Assassin's Creed 2

Assassin's Creed 2 is the open world, stealth, historical fiction, action-adventure game following Assassin's Creed 1. It goes along the same story line except now Desmond the bartender has escaped from the evil clutches of Abstergo with the help of Lucy Stillman, who was with Abstergo just one game ago but was actually an assassin the entire time (Oh, look. Another plot twist). Together they went to a small team of assassins who (surprise surprise) had a bigger and better Animus.  So they tell Desmond he needs to train to be a assassin and that the Animus is the best way to do it, and thus the game begins. Except this time, instead of Altiar, you get Ezio; a Italian who is for some reason better than Altiar at climbing, and also has more emotion, so that you actually feel as though you can sympathize with him.
      As for gameplay, I would have to say that I like Assassin's Creed 2 a lot more than I do Assassin's Creed 1, if only because of the faster travel times and the extra polishing. The story goes along hand in hand with the first game so I would still give it a 8, although I might give extra brownie points for the seamless transition. Do you remember everything I said was wrong in the last review? Well they fixed those problems, at the expense of three others. Ill head right into the first one, which is Ezio wanting to throw himself of ledges and hug walls. For some reason whenever I try to get onto a rope-bridge or jump off a small ledge Ezio does a sort of dance at the ledge as though he's afraid of heights or something. Also, every now and then when I try to do a leap of faith he just jumps of and doesn't land in the hay. But those problems are few and far between, lets get into the real problems. Ubisoft decided to make little puzzle chambers which you can go through in orders to collect keys to unlock Altiar's armour, which was a really good idea. However, making it where you have no control over your camera angle is a very BAD idea. I cannot tell you how many times I fell off ledges because A. I could not see where I was going, and B. the camera changed positions suddenly when I was jumping and made me jump sideways instead of backwards. This little feature made me dread having to do the climbing puzzles and I hope they fix it next time. Next problem is the AI, its a little more buggy than Assassin's Creed 1, and has killed itself multiple times. I have had rooftop guards simply jumping at me when I was hanging off a ledge, and falling straight into some water which killed them instantly. Also I have had some particularly dense guards hit the guards in front of them when trying to take a swing at me, and they also lose sight of you very easily.
      Now lets look at the Pros, of which there are many. First of all you have a ton more movement options: including the jump-climb which is extremely useful, you move a lot faster than you did in Assassin's Creed 1, and the jumping and catching mechanics have been polished. Then there are the changes to fighting: you can fight with the hidden blade (E.G. You can block, regular attack, and better counter), You can assassinate people from ledges, hiding spots, and in mid-air. You have a ton more weapon choices (Which is actually pretty cool), you have smoke bombs, poison, and a gun (yes, a gun.), and you can disarm people. So, the pros definitely make up for the cons, not to mention I didn't even name all the pros and I couldn't find any more cons. You can even hire groups of people to do your dirty work for you, and with that coupled with the fact that you get two hidden blades and can do a ton of new assassinations, makes stealth gameplay even more viable than the last Assassin's Creed. Also for those who enjoy just running up to people and beating them to death, there are hammers, swords, brooms, and a smorgus board of dodges counters and attacks for you to use. All in all, I would say that Ubisoft has stepped up and made a better game than the last, which I am sure we are all glad to hear.

They didn't really get my good side on that poster.