Spending the few extra bucks to grab the special edition of Assassin's Creed 2 was worth it: A 7 and change inch tall figure of Ezio, a small art book, a special "Behind the Scenes" , and all wrapped in a cute metal box with a close up on our hero's face. You can almost see the grin as he spots his next victim.
Assassin's Creed 2 takes place during the mid 1400's where you take hold of Ezio Auditoire de Firenze, a young, handsome man who seems to have been born to climb like his father, and his father before him. But I get ahead of myself here. The game starts with Desmond (You know, your poor modern day man who was kidnapped and put through hell in the first game?) and Lucy, breaking and fighting their way out of Abstergo, and Lucy is no slacker, taking on the guards with some serious ass kicking moves. You soon find out just exactly what Lucy has been up to and planning for apparently some time and quickly take control of Ezio who is thrown into a world of conspiracies and lies.
Between flowing battle moves and the ability to quickly break away and hide, only to strike from the shadows. AC2 clears up so many problems AC1 had, everything from being unable to swim (though now no one knows how to) to the flow of the game and free running. With so many ways to do battle, it's hard to get bored of it. First guard? Take him out with your hidden blade, alerting the others. Draw your sword and strike down another. See a weapon you like? Sheath your weapon and disarm him, yes, stealing his weapon only to use it against him in one swift strike.
Aside from dual assassination techniques and fun ways to take out unsuspecting guards and targets, the story will grab you within the first ten minutes as Ezio's world starts to swiftly change, from his family being accused of treason to him taking up the assassin's garb (Which is pretty hot this time around!) Ubisoft was nice enough to toss us a quick travel option to get between one side of the country to the other side so you don't spend ten minutes getting lost between missions though there are a few times where you must travel by horseback while going to a new city.
While exploring the world that is around you, there is a little side story that takes place inside the Animus where Ezio/Desmond is asked to find these apparently random and out of place symbols that are sprinkled throughout the different city. Before you can get the nitty gritty of what each symbol truly holds, you have to solve a handful of puzzles. The one thing that will captivate any player is the conspiracies that are brought forward but not fully into light, ranging from ancient Egypt to World War II. Each little piece leads to a much bigger picture, and that final picture is one of true awe.
Another new feature they've added was the ability to gain gold and buy supplies and new armor which gives a nice feel of realism to the game, though it does come to the point where you can't get hurt enough to spend all your gold, and you've bought every last heavy, blunt, sharp, and generally dangerous item in the land, so the only thing left is to parade around in every single color you can dye your armor (Which I really like.)
While AC2 worked out almost all the bugs that AC1 had, a few still remain. One problem I kept running into was directing my jumps while holding onto a ledge, specifically when I wanted to jump backwards. Turning the camera barely helped and it was even worse when the camera was stuck. This, sometimes, led to the horrific deaths of Ezio, though a few invoked a laugh or two due to the ragdoll game mechanics.
Overall, the game was well worth the wait and money, and the few flaws there are (mainly because my TV sucks) are easily overlooked. With the sequels (#3 and Brotherhood) are also well anticipated, with Brotherhood coming out next month (November). Oh what fun is to be had when assassins decide to play tag?
Rundown time:
Pros: Beautiful worlds, wonderful story line, colorful characters, combat is just tasty
Cons: The ground is still not your friend, controls seem to be nearly flawless but the flaws can cost you a life
Random thought: How do you say "Ouch" in Italian? Or how about "I don't know how to swim!"?
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