Assassin's Creed II
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 "I did not choose this path. It was chosen for me. At first, I thought vengeance would be easy. For thirty years I've lived in the shadows, visited death upon those who deserved it, and vanished like the wind. I don't know who started this conspiracy, but I know who will end it. My name is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Like my father before me, I am an Assassin." - Ezio Auditore
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Assassin's Creed II is an action, adventure, stealth, sandbox video game released in 2009 created by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows as a sequel to Assassin's Creed from 2007, the game was rereleased and remastered on The Ezio Collection for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016.
Why It Rocks
- The game makes some improvement from the previous games.
- The movement speed has been significantly increased from the first game, enabling players to fluidly zip around the city.
- Eagle vision is improved to be cleaner, making the player easier to see, can be used in both first and third person view, and is available no matter the status of the player's health.
- You can fast travel between cities instead of having to travel there on foot (as long as you have the money).
- You can now swim!
- Civilians and Guards both act a lot more realistically than they did in the previous games. The latter will even start searching nearby hiding spots if you try to hide too soon, and seekers will pick and poke every hiding place they can find if you're notorious.
- Combat has been improved where instead of just constantly spamming attack, you have to strategize in some cases since stronger enemies are more prone to counter or dodge. There are also new combat mechanics like disarming and taunting. You can even use the hidden blade in combat as well.
- The stealth has been improved as Ezio can now hide in dense crowds instead of only among religious groups.
- Great graphics for its time. Unlike the first game, the color palette is much better.
- The story is still as interesting and as good as the first game since this time you follow Ezio Auditore and how he became an assassin and continue where the first game left off with Desmond being freed from Abstergo and joining the assassins.
- The game further utilizes the idea of it being a Conspiracy Kitchen Sink by revealing that there was once a humanoid-like race that created humanity "in their own image" thousands of years in the past. The humanoids fought a war against the early humans, and were defeated thanks to the sheer number of humans there was. Both races however, were devastated by an apocalyptic event, but humans came up on top. Gods in all world religions are actually distorted historical truth about these humanoids.
- This is further proven by having historical figures like Adolf Hitler and Napoleon possessing Pieces of Eden with Henry Ford being turned into a crazed lunatic who gave Hitler a Piece of Eden.
- Ezio is a great protagonist whose given actual characterization and insight on who he was before becoming an assassin.
- There is now a database system which is useful to gain insight on the characters you meet and the locations you visit.
- The voice acting is great and every voice actor nails their Italian accent. The voice actors also speak actual Italian every now and again.
- Accurate depiction of Renaissance Italy.
- The animations are excellent, and Ezio's body realistically adjusts to his environment as he climbs and vaults past obstacles.
- Rodrigo Borgia is a very sinister antagonist that works from the shadows having others do his dirty work for him so he can become pope.
- Amazing soundtrack made by Jesper Kyd.
- There are now side-missions in the game that reward you money.
- Races: Reach all the checkpoints under limited time.
- Beat-up events: Assigned to beat up certain people.
- Message deliveries: Deliver a set number of messages to people.
- Assassinations: Assigned to assassinate specific targets.
- There's more variety in enemies as there are guards with much stronger armor and weapons, forcing the player to change their strategy.
- A new addition to the franchise is the notoriety meter, which when caught undertaking socially unacceptable deeds, the notoriety meter in that individual city or location increases. The only way to decrease your notoriety meter is by doing one of three different things:
- Removing wanted posters, which would lower your notoriety by 25%.
- Bribing heralds, which would reduce your notoriety by 50%. (Note that you will give the herald 500 florins for this and while that may come off as a negative since this is the only method that requires money, you can pickpocket him and get your money back, but you still get notoriety.)
- Assassinating officials who gave false witness, or selected key guards, which would reduce your notoriety by 75%.
- After completing all the story missions in a certain area, you're given a cape. The capes make you permanently anonymous in a certain city and it only works in that specific city.
- You get to visit majority of Italy as you visit Venice, Firenze, Florence, Tuscany, and Rome.
- There's now a currency system and the player can get money by stealing from civilians, finding treasure chests, and from Monteriggioni.
- There are also shops in the world. This includes:
- Art shops: You can buy paintings to decorate Mario's mansion (not to be confused with the Super Mario franchise or the character of his aforementioned franchise in general) in Monteriggioni and treasure maps.
- Tailors: You can dye your clothing and buy bigger pouches to store more items.
- Blacksmith: You can buy new weapons, armor, equipment, and ammunition.
- The Doctor: You can buy medicine to heal and poison.
- Speaking of Monteriggioni, a new economic system is introduced here where Ezio can spend money on properties to be upgraded and enhanced, creating income for Ezio at twenty minute intervals. As shops within Monteriggioni are renovated and upgraded, Ezio receives discounts on the particular goods that are sold, and income is also affected by the purchase of paintings, armor and weapon sets, along with the collections of various items. Such items are displayed throughout the villa as they are accumulated, and Ezio's personal room is updated with portraits of his assassinations as the game progresses.
- There are glyphs through out the world that can only be found using Eagle vision, which will unlock puzzles that were setup by Subject 16, for you to find "The Truth". "The Truth" is a video that it reveals that Adam and Eve stole the Apple of Eden that is just like what we saw in the first game with it showing a binary code that when translated reveals the date the world will end: 12/21/12.
- Lots of new equipment like, smoke bombs, poison, blunt weapons, spears, and a hidden gun.
- There are 6 Assassin seals in the world, which can be found in Assassin Tombs, and when all have been acquired and placed in the right spot at Monteriggioni will unlock the armor of Altair. This armor gives you max health squares and is unbreakable.
- The PlayStation 3 version has the ability to connect to Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, and once connected, upgrades could be earned for both games. When a boss was defeated in Bloodlines, their corresponding weapon would be made available in the Villa. As well as this, extra florins could be earned depending on how many Templar coins were found in Bloodlines. It is possible to unlock these weapons on the PC version via certain unlockers. They are available as Ubisoft Club rewards in the Ezio Trilogy.
Bad Qualities
- Ezio seems to be a Creator's Pet since he is liked by so many so easily.
- You get nothing for completing all the side quests nor do you get an award for completing all the respected quests, which makes them feel like filler.
- The pacing is not very good and feels disconnected mainly because there are things that seem to occur in a small period of time when in fact takes place over the course of weeks.
- The draw distance is pretty poor.
- Almost no progression in the Present Day story. While this made sense in the previous game since the whole point was that Desmond was a prisoner and could only do so much, here Desmond is freed from Abstergo immediately and is taken to a hideout with other assassins. Despite the possibilities, however, Desmond mainly stays in the hideout and hardly anything happens aside from Desmond now having the same abilities as Ezio and suffering from visions due to the Bleeding Effect. This is something that would affect future games as well.
- The Sequence 13 is the hardest and blandest sequence in the game for various reasons.
- Some missions like memory 6 and 8 are brutally counter-intuitive.
- The majority of memories in this sequence are filler.
- Unlike Sequence 12, this sequence was originally intended to be a important role in the game, but it was scrapped and later was sold separately as a DLC, meaning it had possible reasons of Christmas rushing.
- While it looked good for its time, the game noticeable hasn't aged well and in some cases looks worse than its predecessor especially with the character models. This is mainly due to the ugly shading and the change in art direction. Thankfully, the shading was fixed in the remastered version.
- The strong attack and counter-grab were removed in this game and the counter is an insta-kill to every enemy attack that isn't a strong attack making it somewhat overpowered. A problem that persists future games until Assassin's Creed III.
- Some missions were designed to be a traditional stealth game, which goes against the games' social-stealth system as it isn't designed for it.
- Speaking of stealth, the detection system is worse than its predecessor, they can detect you quickly, even from 15 feet away. This is can be frustrating when doing a mission where you cannot get detected, even assassinating an enemy and getting detected at the same time will count as a desynchronization.
- The throwing knives are also worthless since the guards will always detect you when you throw a single knife, even from behind thanks to the broken stealth system mentioned above. Even its predecessor didn't had this problem.
- Similar to the previous game, there are 100 feathers in the world, but the main problem is there's no map for them, meaning you have to find them all by yourself.
- Collecting all 100 feathers is pointless, however, since you get the Auditore cape, which upon wearing it, makes you notorious in every city except Monteriggioni, making it completely useless.
- There are QTEs that pop-up during cutscenes, which can make it hard at times to enjoy the cutscenes.
- The only downside of free running is that there are moments when the camera doesn't present the best view of what's over the next rooftop. Overzealous free runners will take more damage from falling off buildings than they'll ever take from a sword.
- The PC version of the game utilizes Ubisoft's Uplay platform, which includes a digital rights management (DRM) system that initially required all users to remain connected to the Internet while playing. In the initial retail version, any progress made subsequent to the last checkpoint was lost if the Internet connection was severed. Ubisoft stated that if the disconnection was temporary, the game would pause. In addition, the company argued that there were numerous checkpoints spread throughout Assassin's Creed II. The company was also criticized by overseas members of the U.S. Armed Forces, who could not play the game while in locations with sporadic and expensive connections. Ubisoft has since published a patch to finally remove the DRM: the PC version of the Retail Edition or the Digital Deluxe Edition now requires a one-time online activation, after which the game, its activation key, and the Uplay Account will be bound together and the game can be played offline, even with the Uplay Launcher logged in offline. The game can then be activated many times on the existing or new machine and still be played offline.
- While the AI is improved from the previous game, there are some discrepancies.
- The AI is slower and somewhat less strategic at free-running, and will on occasion get stuck on a plank or fall off it. Thieves and Borgia informants are notorious for this.
- Rooftop guards will also shoot Borgia couriers when they try to escape you, even if the city's guard is aligned with the Borgia... while ignoring you completely. Of course, once the Courier/Pickpocket is out of the way, they'll turn their attention on you, too.
- Guards still have next to no peripheral vision, you can sneak up behind them rather easily even from the side. You can even shoot them with an extremely loud pistol and they won't find you if you're shooting from a rooftop.
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