Review: Assassins Creed II, Requiescat In Pace

by Reece Heywood - November 24, 2009

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Assassin’s Creed II contains everything that should of been in the original and more. The faults have gone the way of the dinosaurs, with the criticism being taken on board… everything is fixed. Not only are things fixed, but they’ve been dramatically improved upon.

Everything has improved vastly in Assassin’s Creed II and it delivers a fully interactive open world. Improved story line, believable characters, the ability to purchase weapons & armour and much more.

This sequel takes place throughout Renaissance Italy in the 1500’s and it’s one hell of a ride. The plot carries on directly after Assassins Creed with Desmond who was kidnapped being held at Abstergo Industries. These are the modern-day version of the Templars and they’re after Desmond’s genetic memories of his ancestors such as Altaïr, Ezio Auditore, and the unnamed others.

Whilst waiting in your chamber Lucy arrives and tells him to enter the Animus before Vidic and Abstergo figures out what has happened. You enter the Animus and experience the birth of your character Ezio Auditore and you’re prompted with some time events. Once complete it’s time to leave and both Desmond and Lucy attempt to sneak out of the Abstergo.

Once you depart from the lockup you are brought to a secret hideout and introduced to two new characters who are also Assassins. One being Shaun Hastings who’s a historian assisting Desmond by researching and giving him information about the Italian Renaissance. The other is Rebecca Crane who redesigned the Animus and provides technical support for the device in the Assassin hide out.

Once ready it’s time to hop into the Animus and head back to the past, your presented with a young Ezio Auditore aged 17 who lives in Florence, Italy during the 15th century. Unlike Altaïr, he is flashy with his amico’s and has a taste for women. There’s a sense of humor along with a more colorful vibe to the characters, none of that dark and moody setting from the previous title.

You do a few chores for your family such as delivering notes and helping out family friends such as Leonardo Da Vince. Not only do these early quests help explain who’s who it also helps the player learn the most important mechanism in the game, free running. The animations are still superb and Ezio moves quicker than his predecessor, it still feels the same from Assassins Creed but why fix something that’s not broke.

After doing certain tasks for the family you are told by a friend that your father, elder brother, and younger brother have been arrested and placed in jail on part of a conspiracy. From this cheery life everything goes into a black hole and spirals out of control.

With the conspiracy still going on the family have been charged with death by execution. With Ezio watching this cruel act he protests and causes alert to the guards forcing him to flee and become a wanted man. He learns that his father was not a banker but an assassin, knowing this Ezio must follow in his fathers footsteps and learn the ways to become an assassin, not only to seek revenge against the conspirators who are behind this plot but to also protect himself and the rest of the Auditore family.

After a small number of missions which deal with vengeance for your family you must flee the city Florence. On the way Ezio is ambushed by Vieri De Pazzi who’s had a feud with Ezio and is part of the Templars. He attempts to terminate Ezio and what remains of his family. Luckily Uncle Mario Auditore saves the day and beats Vieri’s men.

From here you are taken to Mario Auditore’s Villa, here you can train in combat and increase your skills. Ezio can now purchase items and receive money. Throughout the Auditore Villa you can renovate shops such as tailors, doctors, and blacksmith. Doing these will increase your income every 20 minutes in-game and give a certain discount for the items you want.

You can now progress the story and move onto other cities including Venice and Rome. From here you take part in Assassinations for other people but its also in your interest to eliminate those since they also had a part in the execution of your father and brothers. Every Assassination has the same result, kill the enemy and flee, but how you approach on doing so is up to you although certain missions will have to be carried out in a specific way. For example, shooting your victim in key time with fireworks explosions. It’s got a good variety so it doesn’t become repetitive.

Certain areas will be protected by guards, if you don’t want to bring attention to yourself you can hire a group of people to distract the guards. These can be prostitutes, thieves, or mercenaries and they can all do specific actions, flirting, taunting, and fighting. If you do feel the urge to fight yourself Assassins Creed II has an arsenal of weapons which mostly consists of 2 hidden Blades, longsword, short blade, smoke bombs, and throwing knives.

You may also buy other weapons which include war hammers and maces from the blacksmith or decide to disarm you opponents for the weapon. Each weapon has 3 attributes in terms of strength, speed, and defense. Another new item is the poison blade which can be bought from the doctor, stab the enemy silently and it will deposit a deadly chemical which leaves rivals dazzled and start swinging their weapons around causing havoc to other guards and passers by.

Searching for your victim can sometimes be tricky since areas will be jam packed with civilians and guards. Using the eagle vision allows you to identify certain people. The target will be highlighted in yellow and leaves a faded yellow path behind so you can track them down easier if you lose sight of them. Guards will be highlighted in red so it’s easier to avoid them and allies will be in white if you need a favour from them.

 Gallery

Visually the games characters looks on par with the original, but the surroundings look much sharper and are more detailed. The addition of water creates a fresh clean looking environment and the colour expands out of the grey palette. As before the animations are some of the best we’ve seen in any game.

The use of the audio is pretty magnificent when using 7.1 surround sound or just on a standard television. Voice acting is admirable with the characters all using local accents unlike the American Altaïr from the previous title. Assassin’s Creed II has had the pleasure of Jesper Kyd orchestrating the soundtrack which is beautiful and once again is awe-inspiring.

In terms of fighting not much has changed from Assassins Creed, hold the right trigger to defend and use the face buttons for offense and dodging. When fighting with fists you now have the opportunity to disarm your opponent and use their own weapon against them. Choosing the weapons with the d-pad is still optional but limited, Ubisoft has instead placed a weapon selection wheel which give access to all 10 slots including health packs, doing so will pause the in-game battle so don’t worry about being hit while choosing your next contraption.

When you choose not to be in battle you have a monetary bar, if it’s empty the guards won’t bother with you and passers by won’t notice who you are. As it increases guards become suspicious and people will notice who you are. When it reaches full you become a wanted man, whether you walk past a group of guards silently or not they will immediately know who you are and attempt to kill you by any means.

Through the city you have the opportunity to lower your monetary alert. Scattered around the cities are wanted posters, tearing these down will reduce the change of Ezio being caught. Besides this there are Heralds, these will speak of your on-going actions to the public but luckily for you all it takes is a bribe and your monetary will reduce 50%. Lastly you have witnesses, these fella’s will have seen you doing the dirty deed and run around the district screaming to guards “Assassin!”, sometimes they can be tricky to hunt down but if caught it will decrease your monetary significantly.

You can now break the line of site with alerted guards by escaping a yellow circle that appears on the map, but by all means you don’t need to do this. You could opt to sit down on a bench, sky box, jump into a wagon of hay or fish. When a guard comes close to a wagon of hay that your hiding in you may assassinate them and pull them with you, you also have the ability to carry dead bodies and hide them to passing guards will not notice and cause an alert.

Lastly you can now dive into water and unlike the previous title you will no longer drown, any of these options will help you escape and break the line of sight with the guards and are helpful for certain tasks which need to be carried out in missions.

Apart from upgrading your armour and weapons you also have the ability to reform the Auditore’s Villa set in the country-side. All collected weapons and armour will be housed in two rooms on the ground floor, in the attic you will find portraits of the men you have assassinated throughout the story-line who were part of the Templars.

Below is a chamber to five previous Assassins from other generations, unlock each specific six seals to obtain a special set of armour. The seals can be found scattered in each city throughout the game in Assassin’s Tombs, these themselves have you battling guards and working out a path from point A to B using the free running skills.

Sadly to change dyes, armour and weapons you will need to attend The Villa and it can become annoying in certain instances. Luckily you can now travel from city to city using the Travel stand so no need to go horse back for an eternity. To find every nook and cranny you will need to climb high towers and synchronize view points like in the previous game, and you may also purchase treasure maps to help you find gold through the cities.

You can do little tasks such as side missions to earn more money which have you doing contracts for Lorenzo Il Magnifico and assassinating targets he chooses for you. Doing races against thieves or deliver a package to a target in a specific time. You can also do collectibles such as feathers and statues which will unlock specific items, this adds on a good length to the game.

The story alone had me completing the game at 18 hours and that doesn’t include finding all collectibles and unlocking all the items. Some missions will take time and patience with others being much quicker such as fetch and carry.

Everything that I enjoyed from the previous Assassin’s Creed is back or better and the things that were criticized have been addressed or removed. The open world has a believable environment and society that you rarely get from games, a good story line which follows up from the previous title along with fantastic gameplay and beautiful lush graphics.

Assassin’s Creed II has been made with perfection, you won’t find a better game which deals with assassination, gameplay, and a brilliant open world. Forget the memories of the original Assassins Creed, this game is worth every penny.