Assassinations, be they of lowly archers or high-profile targets, were a finely tuned, well polished experience. When I took down an archer, he knew what was coming to him only when he saw my blade extend and plunge into his soft flesh (not a gay reference). In Assassin’s Creed 2, the archers are bit sharper and will spot your intentions to murder them a bit sooner, usually no matter how fast or how stealthily you do it. As a result, the game gears up for a fight that lasts about two seconds, long enough for me to dispatch the guard and loot his corpse. Plus, if you keep killing guards in spectacular ways, you’ll get punished with notoriety. I know it seems picky, but it ruins the assassination experience. On the higher-profile side, one of the best things about Assassin’s Creed was the set-up to the kill. You learned where your target was going to be and scoped the place out, choosing the best method of entry and exit and planning your kill was amazingly fun, if not a little bit disturbing. In this game, the assassinations are thrown at you almost without warning, so you get none of that Dexter-like preparation.

Finally, economics. Assassin’s Creed 2 introduces an economics system into gameplay, whereby you can either steal treasure that is barely guarded or perform side missions to earn money in order to buy weapons and fix up your villa, which in turn will net you more money. However, the game suffers from the same fault of almost ALL in-game economics systems: they soon become moot. It starts out fun; you have to account for every single penny and spend like a college student furnishing his apartment. It adds a level of difficulty and drama to the game where the perfect weapon or suit of armor is just beyond your reach because you don’t have the money for it. However, once you get past 40% of the game, you’ve accumulated enough wealth to buy anything you want, and in this case, buying more means earning more money that just becomes pointless. Good in-game economics should make you work for a reward: say, a weapon that is insanely overpriced and will require a ridiculous number of quests to save up for. In this case, if you actively hunt treasure and perform side-quests, you’ll have enough florins that you’ll literally be throwing them away.

If this review seems long, it’s because Assassin’s Creed 2 is a massive game and will require a big time-commitment to finish**. I loved the game despite all the times I cursed out the camera or the stupid free-running mechanics. Like the original, I played it so I could get to the end and enjoy the story being woven around me. That’s the pleasure in the Assassin’s Creed series. The story is infectious, the gameplay is addictive, and the further down the rabbit hole you go, you find yourself wanting less and less to go back to the surface.

Final Verdict: 4.5 hidden blades out of 5

P.S. I’d heartily recommend anyone interested in Assassin’s Creed to go to the Assassin’s Creed Wiki to get more info on the story, characters, and how they all fit together. Believe me, brother, there’s a lot to go through.

*No, I haven’t played Uncharted 2: Among Thieves yet. I know it’s supposed to be really good. Don’t e-mail me.

**That big time commitment might seem a little wasted once you get to the final boss fight. I wish games didn’t build us a tremendous experience just to give us a small fart of a final boss.

REVIEW: Assassin’s Creed

This much-hyped about game has finally hit store shelves, and has been getting mixed reviews. Some mainstream publications give Assassin’s Creed 9 to 9.5 out of 10 scores, while others declare it a disappointment that is flying off the Ishtar scale. How does one insignificant gamer with a website find it? Pretty darn good.

I picked this game up on a whim, mainly because I had a few extra bucks to spare for Blockbuster, and wanted to check the game out. To be honest, I wasn’t in the best position to play the game, since I’m back home and hundreds of miles away from my beloved HDTV. And playing Assassin’s Creed in Standard Definition sucks rhino balls. This played a minor part in my initial frustration with the game, coupled with the really kooky way the developers chose to open the game’s first few moments. It makes absolutely no sense when you’re involved in it, but once you’re past it, you really enjoy the new take on the standard “tutorial level”. Plus, trying to read text in SD may put me back into glasses.

The gamer assumes the role of Altaïr, a skilled assassin during the time of the Third Crusade, who must assassinate nine key members perpetrating the Crusades in the Middle East. (Supposedly, these targets actually existed around the time of the game’s setting, and either died or mysteriously disappeared. None of them were actually assassinated, though.) The gameplay is a free-explore variety, allowing the player to chose the manner in which to complete the game’s objectives: slow, thorough, and stealthy, or fast, sloppy, and high-profile. Stealth is a key aspect, with the game’s AI rigged to become alert if you do something out of the ordinary, such as scale a building or cause too much of a ruckus, and send you running for cover. Logically, you’re best off infiltrating the crowd surreptitiously, waiting for the right moment, and killing only when necessary, or when no one’s watching. Combat is re-tooled as well, making flashy sword kills easy, yet not quite as easy as single-button. Apart from all of this Assassin’s Creed is almost breaking the fourth wall by making the player well aware that what they’re doing is controlling a virtual reality representation of life. In truth, our main character is not Altaïr, but Desmond Miles, a bartender who is a direct descendent of Altaïr’s, and is forced to undergo a VR regressive memory therapy for some shady scientists. Throughout the game, little “glitches” occur in the memory, giving the player a new point-of-view on the action in front of them.

While playing the game, I couldn’t help feeling the influences of the Metal Gear Solid series on Assassin’s Creed. The main idea is almost exactly the same as in MGS: stay hidden and strike quick. Although, Assassin’s Creed gives you much more lenience, since you aren’t totally relegated to the shadows and can walk freely without much hassle, provided you don’t hassle anybody else. Apart from this stealth element, there is a definite RPG side of the game, with sidequests the gamer can either take part in or ignore for the sake of the bigger mission. This helps expand the playtime, and makes Assassin’s Creed play much like Knights of the Old Republic, another game I could spend days with.

The best part of Assassin’s Creed is, I hate to say it, killing people. Assassinations have been sanded down and polished to a clear shine, making every time you stick your hidden knife into anyone, even someone as insignificant as a rooftop archer, a joy to experience. Regular sword combat is okay, too, but I’d much rather take someone out silently than try to tango with five guards at once. The interactivity with your environment will also keep the gamer involved with the experience, making it one of the best 3rd Person games I’ve played since Gears of War. It’s easy to lose yourself in the world of Assassin’s Creed, and spend way too much time playing it.

There are some downsides, though. If you stick to one strategy, the gameplay becomes rather formulaic as time goes on. Run up the towers to survey the land, rescue some citizens, perform some pickpockets, kill your target, repeat. After the first few assassinations, you realize that the gameplay isn’t going to vary much, but the storytelling aspect of the game makes you not care that killing people hasn’t evolved. Sure, you gain some new abilities as you go on, but really, all you’re doing is playing through a section to get to the next part of the story. It doesn’t bother me personally, because I enjoyed the gameplay so much that I went through almost all the sidequests I could before actually attempting the assassination. And the great thing about the game is that you can play it as fast or as slow as you want, as long as you’re good at getting away from the guards. I also found the “free-step” and “scaling” mechanisms a bit awkward, which can definitely cause trouble in escape situations and later stages, where finesse is what keeps you alive.

Final Verdict: 5 amputated ring fingers out of 5*

Assassin’s Creed should be in every gamer’s library, and I’m so glad that it was opened up to the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 (even though I purchased a PS3 version in order to keep me from playing it) so more gamers can share the fun of its gameplay. In fact, a little birdie on the grapevine told me that a DS version was in the works, and I welcome that as well**. Assassin’s Creed is meant to be the first part of a trilogy, as most game franchises are, so we can only hope that there is more bloody goodness to come courtesy of Altaïr.

* If you look at the picture above, you can see that Altaïr is missing his ring finger in order to properly use the hidden blade. While you don’t actually see that done, it’s damn cool.

** I’m back. After a few months of this review being out, I came across a review of Assassin’s Creed: Altaïr’s Chronicles. Hoo boy, does it suck…