First Thirty: Assassin’s Creed II (PS3)
So what’s up with all this lame sci-fi crap?
Seriously, like the concept of “Metal Gear in Renaissance Italy” isn’t cool enough?
Having never played the first Assassin’s Creed, I feel a little behind the curve on the sequel, which I recently picked up on an Amazon sale. Luckily I know how to use Wikipedia. In the first half-hour of AC2: Italy Folk, you go from a bleak near-future all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci’s time. The game begins with you as Desmond Miles in the year 2012, continuing a cliffhanger from the first game. Desmond is sprung from his Big Brother-style monitor prison and hooked up with an underground group that wields the same tech. Known as the Animus, this technology allows Desmond to access his past lives… in this case, the Renaissance-era assassin Ezio. That’s you.
Ezio is no assassin at first. More of a wild teen with excellent parkour skills. Once you crawl inside Ezio’s memories (beginning with a weird birth scene where you control the baby), you get a terribly explained tutorial. Then Ezio is released to wander the streets and pick up missions, GTA-style. Hopefully, I won’t see Desmond again for a long time.
My beef with the tutorial is that the game doesn’t want to tell you what the buttons do. There’s a onscreen guide, but initially it does a poor job of informing you that holding down a shoulder button modifies those actions. One of the first tutorial sections has Ezio racing his brother Federico from street level to a church rooftop. The game never tells you the subtle difference between jumping off a wall and climbing up a wall… and the race has no room for error. It took me twenty tries to win the race, because I would consistently wall-jump when I wanted to wall-climb, or drop off the roof’s edge because I missed the jumping window. I know I’m new to the franchise, but you’d think the smegging tutorial would leave a little time for exploring the controls, instead of making you complete a perfect rooftop run in under twenty seconds.
Now that I’m past that, it’s clear to me that Ezio’s Italy is exactly where I want to be. I love climbing all over the place, pickpocketing people by jostling them, and diving into hay bales to escape from roving guards. While I imagine the game will flashforward to Desmond’s story at some point, I really hope it doesn’t devolve into some kind of stupid Logan’s Run bland sci-fi adventure. I pretty much want to be Ezio and that’s itsio.
I’m also fascinated by the game’s bizarre facial animation. The main characters veer into almost cartoony expressions, with quirked mouth corners and wide-eyed brow raising. These games that aim for ultra-realistic graphics often end up ironically lifeless, so it is interesting to see Assassin’s Creed II acting weird.
Tags: Assassin's Creed II, first thirty, PS3, Sony
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I played through the game in four days and loved almost all of it. A couple of things.
1. I agree the almost 1 to 2.5 hour “tutorial” was a little too long.
2. In the end you'll want to see Desmond again. Trust me. Just remember, these games are NOT really about Altiar or Ezio (Although you will like Altiar MORE by the end-game–especially if you played the first)
3. The evolution of Ezio from bumbler to full-blood assassin is a 20 year process and it's great.
4. There's still some weird leap of faith jumping problems.
5. Wall-running and jumping is added at the end game and it may frustrate you a little–especially during a tomb quest. Why not copy the Prince of Persia style?
6. I don't get the beef people are having with all the facial animation stuff. (Of course, I've been using subtitles, so I'm not really directed to the face.)
7. I wasn't really hip on all the new dodging and unarmed disarming that needs to be performed. To much weapon switching while in combat. Let me stabby-stab-stab.
8. The only way to face a pole arm soldier? Laaaame. Although the animation for it is cool.
9. This was the first PS3 game I got a platinum trophy on.
Sounds like good advice! I'm digging the game… I was just totally annoyed by the dorky sci-fi beginning. I mean, Desmond is, like, cracking jokes as he escapes from Scary Lab Futuretech? It really put me off. It felt tacked on to me, but I'm sure that's partially because I'm walking in cold.
I have not had a chance to play ACII yet (damn PC release delays), but if the first is any indication, you will revisit Desmond several times through the course of the game. I would say that it would not hurt to at least try the first game. Yes it is a bit monotonous towards the end, but you can see glimpses of what the developers were looking to do with the first Assassins Creed. Also, you can pick it up for $15-20 just about anywhere by now, or rent it on Gamefly.
I have a piece of advice for you: Don't go back and play the original. This game is leaps and bounds better than the first Assassin's Creed, but I think it's still extremely overrated. The free-running is still very finicky, the cutscenes look atrocious (seriously, did they have to make them in-engine?), and the sci-fi elements really don't work as well as they want.
Also, Fourhman said this: “I pretty much want to be Ezio and that’s itsio.” It was hilarious.
I played through the game in four days and loved almost all of it. A couple of things.
1. I agree the almost 1 to 2.5 hour “tutorial” was a little too long.
2. In the end you'll want to see Desmond again. Trust me. Just remember, these games are NOT really about Altiar or Ezio (Although you will like Altiar MORE by the end-game–especially if you played the first)
3. The evolution of Ezio from bumbler to full-blood assassin is a 20 year process and it's great.
4. There's still some weird leap of faith jumping problems.
5. Wall-running and jumping is added at the end game and it may frustrate you a little–especially during a tomb quest. Why not copy the Prince of Persia style?
6. I don't get the beef people are having with all the facial animation stuff. (Of course, I've been using subtitles, so I'm not really directed to the face.)
7. I wasn't really hip on all the new dodging and unarmed disarming that needs to be performed. To much weapon switching while in combat. Let me stabby-stab-stab.
8. The only way to face a pole arm soldier? Laaaame. Although the animation for it is cool.
9. This was the first PS3 game I got a platinum trophy on.
Sounds like good advice! I'm digging the game… I was just totally annoyed by the dorky sci-fi beginning. I mean, Desmond is, like, cracking jokes as he escapes from Scary Lab Futuretech? It really put me off. It felt tacked on to me, but I'm sure that's partially because I'm walking in cold.
I have not had a chance to play ACII yet (damn PC release delays), but if the first is any indication, you will revisit Desmond several times through the course of the game. I would say that it would not hurt to at least try the first game. Yes it is a bit monotonous towards the end, but you can see glimpses of what the developers were looking to do with the first Assassins Creed. Also, you can pick it up for $15-20 just about anywhere by now, or rent it on Gamefly.
I have a piece of advice for you: Don't go back and play the original. This game is leaps and bounds better than the first Assassin's Creed, but I think it's still extremely overrated. The free-running is still very finicky, the cutscenes look atrocious (seriously, did they have to make them in-engine?), and the sci-fi elements really don't work as well as they want.
Also, Fourhman said this: “I pretty much want to be Ezio and that’s itsio.” It was hilarious.