Assassin's Creed II (PS3)

Two years after the relatively low-profile original, Ubisoft turns the franchise into a true blockbuster and produces the glamorous Assassin's Creed II.

The Story

Assassin's Creed supposedly features a twist: It advertises you play the role of a superb assassin from a time long gone but, in truth, you are actually playing as one of his descendants living in our modern world, a seemingly average chap named Desmond.

This, however, is revealed within the first few minutes, or in the manual's fourth page, so it's not so much a twist, as it is the whole premise.

So, in the world of Assassin's Creed, "genetic memory" means that we are imprinted with all of our ancestors' experiences; there is also a machine called The Animus that allows us to access those "memories" in a "Virtual Reality"-esque enviroment. Unfortunately, the device is still in beta so loading up a memory isn't as simple as booting up a DVD: The user has to be comfortable with the ancestor's mindset first. So, the more complex and intense the memories, the more "lead-up" events will need to be relived before being able to experience them.

Such was the case documented in the first Assassin's Creed, when the unmistakably evil successors of the Knights Templar, operating under the guise of a corporate giant called Abstergo, forced Desmond to go through the life of a 12th century assassin, Altaïr, up to the point where he acquires an artifact of unfathomable mystical properties, a "_Piece of Eden_" called the "'''Apple'''".

Desmond eventually succeeds in unlocking that memory, but not before his sanity takes a bit of a dent: An Animus glitch called the "bleeding effect", which has users carrying over ancestor abilities in the real world, leaves him with Altaïr's "_Eagle Vision_", an extra-sensory type of vision that colour-codes objects and people depending on their importance and threat levels.

What's worse, having outlived his usefulness over at Abstergo, Desmond is scheduled for termination, but undercover love interest Lucy, has a plan: She'll break Desmond out, bring him to the makeshift headquarters of the order of Assassins and use an updated version of the Animus and its "bleeding effect" to transform him into the perfect assassin, by making him go through the life of renaissance assassin, Ezio Auditore.

So Assassin's Creed II mostly focuses on the tale of Ezio. It is a classic tale of a family wrongly accused and hunted down, of a foolhardy youth seeking revenge and reluctantly picking up his father's mantle, and of corrupted authority figures conducting machiavellian schemes. It features the lovely sights of fifteenth century Italy, from Florence to Venice and guest-stars historical figures such as Pope Alexander VI and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Of course, the series' overarching plot with the Pieces of Eden eventually weaves into it and Desmond and his new-found allies are always on the background, trying to figure out what is truly going on; it all makes for a pretty entertaining story and a very interesting fictional take of our world's history. It is often-times predictable, but there are a few solid twists and this time they are kept a bit closer to heart.

It should be noted that Assassin's Creed II continues the tradition of ending on a "WTF?" note, but, even though it's actually more pronounced this time around, it does leave us wanting more in anticipation and not in frustration, as was the case with the first game.

The Gameplay

The original Assassin's Creed was one of those games you'd either really enjoy, provided you got into its groove, or get completely fed-up with from the first two missions. It played its hand early and the gameplay didn't evolve at all, from start to finish. In fact, it actually regressed to a swordfight-combat-only state for the race to the end boss, a sign that even Ubisoft didn't have complete faith to the relaxed gameplay that featured more parts "'''sightseeing'''" than it did "'''assassinating'''".

Subjective to opinion, it was either a flawed masterpiece or an uninspired, boring grind; but it was clear that if only a little more thought and effort went into it, Assassin's Creed could have been an objectively cracking game.

For this second instalment, it is apparent that Ubisoft did put more effort into it; in fact, it has actually overshot in a few occassions. Things start much slower, with Desmond's escape and eventual link-up to the Animus 2.0 taking way, way too long, in an opening sequence especially horrible for newcomers to the series.

There is a lack of direction in all three sequences with Desmond and the game is very bad at introducing combat controls in general. These two flaws combine here, so, without having played the first game or having read the manual, the player is pretty much left with slowly following Lisa as she takes her time wiping the floor with Abstergo guards, and then trying to figure out what they're supposed to interact with and how.

Things improve only marginally when you start playing as Ezio, still a spoiled nobleman and not a feared assassin by a long-shot. Shenanigans and chores with and for friends and family start outlining the mission types, but still the level of immersion feels lacking.

Thankfully, for the player at least, disaster strikes Ezio and as he is forced to live up to his potential, so is the game. The pace keeps building up and reaches a very agreeable tempo by the time Ezio finds refuge at his family villa. It doesn't stop there, however, and by the time even the first series of missions ushered by his uncle, Mario, are completed, Assassin's Creed II has already become a very hard game to put down.

It definitely helps that all missions, story-based or not, are integrated much more intelligently. In the original, there was little incentive to go through the incidental missions beyond simply liking their mechanics. Assassin's Creed II cleverly places you in a Renaissance Italy that features a plethora of relatively superficial, but still surprisingly enjoyable, distractions.

You can find blacksmiths to repair and upgrade your armour and weapons, tailors to dress you sharper, doctors to replenish your health and art retailers to provide maps & paintings. Paintings, as well as statues & other decorative items you may find while exploring, are placed in your villa, increasing its prestige and your steady income.

Speaking of which, the villa, Monteriggioni, is a big distraction itself, with uncle Mario eventually tasking you with restoring it to its former glory. Renovating Ezio's ancestral home is yet another action that requires money, which you may, of course, get by completing missions.

So, even if the missions showed the same repetitiveness they did in the first game, they would still feel quite fresher, provide a much greater sense of accomplishment, since your effort would be translated into something more tangible than a map clear of mission markers. Grinding for monetary rewards and items is a universally accepted video-game trope and, when uncle Mario reveals a hidden corridor inside the villa that leads to Altaïr's nigh-unbreakable armour, held in place by six locks that can only be opened using seals acquired from famous assassins' tombs dispersed around Italy, you are finally certain, for the first time in the series, that you are playing a legitimate video-game, not a sightseeing/free-running simulator.

But, the funny thing is, as much as I was expecting the missions to settle into a pattern sooner or later, they never do.

Their basis is always parkour, free-running across beautiful Italian landmarks, and they are always best enjoyed when you take your time and employ a relaxed approach, but they still manage to change the details just enough for them to never feel repetitive. There might be a time-limit, there might be multiple targets, you might have to perform the deed while remaining completely incognito. You might have to assassinate someone, you might only need to knock them out cold. You might need to follow a VIP, or escort them out of danger. There might be horses involved, or harlequins.

All this applies to both the incidental and the story missions and it's inexplicably, ingeniously effective: just when you start seeing a pattern, Assassin's Creed II shakes things up even more.

Besides the structural mission variables, your approach is also less "railroaded" than in the original. The just-introduced factions are a big help with that: Escorts, Thieves & Thugs are always up for Ezio's dirty work, or, at the very least, happy to provide a sufficient distraction for a price. Even the mandatory gathering of Altaïr's Codex pages, a fetch-quest grind-fest second only to collecting feathers, doesn't feel bothersome if you switch up the tactics once in a while.

As far as the controls go, they feel practically identical to the original Assassin's Creed, with a tweak & upgrades of variable importance tacked-on.

The free-running is the least buffed-up element, with Ezio eventually learning only one trick that Altaïr didn't know already. The game controls much better than hit titles such as "'''Uncharted 2'''" but still falls short of Ubisoft's own "'''Prince of Persia'''". You'd think this is because all areas in PoP are built for platforming reasons, while Assassin's Creed sells the feeling of performing your show-boating over an actual sprawling city, straight out of a history book... but the "'''Assassin's Tombs'''" sections, blatantly created purely for platforming reasons, still are well below what PoP has to offer.

The combat is the most upgraded part, on paper. It features a good variety of weapons old and new, like the twin, poisoned, hidden blades and the cavalieri mace, but it is still based on the old system of parries, counter-moves and grabs. There seem to be plenty more options but, even though they look different, all weapons do play pretty much the same.

All the other things that are carried over from the previous Assassin's Creed are spiced up, even if for only a hint. Even the beggars that kept Altaïr from easily tailing a target took a level in bard and will now annoy you with rhyming pleas for coins. Thankfully, you can now just throw them some money, also generally useful as a distraction, but you can also be especially dastardly and pickpocket some coin as you are shoving them away.

Assassin's Creed II weakest link is the Artificial Intelligence. It musters enough to sustain the illusion of a busy city with lots of people going about their everyday jobs, but things fall apart when slightly complexer things are required of the citizens, such as combating, or manoeuvring on rooftops. For a game where trying to be stealthy can be half the fun, it is especially disappointing when enemies see you through walls, or when they forget they were chasing you before they even return to their stations.

It is commendable that, unlike in the original, the gameplay in Assassin's Creed II doesn't regress for the sections leading up to the finale and always offers stealthy alternatives to combat. The final showdown, however, while strong from a story perspective, remains a bit lacking in gameplay. It's yet another instance where the concept is great but the execution leaves a bit to be desired but, when the game is so strong in so many other areas, it's easy to be forgiving and turn a blind eye.

The Presentation

Assassin's Creed is one few games that actually has a canonical reason for looking like a current-gen video-game: It's because of The Animus that locales look unrealistically brown and unsaturated, an explanation that can't apply to, say, "'''Gears of War'''". You might even argue the reason so many of the citizens look the same is because the Assassin simply didn't bother remembering their faces clearly, so, in his memories, they all blend into one.

Most of the areas in Assassin's Creed II are of pretty much the same visual level of the original, released back in November 2007. Some characters, especially from the "modern-era" setting are rendered in better detail and there is more variety between the cities. Yet, none of them really look any more impressive than Acre from the first game and the scenery from viewpoints does feel a bit less breathtaking than it did two years ago.

Then, of course, Assassin's Creed II puts you in Venice, where you are promptly floored by the visuals. Much like the gameplay quality, the graphics seem to somehow creep up over time and grow on you. I went from thinking they looked technically impressive but pretty average on face-value, to considering them thoroughly impressive all-around.

Still, there is constant clipping and frequent frame-rate drops, making this the second area, after AI, where the series still has a lot of room for improvement.

In the audio department, the music is great, at least when it does remember to start up, and, similarly, the sound effects are okay when they aren't mysteriously drowned out. For the dialogue, Ubisoft has opted to go one step beyond the Hollywood standard of "accented English with maybe a few common native words thrown into the mix", and has added as many Italian words and phrases into the script as possible. I guess the idea is that this makes the dialogue sound more authentic and realistic... Which, of course, doesn't make any sense.

It also adds an extra, unnecessary burden to the casting, requiring the actors to have both Italian and fake-Italian speaking skills. Most of the actors do pull through well, but one in particular doesn't and, as luck would have it, it's the one voicing our lead, Ezio. American Roger Craig Smith, while a good voice-actor in general, has a comically atrocious fake-Italian accent and, coming from me, that's saying something.

I also suspect that it's the dialogue that's mostly responsible for the game being rated 18+ over the rest of Europe, as opposed to Mature (17+) in the US and 15 in the UK. Sure there is blood and manslaughter all over the place, but it's the vocabulary that really take things to the next level, so Italian-speakers should be warned. Thankfully, the subtitles omit most of the stronger and more "creative" expletives.

In the tradition of the original, the booklet also has some fun with the Animus concept: It reads like the first draft of the manual for the all-important plot device, complete with feedback from the main characters. As it happens very often in Assassin's Creed, the concept is cute & clever enough for me to forgive technical mistakes in the execution, like using the same font for "handwritten" notes from different people and even for emails.

The Other Versions

When it comes to multiplatform titles, the X360 version is almost always better, with the short story being that the 360 is much easier to code for and sports better anti-aliazing capabilities. This was extremely true for the original Assassin's Creed with the PS3 version having an atrocious frame-rate, especially before the eventual patches.

Things aren't as bad for Assassin's Creed II, however, and although the 360 version does flow a bit better, it's close enough for me to opt for the PS3, mostly because I personally prefer the Sixaxis/Dualshock controller over the one of the 360.

I also prefer playing games in a console that doesn't sound like a space shuttle gearing up for launch. Finally, the PS3 version also offers easy link-up with the forgettable PSP game Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines.

If you don't put much weight on those three advantages, then the smoother & snappier X360 version is the best choice for you. The PC port is scheduled for a late March release.

There exist a couple of Collector's Editions: The White Edition, going for about 80 quid, and the Black Edition, selling for about 90. They include a menacing-looking figurine of Ezio, garbed in white or black, respectively. White also includes one extra level, while Black includes three, an awesome 64-page art-book, the official soundtrack composed by Jesper Kyd and a behind the scenes DVD.

Whether the paraphernalia are worth all that extra money is too subjective for me to say, but, as far as the extra levels are concerned: They are modelled after the "_Assassin's Tombs_" sections of the game and even lazily reuse some dialogue from them. This is an understandable but still disappointing choice, as the straight-up platforming elements aren't Assassin's Creed calling card: that's still the free-running across historical cities filled with people, so missions focusing on that would probably be more welcome.

The levels take less than fifteen minutes each to go through and I'd certainly consider their part in the extra money best spent on any "_Prince of Persia_" you might find on a bargain bin.

OVERALL

Having enjoyed the original, I logically expected to enjoy this sequel as well. What I didn't expect was such a radical improvement, with Ubisoft showing great understanding of what worked in the first, what desperately needed tweaking and what would be best to cut altogether. In an age where the bigger the developer, the safer the bets made, it's really something to see Ubisoft taking risks and being justly rewarded with Assassin's Creed II, a game that turns out to be one of two candidates for my game of the year.

Most surprising is its "slow burn" effect: Whereas Assassin's Creed steadily declined past the midway point, Assassin's Creed II kept getting better and better. There still are a lot of flaws, sure, but the spirit of the game is strong enough for them to seem trivial. Get past the extremely sketchy opening sequences, relax and get acquainted with the controls, and it will soon be very hard to stop thinking about your next dramatic leap as the free-running assassin.

Precise Score: 9/10