Assassins Creed II Reviews

[noumenon]

A thread for those of us who have played through Assassins Creed II and want to talk about what we thought of the game as whole.

First I'll start with some of the positives...
-The shops were an awesome idea. Blacksmiths, art merchants, tailors and doctors. Gave you something else to do, stuff to collect and easier access to whatever weapon your wanted to use. You didn't need to go looking around for a certain sword or axe. Changing the color of your costume is also a simple yet pleasing addition to change it up.

-The combat system was greatly improved. Lots of really cool and innovative things you can do. Disarming the big knights is always fun. Barehanded combat is probably the funnest shit you can do, gives you a little challenge.

-Groups for hire was an awesome idea. The whores, thieves and fighters all add a unique aspect to the game. Really fun to toy around with and use to your advantage in general combat or on missions.

-Renovating the Villa and earning money was an interesting (but extremely quick and easy) side quest.

-It's a good idea to have a home base, some place you can handle what you need to do without getting into trouble.

-The notoriety was an interesting idea. I liked it at first, but then it kind of became annoying, but we'll get to that later.

(Don't get me wrong there are tons of amazing things about this game, but) Some Negatives...

-Did anyone else feel that the world map was nowhere near as epic as the first game? I felt like the previous game had a more expansive world map. It was honestly really fun roaming around and finding huge bands of soldiers marching to their destination and taking them out. Templars hiding around. I just felt like in the beginning of AC 2 the map was nothing more than an annoyance I had to horse gallop through with nothing more than a few view points along the way.

-Does anyone else find themselves taking a RIDICULOUS amount of damage from falling off the roof tops? I think 98% of the health potions I've used through the course of playing were from falling off shit and not combat.

-The side quests although just as repetitive as the first game were that much more boring. Instead of going around rescuing people from rogue guards and such I'm beating up cheating husbands? GTFO. The assassin missions are also insanely easy.

-The blending and notoriety system gets to be a bit much after some time. Certain locations don't offer a cloak and just about anything you do results in you needed to bribe people and rip down posters. The following missions were also extremely annoying. It was cool using the various groups to distract guards and what not but the new blending tool where you just walk into any random group is a bit annoying. TBH I greatly preferred the whole monk/prayer hands thing.

And from a story aspect, I'm really hoping they're setting up 3 to be in the modern world. Obviously Desmond is now an assassin so it only makes sense. I wonder how we'll be countering guns????
The game also spent way too much time inside the animus and really didn't advance the story outside the game at all. All of your actions also seem a bit pointless as well as the only thing that really matters from a story perspective is the last few missions of the game.

 

[Colin Gimp]

I can type paragraphs but I'll try not to.

What really pissed me off the most, was how it was a well known fact that the first AC was rushed and in this one we're missing what Three sequences? I'm surprised to not see it in the downloadable content french bastards.

Not only that but the improved climbing(w/e) pistol, throwing sand and special attacks with all weapons are unlocked at the end of the game.

At the start of the game they were creative but it all went to shit after meeting your uncle.

Blacksmith and improving the city is really basic. They know it's a short game so what's the point of it being indepth, but if you immediately pump your money into the city, within twenty minutes you'll never have money trouble again. Bribe all you want, then when I found out you can kill a guy and get -75% notoriety for it, I pratically made sure I had enough notoriety where he would always spawn right after my mission. All my money went to the doctor. If falls didn't do that much damage, would be no reason for a healthbar tbh

The whole game is sort of ridiculous. I just learnt how to be a master assassin in the first one, and they expect me to have a tough time with this one. I never pulled out my sword, always the hidden blade, would always disengage in combat and just mass assasinate before entering combat again. Rinse and repeat until it didn't work anymore and you can either spam attack until he eventually dies or just counter/dodge attack. Fucking S-I-M-P-L-E. That BUG was in the first one and I'm still abusing it. improve gameplay, blueberries.

Really hate the waypoints, I remember the first one being more of a nuisance though. Really ridiculous when your climbing a tower and you're on the opposite side and you gotta scoot all the way over just to continue. It's as if the game isn't designed to be challenging, just time consuming.

Whenever I had missions where i'd follow people, I'd just mass hire the hookers, they were everywhere. nothing was challenging except for the glyphs.

Most fun i had in the game was the Glyphs. The riddles were a lil too much for me.

I imagine the french fags had no idea the series would last all the way up to the third. How can you rehash everything you did if you gotta create all new environments for Desmond? They're either going to take their time and have it out for 2012 and have a whole new world with desmond playing the assassin in the robes (seems to fit the theme) or they're going to recycle it and quarter of the game, you're Desmond assassinating world leaders and the owner of wal mart and the other 75% you're in the animus looking for clues.

 

[Hometown Kid]

Well, I know i'm super late on this, but it took me forever to get the ACs and I just now finished II after a long hiatus of not playing 1. But anyway, this game has tons of potential with a cool yet increasingly horrifying story, The main problem is the developers are so lazy with the gameplay and it's frustrating. Even on The glyphs they did the same 4 games 5 times over. And to be rewarded with a 10 second video that didn't explain anything was pretty underwhelming and lame. It sucked how nothing happened with Desmond throughout the game...this game felt like the ultimate prequel, setting the stage for AC3 in 2012. I have a feeling Desmond and friends (Based on the ending to the second game.) Won't be in the streets or anything, but looking for the pyramids or whatever. Anyway, it's a good game, just repetitive, but I think the story's good enough to make up for that and hopefully AC3 does better.

I have a feeling how it's going to work out is Desmond's going to go crazy and kill everyone though. D: