Loaded Couch Potatoes

Schedule for Today:

kill. kill. kill. kill. kill. lunch. kill. kill. kill. kill. tea. Yeah. I stole an Eddie Izzard joke. Sue me.

Now for the goods. If you played the first Assassin’s Creed then you’re in luck. Not too much has been added or changed. In fact, that’s one of the complaints i had with the game. Its too similar to the first game as a whole. For a sequel that was as anticipated as this one, there should have been a sea of upgrades, bug fixes, changes, etc. But instead, its closer to an Assassin’s Creed 1.5 than it is a Part II.

The engine itself has several problems. The combat seems to have de-evolved from the first one, making fighting more clunky, less cinematic, and incredibly frustrating at times. The first game was much better about keeping the flow of combat while still keeping the engine performing like it should be. On top of that, ive witnessed tons and tons of instances of items or objects phasing into the items in the  environment, or just the level itself. On top of that, the assassinations i performed only had a fraction of them actually come off looking good, the others suffered from “Where is that pointing” Syndrome. that’s what she said. Meaning that if i were using my hidden blade, the actual blade would be above the targets head, or off to his side. More often than not did i have an assassination weapon actually make contact with a target. Throw in the old “jump on that wall. no that wall. that’s the same wall. That’s still the same wall. the other wall.” and you’ve got a muy frustrated TFC.

Now to the non complaining part. The additions to the game are a nice way to waste a little more time and get a little more involved. You can now renovate the city that you consider home, allowing you to receive money from the business you help. Mini-economies are always fun, thank you FarmTown. There are many weapon additions, allowing you to use anything from swords, to maces, to pole-arms. Each with its own stats for speed, defense and attack power. Add in a few extra hidden items to hunt down thru the course of the game and you’ve got yourself a solid time consumer.

Mostly all of the visuals are all very very eye pleasing. Buildings, people, items, etc all have a nice polish on them that kept me pleased. The only real thing i had a problem with was the lack of gore. I’m not normally one to criticize the lack of, because you don’t need gore in a game to make it a great one. However i seem to remember that all of the more violent scenes and assassinations and blood all looked better in the first one. The scene itself is great whenever you kill someone, but the way the engine handles the blood and whatnot is just a little sub-par compared to the original. Apart from that, absolutely no complaints. The rest is amazing. The views from the Eagle Vision Points, especially the ones in the bigger cities in the higher buildings, are stunning. And the fact that you can travel to anything you see sells it even harder.

The rest of the game is all pretty much Grade A. The story is great, its actually whats been keeping me playing thru the mega repetitive last 1/4 of the game. You don’t spend half the game outside of the Animus walking around being lost, once they throw you in, you pretty much stay in until the story calls for you to do otherwise.  All of the voice acting is great. I kept getting lols because I apparently love the way Italian accents sound.

Done aaaaaand done. All in all its a solid game. It might be one that you want to hit a price drop first. If you haven’t played the first one yet, pick it up and play it, and by the time you’re done with it there should be a price tag on this one that is maybe a little more suiting.

Assassin’s Creed II – 7/10