Truth is Written in Blood…

“I will seek vengeance upon those who have betrayed my family, and uncover a conspiracy bigger than I could have imagined. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am an Assassin.”

The highly anticipated follow-up to Assassin’s Creed features a new hero, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young Italian noble, and a new era, the Renaissance. Assassin’s Creed II retains the core gameplay experience that made the first opus a resounding success and features new experiences that will surprise and challenge players. Assassin’s Creed II is an epic story of family, vengeance and conspiracy set in the pristine, yet brutal, backdrop of a Renaissance Italy. Ezio befriends Leonardo da Vinci, takes on Florence’s most powerful families and ventures throughout the canals of Venice where he learns to become a master assassin.

Gameplay

Obviously being a sequel to Assassin’s Creed, we’d expect the gameplay to be fairly similar which is a great thing in this case. Although there were some slight hiccups with the way that the original game played, overall it was brilliant and unique. There are now many more fighting maneuvers to learn and master as you are often outnumbered, I’ve already experienced 8 guards to fight by myself whilst stuck at the end of an alley (which did look bloody awesome, similar to a scene from a movie).


There have been occasions where the game’s fluidity has sometimes dropped, but it hasn’t happened often enough for me to make a big fuss out of it. The game is just as fast paced and full of action as it’s predecessor which many people rated highly. Due to the speed of this game, it is really difficult to stop playing and put it down. Each time you complete a mission another is available for you immediately, and you end up taking the longest route you can to capture some more of those stunning graphics.

Graphics

We can see right from the off that there have been some graphical improvements since the first game, most noticeably to me (sad I know) as that the Ubisoft logo seems to be more defined, the menus are also more crisp and a lot sharper when seeing them on a 1080p resolution TV. Another observation after playing the game for an hour or so, the eyes on each character are fantastically detailed to the point where they glisten in the sun light.




Although as with all games there are also some graphical glitches such as some of the characters eyes wondering all over the place, skin overlapping clothing and lip sync was slightly out occasionally too. I have only noticed this happen a few times but what games doesn’t this happen in? The textures all load instantaneously rather than loading a single layer every two seconds like in Modern Warfare 2 (which to be fair you don’t really notice, but I do ).

Sound

The sound has vastly improved since the first Assassin’s Creed, though I have been having some problems where some of the dialogue only comes through the subwoofer so I couldn’t understand what was going on until I put some volume on my TV as well as the sound system. Other than the small fault possibly with my sound system, the sound is absolutely spot on. As you move the camera around whilst running through the Italian cities you hear different things coming from every angle. On one side you have guards whispering about you saying that they’ve seen your cape before, swing the view around and you will hear a group of young ladies offering a certain service. This is especially noticeable when standing on one of the Eagle spots and the camera is constantly rotating, allowing you to hear birds in mid-flight, water falls and occasionally music coming from the bustling streets below.

Overall Quality

As you may have guessed, I think very highly of both games in the Assassin’s Creed series thus far, the second game being the better of the two. At the time of writing this review I have only played through for around 2 hours or so and I’m already extremely impressed. From the wide range of screen shots and videos I’ve seen, I have a lot more game time on my hands which seems to be becoming a rarity these days (it took me less than 3hrs to complete the Modern Warfare 2 campaign). I will continue to play and amend this review if it needs it, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything other than awesome. I’d recommend Assassin’s Creed II to people who liked Assassin’s Creed, Wet and Mirror’s Edge.

Overall Rating: 9/10