'Assassin's Creed II': Perfecting a formula

After I posted my first review on Chogg.Blog, I was intrigued about the rest of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. The number of games in the series is a little daunting - and the first one left a pretty bad taste in my mouth (check out that review to see why) - but it is so successful and so recognisable that I decided I should keep going and should explore the rest of the series. The next game in the series is Assassin’s Creed 2, a direct sequel to the first game. 

The game definitely explodes at the start. We pick up exactly where we left off with Desmond Miles standing in front of a wall of encoded scrawls. The woman who had been helping the evil Abstergo Industries to get data out of you bursts in and starts to help you escape, attacking the guards in the way in a cut scene that shows off the graphical upgrade between AC and AC2 that two years can provide. You run through a facility filled with Animus units, realising the scope of the Abstergo operation, and then you flee to a new group of team members who work with the modern assassin’s order. Then bam, the game properly begins - Desmond has to access the memories of a different ancestor and use the bleeding effect of the Animus to absorb the assassin training of the Master Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze. When we first meet Ezio we see him being born in a very trippy sequence and then we help our noble family and get to know the plucky and witty teenage character. This all stops when the rest of the Auditores are hung for treason and Ezio is labelled a criminal. There is something that really works about the parallel narratives of Desmond Miles trying to train to get back at Abstergo and the Templars while Ezio hunts the network of Templars who killed his assassin father and the rest of his family. The plot seems to pull ahead through the whole game with time skips allowing us to really see a change in Ezio - he finishes the game with obvious anger but respect for the Assassin’s Creed (as well as a cool new beard).

The inclusion of Leonardo da Vinci was quite funny to me. The idea that the inventor would know a master assassin on a relentless vengeance quest didn’t quite gel for me, but as soon as the flying machine mission began it all made sense. The game is playing with so many new ideas that meet each other to form something that is really quite impressive. Buying famous pieces of artwork to display in your manor. Bringing money back to your little town to help boost its economy - there is something very amusing about feeling the progression of your character and his environment by spending your entire purse of gold to construct a brothel and a bank. Every weapon takes up a space on the weapon racks, and every set of armour is displayed beautifully in your home. The side missions are very optional - not even required for every trophy in the game, only for bragging rights - but each one comes with a little bit of story that fleshes out Ezio’s mission and the world he inhabits. Climbing the huge structures that you ‘synchronize’ on top of feels like a platforming puzzle and not every secret is revealed when you do climb them. There are hidden symbols on buildings of historical significance that reveal more about the origins of the artefacts that everyone is fighting over, secret feathers that I will never find all of, huge platforming puzzles that feel unique and experimental in the assassin tombs and all of this leads to a confrontation in Rome where Ezio beats up the Pope with his bare hands in a freaky sci-fi bunker. Awesome.

Now that I’ve beaten Assassin’s Creed 2, I’m even more interested to keep going through the series. The games have proven to me that they can be great, and everything after this has a high bar to live up to; it never felt like I was repeating myself in AC2. It should also be said that the combat had much more depth, with strafing and dodging becoming the only ways to take on beefier enemies and rendering grabs and counters useless. The fighting still feels tight and responsive but the counters and executions feel even better and a range of weapons means a range of different approaches and brutal animations. A feature that sticks in my head as something really great is the ability that some enemies have to knock your (usually very expensive) sword straight out of your hand which immediately forces some tension into the encounter. Do you skirt by him to retrieve the weapon and chance getting clobbered with his hammer? Do you draw a knife to lunge in for a quick hit? Do you fight him unarmed until you can disarm him and kill him with his own weapon? I can’t think of any way the combat could be improved in the series.

Will I be playing AC2 again? Probably. When I want to spoil myself with just how good Assassin’s Creed gets and really feel connected to a decent story propelled by incredible gameplay that makes you feel powerful but human. For now, though, it’s time to play something that isn’t Assassin’s Creed before I tackle Brotherhood. The wiki says I have ten games to go - and if even a quarter of those are as good as Assassin’s Creed 2 then playing through them all will be worth it.

Follow me on Twitter @pastadeficit and let me know what I should play or watch or listen to or read next! Thank you for reading to the end.