First thing’s first, I put the disc in! Now I’m told I need to update the PS3 firmware, fair enough as I haven’t switched the thing on for christ knows how long! Whilst this is updating I get distracted only to look back at the PS3 45 minutes later and it’s only on 90%! What the hell! The 360 only take 5 minutes at the absolute most for an update. Once the PS3 update finally finishes, it then tells me it needs to update the game, which bare in mind is only a few weeks old, but it proceeds to download over 100MB worth of updates on the game too Good start this is!

Another hour later, I finally get to the game but I’m so bored of waiting by now I don’t have high hopes for it, even though many other reviews rated it quite well. Right, well on to the review of the actual game rather than the system now. We start off learning a few of the controls whilst hanging off a cliff in a wrecked train carriage, awesome start to the action. Following the instructions on screen, I immediately begin to recognise the controls from the first game (which I only actually played for about 2 hours, never got into it). Though at the same time, the controls were already frustrating me. I think this is because I played Assassin’s Creed II for so long and the controller layout for that was just perfect, but I was really struggling with this one.

Gameplay

So I’ve just started the game, I’m climbing up the outside of a train carriage vertically whilst it is hanging off of a cliff, piece of cake, right? Wrong! Right from the very start this game was aggravating me with it’s ridiculous camera angles. Let me set the scene for you. You are trying to go up the train, near the edge of a cliff, whilst it moves about in the wind slightly and you have debris falling down hitting the train. Where would you expect the camera, sideways on, perhaps a bit lower than your character to see where you are going? Apparently not, the camera here is looking straight down and is situated between the cliff edge and the train, I can’t see a thing! I finally get to the top after dying a few times and make it into the next carriage, which is on the top of the cliff but still round the right way. I start to walk through and the camera then pans to the door which I’m heading for at the far end, I stop expecting a cut scene or someone to come wandering in wanting to kill me. No. The train begins to slide and before I know it I’m dead again as the entire train goes tumbling off the edge. Grrrrr.

I’ve now progressed to chapter 20, which I’ve been told is the last one and the stupid camera angles are still giving me problems and I still have not got used to the controls to the point where I try and take the character out of covering behind a wall, he’ll run off, jump, do a roll then fall off a ledge, what the hell?! Seriously, this game has stressed me out so much I have to complete it just to get it out of the way! If you’ve ever played Uncharted 1, then you will know that it involves some form of free-running and climbing ancient monuments, a cross between Assassin’s Creed and Tomb Raider I suppose, just a very poor one. Let’s compare an example, in Assassin’s Creed you can run to the edge of a building, jump and land it, grab for something or simply fall to your death. With Uncharted 2 you can’t jump off certain ledges, it just doesn’t work, sometimes the character stumbles around and is then fine, sometimes he wall off but spin around and catch himself on the ledge, but also you can fall off and just die, there is no consistency at all.

Graphics

Now that the rant is over, let’s get some positive points about this game. The graphics are spot on, very nice visuals (and I hate to say this) but it looks better than most games on the 360. I don’t know if it’s down to the developers of the game or the console, but I have noticed that the PS3 handles 1080p TVs a lot nicer than the XBOX does. Everything on the screen looks good, the mountains in the distance, the flaming cars you are hiding behind and even the guns glowing on the floor indicating for you to pick them up. Even the speech lip sync is pretty much spot on with only a few blunders. Some of the best graphical examples are in the cut scenes where the story really takes form.

This video shows some of the great visuals, one thing in particular I noticed is the facial expressions on the main characters. The main character tries to be funny on quite a number of occasions (I say tries as it isn’t really funny, but it makes you laugh that they are trying) but the good point is the realism of the facial expressions, they look almost perfect. That look of “I’m soooo funny, but no one is laughing” with the faint sign of a smile but also sheer embarrassment. There are plenty more of the cutscenes on YouTube if you just search for “Uncharted 2 cutscenes”, hell you can even watch the entire game on there and save yourself some money rather than buying it!

Sound

I don’t really have much to say about the sound to be honest. It’s good, you can really feel the punch of the explosions through the subwoofer, but that’s becoming standard with most games now. As well as the sound of bullets whooshing past your ears and hitting the wall behind you. The speech for all the characters is really good and clear, this is actually one of the only games that I didn’t have to put the subtitles on to hear them properly. I have also noticed that the speech of the characters changes depending on the environment you’re in. I’ve just been in a massive ice cavern type thing and I noticed the occasional shiver mid-speech as well as a lot of echoing, you could really feel the environment around the character.

Conclusion

Personally, this game has stressed me out so much that I never want to go near it again (even Call of Duty doesn’t annoy me this much ) but the story and action of the game is so good, it’s a real let down really. This game would make a brilliant movie and/or short tv series, but as a game I don’t think it cuts it, not for me anyway. If the controls were as good and as smooth as they were in Assassin’s Creed II then this could easily beat that for entertainment value, but it’s just not a good game if it can’t be played properly. You can even see in the second video I posted that the player is struggling to perform the moves correctly and it looks really odd.

So overall, a major major letdown of a game, good story and great action, but if it can’t be played then it’s a bit of a useless game! I’d rate it 6/10.

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