Great Deal Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed II takes a great approach at the open world action sub genre. It just so happens that it is an approach not taken by those other than the creators of Assassin's Creed, but they've hit it spot on. Ezio, and the beautiful structures of Italy are immersive, and have great design value. They both feel spot on to how I would imagine the Italian Renaissance, and an assassin placed there. The voice acting is great, and feels very native to Italy. What's great about this game, is has great structural value, as mentioned previously, and a great free form style of game play. The free running in the game is not perfected, but this is as expected. I don't feel as if technology has advanced to the point yet where it really can be perfected, but the game feels as if the developers have done the best with what they have available to date. The free running has come a long way from the first game in the series, but I still think it will be built on, and possibly even perfected in future games in the series. The game play still feels a little button mashey as far as combat goes, but it does feel improved, and the RPG aspects added to this game, were a positive addition. It feels much more immersive to be building up new armor and weapons, as you gain more money, and progress through the game, which couldn't be done in the first installment in the series. Though all of this adds up over the first game, I think where they really hit it on nose was with the added randomness, and reduction of repetition in missions. The first installment was roughly doing the same thing, nine times, in different settings, with different characters, where as now you have much more freedom as to which missions you do, and how you do them, on top of the fact that there is a larger variety of missions themselves. Overall, very entertaining game, whether it be jumping of a rooftop, leading to a guard's death, or watching a fantastically rendered cutscene, but still has plenty of room for improvement in future installments, which can be a good thing for us consumers waiting for more storyline, and more gameplay.
One of PS3's finest titles - Christopher Jackson -
The only reason I don't give this game a 5/5 is because I reserve that honor for the best of the best, and this game has a few minor flaws, a great game non the less. This game has all of the incredible building scaling awsomeness and bad ass assassination epicness as the first one, plus it also added some cool RPG elements, like the option of buying armor and weapons, a riveting plot twist, and some other things that make the game easier to play, like fast travel stations and more time spent in the animus. Plus the trophies in this game are much easier to obtain and a lot more fun,no collecting 15,000 different flags to get 100% of completion. The only things that are lame about this game are that the battles are somewhat redundant, although awesome, they get kind of repetitive after 20 hours of game play. Also the controls can be kind of tricky, Ezio is such a super cool assassin that he can't help but run up random walls and jump off ledges, which can be kind of inconvenient when you're on a timed mission or chasing someone. Either way the game is pretty dang cool. Plus Ezio is a super hot ladies man that you can't help but love.
Assassins Creed 2 - B. Harris -
I bought this game because I was extremely bored, and needed something to do.
First I'll list the things that weren't so great about the game. The first thing that comes to mind was the freeze I encountered while trying to reach the top of a View Point. It was at a point in the game where I didn't have the 'extended jump' unlocked for my character. I didn't read anything about the game and had no idea there was such a feature in the game that allowed you to jump higher while scaling buildings. After about 10 minutes of fiddling around with this building and trying to climb to the top I saw a small structure with a pointed top which could possibly get me high enough to jump and reach the higher part of the View Point tower, so when I decided to jump onto it the game froze suddenly when I fell off the tip of this structure. I had to get up, reset my Playstation by hand because I couldn't access the dashboard.
There are a few other small things in the game, that may effect enjoyment and gameplay for certain people. One was when you killed a guard with the hidden blade on a roof top that was patrolling near the edge of the roof would cause your character to slide down with the body off of the building unless you quickly react and move off of the body in time, sometimes it will leave you hanging on the side of a building or possibly fall to your death.
There was also a problem I had with jumping to a platform that is behind you (you'll only really ever have to do this in Assassin Tomb's) there's only one direction you can hold your analog stick in to get Ezio to jump backwards. This direction would be either Left or Right, depending on the camera angle and a position of a wall/stopping point. Holding the stick up or down would only make Ezio attempt to climb up or down, obviously. So when you're holding it in the desired direction you'd assume the game would have some type of trail for your character to follow in a way, but that's not always the case. When you do something like this you can either end up jumping the complete opposite direction, towards your screen, or just completely miss the jump because of the fixed camera angles in certain areas. This can be extremely annoying in the Assassin Tomb's when you're trying to finish something within a time limit. Sometimes you'll also be near a eagle jump and you'll initiate the eagle jump to a haystack or even water.
There's also something with the height difference in the game, almost like everything on the Z axis (not sure if Z is the correct axis) has no depth. You can be atop a building and push circle randomly and tackle a thief about 200 feet below you with a weird camera angle. Another small issue I had was a tree, a single tree in the last town you unlock, when you're climbing through a mission you get stuck by this tree because the root of the tree is through the bottom of the wall, even though you're above the root and there is nothing blocking your way you can't get past it unless you go another way. The area was pretty open but you may run into something similar while playing, this goes hand in hand with the height difference problem I experienced.
The Game:
With Assassin's Creed 2 you have a lot more you can do, although it may get repetitive after a while it is still something you can do and possibly enjoy. I did all of the side missions in this game (every race, every beat-em-up, delivery, feathers, etc) and I have to say that they were pretty boring but gave you something to do while you progressed through the story. The most enjoyable thing about the game in my opinion was that you get your own city and you can upgrade it. I loved that you can upgrade your own town and get items for a cheaper price depending on what you've upgraded. Although the city is awesome and all, it's VERY easy to max everything out and that may be alright for some people but I wish I could of done something with all the money I was earning. The money in this game mostly comes from your city, and when you upgrade it you earn more cash. You earn money every 20 minutes, and is collected a cheat behind your sister. It has a limit making it unable to continue earning cash after a certain amount so you'll need to go back and collect that money when it's full or at a convenient time.
As I said earlier, making money in this game is so easy it makes it almost completely worthless. After you've upgraded your city entirely (which I did very early in the game) the only way to increase your chest that fills with money is to get a higher completion which includes getting feathers, finishing missions, etc. The game itself is also extremely easy, I never, not even once died from a fight with guards. The only times I died were because I fell off of a building/ledge related to a game bug. The reason I didn't die during any guard fights was because you can now carry around medicine, I believe you start out with a small pouch that can hold around 5 or so and can be upgraded to 15 if I remember correctly. Using these will restore quite a large amount of health and pretty much make you unstoppable the entire game, they are also dirt cheap. When you get further in the game you unlock new weapons, items that can be bought from a merchant.
As you get more weapons your city's value also expands earning you more cash, a bigger chest to hold cash, and more animations to kill people with. This is also the case with paintings and any other collectibles you can store in your city, they increase your cash flow and the chests maximum cash.
You can find more information all over, no point in telling you anything you can easily find by reading one of your favorite review sites.
I ended up trading this game in for .50 because there's nothing to do after you beat it, and it wasn't really worth a replay to me. I unlocked everything and completed the game to 100%, I did get all of the feathers it was a tough job and it gives you the most useless item in the game. I purchased this for .99, I'd say this game was worth the .49.
tl;dr:
The game has some bugs/issues that I encountered and really made me dislike the game at some points. Only died to bugs, this game is for a casual gamer. If you're looking for a moderately or even slightly challenging game I'd recommend getting something else.
Rating : 4.5
Price on Mar 10, 2010 12:53:17 : $59.99
Offer Price : $38.47
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Assassin's Creed II Features
- Explore the deadly, shadowed world of the assassin with new assassin Ezio
- Roam freely through the lush and dangerous world of Renaissance-era Italy
- Do whatever it takes to complete your missions in the game's all-new open world and mission structure
- Thrive in an environment rich with power, revenge and conspiracy
- Practice your assassin's art with all-new weapons and instruments created by Leonardo da Vinci
Assassin's Creed II Overviews
The world of the assassin is one cloaked in shadow and steeped in danger. Ensnared in a web of revenge and conspiracy, the assassin embraces power at its most elemental, acting as the dividing line between life and death. As an assassin confronted by perilous new challenges and difficult choices, what path will you choose?
Features
Explore the deadly, shadowed world of the assassin with new assassin EzioRoam freely through the lush and dangerous world of Renaissance-era ItalyDo whatever it takes to complete your missions in the game's all-new open world and mission structureThrive in an environment rich with power, revenge and conspiracyPractice your assassin's art with all-new weapons and instruments created by Leonardo da Vinci
Assassin's Creed II Specifications
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