Assassin's Creed 2

I have a confession to make. I bought Assassin's Creed 2 the day it came out, but I just finished it last night. I have an excuse though. Since I hadn't played the original Assassin's Creed, I bought that as well at a budget price of 9.99 and started with that one first.

I was worried playing the two one after the other might hurt the experience. Especially after I got into AC1 a bit and found it to be one of the most annoyingly repetitive games of all time. Brilliant concept, beautiful visuals, but utterly barren in the long run.

Yet surprisingly AC2 is very similar to the first in game play, yet instead of being boring and repetitive the game feels very fresh and innovative. And that was even after just playing the first one. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is, there is an actual story here instead of a couple of vague short mission briefings like the first. The progression is more linear, but as a result the game play and missions much more varied. It's not just 'save the woman/monk' 9 times, then climb 9 buildings, etc. Sure some are similar, but there is a story woven into the missions that make them much more compelling and the story itself is pretty cool.

The second big change in the game is the main character. In AC, Altair is something of an ass. And a bland ass at that. Enzio, however, is a much more compelling character and a much easier to relate to. His goal, to avenge the death of his family, makes him more than just as assassin. He also grows over the course of the game, which spans at least 12 years, becoming less of a hothead and more of a driven man as the story progresses to its inevitable conclusion.

There are some nitpicks I have with the game. The whole city-building system is half-assed and fucks the game's economy to hell. By the time I finished the game, I had around 780,000 florins with literally nothing to spend it on but bribing officials and hookers. You get so much money from your city that everything else pales in comparison. Who cares about looting a chest for 1k when you get 14k every 20 minutes for free and that new piece of armor costs 27,000. Money is simply too easy to get, and there just isn't enough to spend it on.

Another thing that's kinda annoying, and this is just as true as the first one, is how the main character handles on the run. The game tries too much to assist you, often leading the character to do stupid things had no intention of doing just because you ran close to something and it locked on. This was especially obvious in chases, where weaving through buildings caused you to hit every damned chimney in the area and causing you to do strange jumps that inevitably cause you to jump off buildings instead of up the next wall. At a slower pace it is MUCH easier to manage, but this has less to do with the actual speed and more to do with the character's actions at speed.

I also wasn't entirely convinced at the ending. The Truth, well, was obvious even from the first few clips...too bad there wasn't something more interesting there. I didn't collect all of the feathers either (I got about 45 by the end, less than half). And there are tons of treasures left to collect and a score of optional missions. I'm half tempted to go back just to finish them up, but I'm not sure if there is a real point.

Overall, I'd have to say that AC2 exceeded my expectations and has been one of the best gaming experiences I've had this year. It was a truly fun, though not particularly challenging, game. One that I'll probably play again at some point.