G-4rce Game Reviews: Assassin's Creed II
Man, I need to get back into reviews...Assassin's Creed II
Released November 17, 2009
Metacritic Reception
Critics: 90/100
Users: 8.8/10
Anyways, it's been while everyone. I've cut the reviews for a while now but I'm thinking about getting back in the game soon. I'm getting a job soon, though, so that might take up most of my time. I don't really know yet but we'll see soon.
I've decided to do a review for a video game today. This would be my second review on a game. I may start doing other game reviews too. I'm planning on buying Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 so those will be good material. This review, though, will be on Assassin's Creed II. I bought the Assassin's Creed Ezio Collection, which comes with AC2, Brotherhood, and Revelations. I'll probably do reviews for the other two games, as well, once I finish them. This would be the first time I've ever played an Assassin's Creed game. I've always wanted to try this series ever since Black Flag came out. That game looks gorgeous, but I soon found out that AC2 was considered to be the best one in the series, even surpassing Black Flag.
As far as this new "Ezio Collection" goes, it's not a remaster, which does suck. It's simply a 3-pack of games, which will disappoint people who have already played the game. I'm sure that fans of the franchise would've wanted to see a newly remastered version of their favorite game in the series, and believe me, it would've looked very good. For its time, I think the graphics look good on this game. The animations are good, the environments look very nice, and the characters show personality. Some problems with the characters graphics, though, is that some of the textures can look very plastic on some characters. I even noticed that some characters were cross-eyed, which I don't know was intentional or not. The blood effects are also pretty dry. I would've liked to see more blood violence in this game considering how much killing there is in it. One thing that did annoy me was that blood came out of people when you punched them, which is unrealistic and makes it look more silly than serious. Other than those problems, the game looks rather nice for 2009. Again, a remaster for this game would've looked fantastic.
The gameplay throughout is very fun. I love open-world games. It's one of my most favorite game genres. It's not GTA, but it manages to still be very fun because there's a lot going on around you. Probably my most favorite aspect about this game was the parkour. It's not really as flashy or acrobatic as one might expect when it comes to parkour, but the simplicity of it is what makes it so fun to fool around with. It really didn't take me long to get used to the mechanics of the free running. It all feels very smooth, maybe with a couple of minor setbacks. Sometimes your character will do a move that you didn't mean to do which can disturb the flow of your run and can also jeopardize your success in some missions. Still, it's ridiculously fun climbing and running across rooftops and killing snipers. One setback with the gameplay is that the combat in the game is okay. This is really one aspect of the game where I would've wanted to see more flashy moves and surprising attacks, but the combat is a bit too simple. All it's really about is countering attacks. You can attack freely but most guards will just parry anything you throw at them so you literally have to wait for them to attack you and go for counters. Even then, a parry counter is pretty useless on most guards. You can counter their move, but they'll dodge your kill attack, so then you have to resort to sidestepping attacks to keep battles from lasting forever. The choice of weaponry is also smaller than I initially thought it would be. It's only limited to swords, hammers, and knives. There's also a gun weapon but it only holds 6 bullets, so you can't really have too much fun with it. What sucks even more is that there are some weapons you can't keep in your inventory once you pick them up, mainly the heavy weapons like the axe. You also can't use the bows that rooftop guards try to snipe you with. I really think this game really should've had more weapon choices in it. I think the stealth aspect in the game could've had more to it, as well. The guards were kinda retarded. When they find a dead body, they inspect it for a quick second, and then continue patrolling without being entirely alerted. I think it would've been fun hiding dead bodies from other guards, which would add to the stealth aspect. I did like the unique ways of killing guards, though. You can jump on top of them from buildings, pull them off of ledges, and kill them from inside of a haystack. I also liked that you could blend in with a crowd of people and no one would be alerted. Another thing I liked was that there were meters for each guard telling you when they can see you and when to hide from them, which really helped when there was a guard nearby that you didn't spot the first time.
The story of the game is its strongest point. What I really liked about Ezio, as a game character, is that you really bond with him throughout the adventure. He's a character who's been through a lot, and watching him grow up into a true assassin is a great experience. Throughout the game, there are a bunch of missions you can finish. The missions were rather manageable. I beat most of them in one or two tries, except for two specific missions in the game, which were so hard that I had to look up tips and tricks on how to beat them. The first one was this game of capture the flag, where you have to race to a flag against another guy and take it back to your base. The major problem with this mission is that your opponent is way faster than you, so if he catches the flag first, he automatically wins. Basically the only way to beat this mission is to literally jump off a building, take a bit of fall damage, and then get the flag a split second before your opponent does. Then you have to quickly run up another building and he won't be able to catch you from there. In the second horrible mission, you had to kill a trade merchant on a ship. He stands in the middle of the ship and is surrounded by patrolling guards. It sounds like a simple mission, as you could just kill all of the guards with ease, but the problem was that you had to get the merchant WITHOUT BEING SEEN, which would've been near impossible for me figure out had I not searched the Internet for a way to beat it. Basically, you had to kill the guards on the ship in a specific order in order to get to the merchant unseen. What I disliked most about these two missions is that there were specific ways to win. It took away the freedom and diversity that other missions provided. Besides those two ridiculous missions, the other missions in the game weren't too difficult and anyone can manage them in a couple of tries.
I'm actually glad I picked this AC game up before the others (I'm gonna try out Black Flag someday). It really got me interested in the series for the first time. There's a lot to do in the game and it will keep you occupied for months, which is exactly what I want in a game, especially an open world game.
Overall Score 9/10:
There are a couple of setbacks in the game, but they mostly don't affect how fun it is. Parkour is still a main event for me in the game and I'll always enjoy it. I recommend this game to anyone who's into the open world genre. I must say that it's a very unique gaming experience and it will give you some new skills in the future.
Comments
Ayyy missed these - ProPanda
I'm making a comeback though. - visitor
HYPE - ProPanda
Good review, the first one I played in the series. - Skullkid755
As always, I applaud your hard effort in this review. Granted, I'm not into Assassin's Creed, but any game review is entertaining to read by me. Oh, and this is off topic, but I think I might do a review of the mobile game Fate/Grand Order sometime in the future. Only reason I don't want to do it now is I'm still waiting for new chapters to be released and the story only gets really deep in the later singularities. Okeanos is probably a month or two away for me... - visitor
I still need to watch the Fate series. Everyone is always talking about how good it is - visitor
Yeah, bro. There's quite a LOT of new anime installments for it in the months and next year to come. The most recent one right now that's airing is Fate/Apocrypha. Surprisingly, its production values have quite a few notable flaws unlike how the ufotable anime adaptations went. But being me, I just want to see how the story unfolds even if there are a few things in the anime that irk me, to be honest. Can't wait for the Heaven's Feel movie trilogy and Fate/Extra: Last Encore. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya: Oath Under Snow just got released in Japan as I write this comment, so the Fate series is really going on a roll this year. - visitor
Good review. I remember playing Assassin's Creed II awhile back and definitely enjoying it. Look forward to more game reviews in the future. - cjWriter1997
Thanks man. They'll be coming soon - visitor
Deus Vult - visitor