I didn't like the first Assassin's Creed. I bought it right when it came out in 2007 and it took me months to get around to doing much of anything with it. It might have been that so many amazing games were out back then, but even during some slow times I could never get around to it. Let's just say I was skeptical of all the love, and game of the year awards Assassin's Creed II was getting around the end of last year.
Again I bought Assassin's Creed II right when it came out (somehow I bought all the hype that this one was different and a must play). Again there were too many awesome games to play, again, so I put off playing it. Thanks to this little site
Razorburn and I have set up, I had some motivation to finish it as a monthly goal.
So when I started playing the game I was immediately put off by the slow setup. I was not enjoying the tutorials disguised as boring tasks. Luckily, if you can call it that after about two hours, the game started to pick up. I started to really enjoy the setting and the story. I started to get used to, and actually enjoying the controls. There were enough things to do that I was 'feeling it'. Later in the game, however, there is a point where you go back to the 'real world'. When that happened, I got excited, but quickly bored again when I came back and the story just fell on the floor.
At that point, I was done with the game. I had become keenly aware that I was doing delivery mission after delivery mission with very little in the way of compelling motivation. At this point, the infrequent control issues I'd been experiencing throughout the game started to become much more glaring. The late game had harder climbing tasks that would result in me dying instead of just having to retry things. I also started to realize I was holding down the right trigger, A, and Up for 20-30 seconds at a time, with nothing else happening. Am I playing this game or is it playing me? Money became pointless after I spent it all on upgrading my village. The upgrade tree was a bit too short and I maxed things out long before the end of the story, and believe me I wasn't chasing side quests.
The combat, something that I tolerated in the game for the most part (probably one of the worst features of the game), became laughable with the harder enemies. In many cases later on, the best option was generally to put your weapon away and wait so you could do a disarming action on them... Here's a tip, if your 'combat' punishes the player for being active and actually trying to do something with his weapons, and his best option is to sit and wait; to be reactive when six dudes are circling menacingly around him for seconds at a time with nothing happening... You have failed.
It probably sounds like I hated the game, and I did at points, but overall I did like it. It had some of the best challenging and intense platforming I've seen in a modern game with the six hidden Assassin Tombs. I really enjoyed those. There were some great points to the story. The ending of the game had an amazingly 'meta' moment that I loved. Also, the controls are unique and when they work they can make you feel powerful and awesome.
What really bothered me, deep down, was that I can't understand how anyone could call this game of the year with the likes of Uncharted 2, Resident Evil 5, Borderlands, Modern
Warfare 2, and
Arkham Asylum, out last year. I personally thought all of those games were better than this.
Partially recommended, but beware if you didn't like the first game.
Score: 8/10
I had been dreading this week for a while now. The Internet had gone a long way toward convincing me that the newest installment of Sam Fisher's badassery was going to be a whiff. Honestly, I really need to stop talking to the Internet.
