Assassins Creed 2

So I've finally gotten around to playing the PC versions of Assassins Creed 2. And I don't think it's very good. The reasons for this are very closely linked to the first game so let's briefly recap on what was good/bad about AC1:

GOOD!:
The free running.
It felt original, smooth and great fun.

The swordplay
Assassins Creed 1 is one of the only games where melee combat is implemented well. Mainly because the most effective strategy is countering your opponents moves and choosing when to attack.

The cities all felt very different
From the sandy uniform rooftops of Jerusalem to the raggedy decaying stone of Acre, you could always tell where you were just by looking around you. Each of the four cities had real personality.

You felt like an assassin
You did little that wasn't involved with killing people. You always knew what you were doing: Hunting down and killing nine Templar's who were trying to take over the region. There was a fair amount of faffing about but it was assassin related faffing about like killing archers or grilling informants.


BAD!

The plot
Was pretty damn terrible. Especially the main character, who was an unlikable prick for 70% of the game. There also wasn't an ending.

Unskippable cutscenes
Grrr.


Ok, so the sequel.

My thoughts on the sequel have moved about a lot so I'll present them in a list:

1) The improvements to the swordplay are a mixed bag.
It's nice to have more weapons but the swordplay itself is gimped somewhat. In AC1 you could chain your sword strokes to create a one hit kill finishing move. You can still do this in AC2 but they've either changed the way you do it without telling me or it's much, much harder to do this time around. As a result, the swordplay feels a lot less precise and brutal than it did in AC1.

2) The cities all feel exactly the same
Apart from Venice, which is filled with fucking canals. In case you hadn't guessed, canals are the anathema to free running. An odd choice for a game where free running is one of the main selling points.

3) The plot is rubbish
I've been playing for roughly ten hours now and I couldn't really tell you what's been going on. I've killed some Italian noblemen/Templar's but I'm not really sure why or what I'm supposed to be preventing them from doing. At least in AC1 I knew that the merchant I killed was hording food and overcharging the people etc. There's none of this in AC2, just generic interchangeable fat rich/old sinister people.

4) You barely spend any time out of the animus
Granted, when you do they're some of the best bits in the game but I'm 80% of the way through the game and have been outside the animus precisely twice. Including the prologue, which shouldn't really count. I can't help thinking this is a tragic waste of one of the most intriguing (albeit very badly handled) elements of AC1

5) There's so much faffing about
In AC1 you lived in an assassin city, met other assassins constantly and generally got the impression that you were a cog in a massive machine. In AC2, you're the only assassin in the game apart from your uncle, who doesn't do anything.

As a result of this, you have to do a *lot* of side quests. These weren't too bad for the first few cities but things came to a head in Venice.

In Ubisofts defence, they've clearly spent a lot of time working on Venice. It looks very pretty. The problem is, they want you to spend as much time there as possible so you hook up with a group of thieves there who insist on you doing a shitload of recognisance before every mission, essentially tripling the prep needed for every assassination.


An example:

Some minor spoilers follow.

You have to kill a guy hosting a party at the Venice carnival. He's hosting a private invite only party. You can't sneak in, you can't pickpocket a guest to get an invite.

You have to win one.

You win one by competing in four tasks at some sort of fait thing. You have to feel up a lot of girls to get some ribbons, win two rooftop races and beat up some guys in a boxing ring.

After that, you get cheated out of winning the invite anyway.

So you go and pickpocket the guy who won it. Why the fuck didn't you do that in the first place?

There's then a lot of stuff where you try and remain undetected at the party which is half excellent, half gameplay padding bollocks.

To finish off, I found that my target was hosting the party from his boat. So I swam out and stabbed him in the back.

So, to recap, I killed the guy by swimming out into the canal (which was unguarded) climbing onto the boat (by killing one guard) and stabbing the guy in the back. I didn't even need to sneak into that cunting party...

This isn't an isolated example either. There are innumerable sequences where you have to escort an NPC through one of the four cities (at walking pace, naturally). If this sounds boring, it fucking is. In some of these boring escort quests, they're attacked by guards but I'm not really sure that improves things.

Oh, and from a narrative point of view, it's annoying when you character is given *constant* opportunities to knock off the five main baddies (he meets the uber baddie about six times, by my count, and has three definite opportunities to assassinate him) and he doesn't because he has to FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING.

I hate call bullshit but AC2 is set in the 19th century. You know what will happen if you just kill them before they can enact their plans? Nothing. Sure, you won't find out what their plans were but no buildings will blow up, no documents will get emailed to lawyers, they'll just die.


So, to sum up. Assassins Creed 2 does improve in some areas over the original. The main character is very slightly better and there are some nice new weapons to play with. On the other hand, there's even more arbitrary game lengthening bullshit this time around, the fighting's a bit gimped, the plot is still rubbish, the free running in the last half of the game is always being interrupted by canals, the game is far too long, there's no sense of danger, it's too easy and it's got no-where near as much character as the first one.

Wow, I didn't realise how many things had annoyed me about AC2 until I'd put them all in a list.

I'm gonna go play something else...