Assassins Creed II (XBOX 360) [Review]

Assassins Creed II (XBOX 360) [Review]

Roydon Cerejo, Dec 15, 2009 1114 hrs IST

A must-have if you own a console

Great visuals, improved gameplay, upgradable weapons, swimming is now possible

Cant skip cut-scenes, character modeling could have been better

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Assassins Creed was like a breath of fresh air when it launched back in 2007, as it explored the 11th century Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades, when the war between the Templars and the Assassins were in full swing. The highly detailed world was beautifully rendered and running across the rooftops of Damascus was a real joy, but this game was far from perfect.

After a couple of missions the gameplay got kind of monotonous forcing you to do a certain number of side missions like racing, killing archers on rooftops or pickpocketing, before you can actually continue with the main storyline. It seems Ubisoft heard the cries of gamers and have managed to fix most of the issues in the first game and have created a bigger, and might I say, a better looking game than before.

For all those who haven't played the first game, or if your memory is a bit foggy, here's a little background check of what you need to know before you start with Assassins Creed II (AC II). You play a bartender named Desmond Miles who's kidnapped by a supposed pharmaceutical company that forces Desmond to relive his ancestor's memories. Desmond is no ordinary dude; as you find out, he descends from a long line of assassins and the people who kidnapped him use him to discover the location of a device know as "Piece of Eden", which can enslave minds.

Toward the end of the first game you find out that there isn't one but many more devices scattered across the globe. The game ends with Desmond being locked up in the facility, which sets the pace for the second game.

AC II picks up immediately from where the first game left off -- Desmond trapped in the laboratory. The lab assistant from the first game is your only saving grace and she quickly helps you escape. Since Desmond had been in the Animus (the device used to simulate the memories) for so long, some of Altair's abilities seem to have crossed over. Abilities like the 'Eagle Vision' helps Desmond see the numbers punched on the keypad of the locked door.

We then skip to a secret lair where Lucy and other two 'assassins' have been working on their own version of the Animus, known as the Animus 2.0. In the first game, you directly jump into Altair's shoes and begin your missions, but this time you enter 15th century Italy and reprise the role of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the son of a banker/assassin. The game starts off when you are born, as you wiggle you hands and toes using the controller. Later you fast forward to when Ezio is a strapping virile teenager, picking fights, seducing women and so on. The initial couple of hours of gameplay are sort of a tutorial, which familiarize you to various moves. I really like the way they've incorporated this, unlike the first one where you're trapped in a Matrix-like construct and different training programs are loaded.

This is very good for first time assassins, but if you've played the first one then this can get a bit annoying, as the missions send you ferrying around Florence for mundane tasks like, race this person, or collect feathers for your younger brother and so on. Next let's see what has improved in the gameplay.