SoulIsTheGoal reviews Assassin’s Creed II

Assassin’s Creed II is an odd choice of game for me to play because I never played Assassins’ Creed I. I had seen it being played, I tried to do the tutorial at the beginning but it ended up making me feel ill (it’s just so bright). I have heard that the first one is riddled with faults- it’s too repetitive, it seems to think that the eastern world is the size of Kent and that the side missions are a little… meh, so approaching Assassin’s Creed II was a strange step for me. It’s a little embarrassing then that when your main gig is ripping on games that you find one you actually rather like.

You play as Desmond Miles reliving the genetic memories of his Italian ancestor Ezio Auditore Da Firenze, who is trying to uncover a conspiracy in the past to unfold a conspiracy in the future. You start off seeing Ezio’s birth where you are taught how the controls work, you follow his development from spoiled teenager to grim and determined assassin. The development of the story is unimaginably immersive… I still don’t care about Desmond that much, although he seems like quite a nice guy. Accompanying Desmond are Lucy (who looks like an attractive woman with a rhombus for a mouth), Rebecca (who is super excited about everything and has that “cute”, nerdy-girl voice that makes you want to stab things) and some other bloke played by Danny Wallace. I want to bring this up because it’s something that made me want to die. Danny Wallace is a funny bloke, not denying that, he isn’t a voice actor however. Every single line he has is annoying, not because that is what the character is supposed to be (the character is SUPPOSED to be disdainful and stoic, concerned with the mission and exasperated at the time he sees as being wasted) but because Danny Wallace isn’t a voice actor. You can TELL it is him because the voice acting is so bad. The only people allowed to voice act are as follows: Tim Curry and Patrick Stewart. NO ONE ELSE.

I’m going to get the nice stuff out of the way quickly because a lot needs to be said. Firstly, this game is fun. Do you remember that? Fun? I enjoyed running around the rooftops of 15^th century Itlay, I enjoyed finding all the feathers, I enjoyed stabbing people with knives, slicing them up with swords, piercing their faces with hidden blades, poisoning them and stealing their pikes to perforate their gizzards. This game simply allows you to have a lot of fun running around tricking guards and eviscerating them with your arsenal of mildly similar weapons. I found that a good proportion of the time I would use the hidden blades, as there’s nothing quite like walking up behind a guard and despatching him with a muffled “hmph!” and then running away to a little hidey hole and giggling as their rag doll falls to the streets below. I sometimes spend an hour just running around the rooftops taking out guards and finding more and more creative ways of killing them (which I should probably see my psychiatrist about). Secondly, it’s immersive and on occasion quite nerve wracking. Thirdly, it is visually a treat. I know I say I don’t care about graphics but when a game gives each area you visit a different style and a different area with different kinds of people it adds to the sense of scale, it makes me feel as though I’m travelling between different cities. Florence is dusty with terracotta roofs, Tuscany is green and pleasant, Forlí is darker and slightly seedy, an air of oppression creeping in and Venice is expansive and holds an austere atmosphere. And what is and isn’t a ledge are clearly definable, which is so welcome when you’re playing a game which consists ENTIRELY of jumping between ledges and hoping you don’t fall to your doom.

It does have faults, however. It is exceptionally easy, I’m on my second playthrough of the game and I managed to clear a good deal of that in 6 hours. Secondly, there is a micro-economic town building side quest that doesn’t seem to make sense. I can only assume it was put in as a visual indicator of how your questing is influencing and changing the world, but because it’s so far removed from any of the other cities you lose that sense. Perhaps a safe houses system like GTA, with one in each city would have made sense but it would just feel like a rip off so I can see why they didn’t bother. The armour system baffles me, I know they tried to remove regenerating health from the game and in some ways this makes it harder, but the regeneration had a good explanation in the first game. It becomes even more baffling when I had the best armour in the game before I had managed to buy the armour set before. The mandatory vehicle sections are given a nice twist in this game though; driving a runaway cart through mountains, punting yourself to victory and flying on a glider are all hilarious in the way that they seem to be taking the piss out of everyone else’s vehicle sections whilst actually contributing to the narrative.

The middle of the game gets confusing, you seem to get ordered to one place or another with no clear reason and I had to play it again to realise who these people were but at least you can take them out whenever you want and they don’t all reveal long cutscenes WHILST THEY’RE DYING. This is the most annoying feature and I wish it would fuck off. I have stabbed them, why would they suddenly reveal vital information with a blade through their throat? Also annoying is the fact that the last half of the game takes place in Venice. The first half of the game takes a while to manoeuvre through different areas, broadening your sense of scale immersing you deeper and deeper into 15^th century Italy and the wide range of places which it consists of. So why do they take the breadth away from you and insist you play the last half in the same fucking place? I could have revisited earlier places, see how they changed over time, especially if they had broadened the villa concept. It just makes me think they got bored towards the end.

The combat is also a little… spongey. I can’t quite vocalise what I mean, but it essentially comes down to waiting for them to attack you and then countering. This changes if you play a second time and fully explore all the combat options, whereby you end up being a cross between an Assassin from Italy and a ninja. One neat little feature is the way that Ezio can steal weapons from guards by selecting fists and then gut them with their own weapons. If you spend your time training (but why would you when the story is so compelling) then you can end up dispatching enemies quickly through dodges, strafes, counters and full assaults but it just shouldn’t be that much effort to get it right.

One thing I have to mention before I wrap up is a genius gag which nods towards one of out favourite portly video game characters. I literally howled with laughter as it was completely unexpected, little things like this can sometimes make a game and it is worth playing the first hour for that alone.

So overall I recommend Assassin’s Creed II. The graphics are pleasant, the gameplay is good and the story is cracking, and if you don’t like the ending and credits you have something SERIOUSLY wrong with you. However, by no means is this game perfect and I’m never going to let my personal enjoyment of a game override the fact that I’m a reviewer. It’s worth renting and I have felt like playing it again and again so take from that what you will.