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Assassin's Creed II

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Is the da Vinci stuff as bad as it seemed from the trailers and previews?

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What Da Vinci stuff? And what looked bad about it?

He's certainly a prominent character in the game, but then so are many other historical figures such as religious leaders, city rulers, etc. This historical foundation extends to the actual cities too, which are based very heavily on the real deals and include many of their meticulously recreated landmarks. I really enjoy how they've grounded it so well in recorded history. :tup:

Leonardo Da Vinci specifically works really well as an incidental friend and occasional engineer in the game — they handled his inclusion very well and in a pretty underplayed manner. Indeed, he's one of my favourite characters.

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What Da Vinci stuff? And what looked bad about it?

Well, it seemed stupid to me that the early displays of the game made it seem like Da Vinci is an assassin's personal weaponsmith.

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Well, it's not like the guy didn't design elaborate weapons. It's obviously stretching the truth a bit to say he did it specifically for some assassin, but it's handled well. :yep:

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Mostly you find crazy blueprints for him and since your family were patrons of his, he'll build what the blueprints describe for you. Handled much better than the trailers made it look.

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I thought Da Vinci was handled very well, actually. He's one of the game's more engaging characters. A kind of lovable berk, who just happens to be a genius inventor.

Of course, him working as a weapons designer for an assassin is utterly ridiculous; but no more so than a man reliving the memories of his ancestors by strapping himself into a futuristic tanning bed.

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As I mentioned Bloodlines (PSP) before, I figured I'd follow up on it. I just got home from that trip, and over the three-ish days I was gone, completed the game. It was way better than the reviews had lead me to believe, but fell victim to the same endgame shenanigans that AC1 did. Namely, assuming that because I muttered "shit" under my breath every time I got into a combat situation, it meant that I would love it if the last chapter of the game were nothing but a long combat sequence. Bullshit. Oh, and the last boss himself kept on spamming a ridiculously powerful combo and forced me to resort to an exploit rather than beat him fairly, so that kind of sucked. Up to that point though, incredibly good as far as a PSP adaptation could be expected to be. The animations and environments were really pretty, the NPC character models were really not. The streets were sort of deserted most of the time. The camera got in the way much more than it should have. BUT, the story was engaging, the gameplay made me feel like a total badass just frequently enough, and everything felt really right control-wise aside from the camera.

Now that I've beaten this and have returned home, I look forward to spending a bunch of time with AC2 over the next couple of weeks. And as an added consequence, I'm now really psyched to see what else they may do with the PSP in the future.

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Got this for Christmas. It's really quite enjoyable and a significant improvement over the first game. Still a 'lite' stealth game. The game is still essentially the same, but a bunch of the mechanics have been significantly improved - especially swordplay, social stealth, and the stuff outside the Animus. The very light RPG elements are fun.

I got a real Count of Monte Cristo feel in the beginning of Ezio's story. Young, innocent man is betrayed by someone he trusts and loses everything. (There's even the destruction of the letter proving innocence). He then goes away, becomes very wealthy, and returns for revenge. I was pleasantly surprised by all this.

Of course, so much of the beauty of Count of Monte Cristo is in the tragic love story - and none of that is present in Assassin's Creed II to this point. I don't have high expectations for a literary quality to the end of Ezio's story, but I'm enjoying the story much more than I thought I would.

Also, I found it amusing that my sister just sits at a desk all day long counting my money for me now.

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I too got this for xmas and have really been enjoying it. I finally got around to playing the first one just before the holidays and probably don't need to get into my problems with it but I liked it enough to finish it and am glad I did because the second is very much a sequel in cinematic terms where the story picks right up and offers no help to newcomers.

The reason for my post is that I think it's really interesting how the devs spend so much time and energy trying to explain things that are already accepted gaming conventions. The whole menu concept with memories instead of missions and synchronization and all that... and how in the first game you can exit the animus at any time and get a completely different pause menu... The story - no matter how ridiculous you find it - seems to be a real priority in these games which I find refreshing.

In the second game, I really love the database and presentation of DNA strand or whatever. Although the writing is not great, I respected it enough to read all the database entries and codex pages (and how they basically wrote an ending to Altair instead of dropping the character indiscriminately like any other VG protagonist) and at the same time appreciate how all of the side missions and collection stuff is made much less frustrating by making the numbers very transparent. It's like the exact opposite of the flags from the first game, which is really nice.

I think the moments that really made me realize that this game was great was the Fable 2 moment where you realize you now have a stronghold to pour your money into and when I noticed that the different memory blocks progress through years. The passage of time really gave me a sense of progression in character with Ezio that I didn't feel anything about with Altair.

Been really caught up in this. I urge anyone who was remotely interested in the first to give this a try; it's really living up to the premise's full potential this time around.

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Just started chapter 8, which means that I just finished the amazing sequence

in Acre where you flash back to being Altair for a bit.

Holy shit that came out of nowhere and really grabbed me. I know I'm probably in the minority on this, but I think that (regardless of execution) Altair and his timeline are just more interesting than Ezio. At least at this point, with how much I've seen of Ezio's story. This meant that I was completely floored by this sequence and really hope there is more like it. It also made me really glad that I played through the PSP game, as what you see there links directly into the story from that.

The PSP game essentially details Altair and Maria having to get used to each other and founding the relationship that is very much established in Altair's memory sequence there. It made the scene much more impactful to have seen Maria as a real character rather than some girl I barely remembered tacked on to the end of AC1 and pulled back because the sequel realized it needed someone with a womb.

So now I'm in Venice. Going to hop back into the game again. Shit it's good.

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So at about 4pm today, I had just finished Rabbids and decided that for my last full day off before going back to school on Monday (I work Saturday and Sunday) I would continue playing games. I loaded up AC2 with the intention of playing through memory sequence 8. At 2am I stood up again, realizing that I was very hungry. Also, the credits had just finished rolling. That means chapters 8-14 were just played by me in a sitting. I guess the back end of the game is pretty motivating...

Here's the thing: I didn't really like the gameplay that much. Ezio was fucking suicidal. I would tell him to jump one way and he would fling himself off of a building rather than jump to the perfectly logical rooftop a foot to his left. It may just be nostalgia, but I don't remember having any of those problems in the first game. Anything with a timer made me want to break my controller in half. The tomb under the Basilica de San Marco was fucking brutal, as it was 4 timed puzzles in order to open it up. This meant that 4 separate times I struggled to get Ezio to where I needed him to be rather than where he wanted to be, swearing all the while as he jumped off at ridiculous points and forced me to redo large sections, just to have the lever that I was jumping to retract into its casing while I was in mid-jump. Motherfucker that was frustrating. The races too. In fact, any time Ezio actually did what I intended him to do I am willing to chalk up to happy accident rather than the controls fucking WORKING. It was like steering the horse in Shadow of the Colossus but without the fact that the horse was supposed to be cumbersome. As I'm fresh off both experiences, I can honestly say the PSP game controlled better.

And yet I kept playing. The narrative was that involving for me. It was really cool and had plenty of "what the fuck" moments that kept pulling me in. I can say without any reservation that I will gladly pay full price for AC3 in 2011 or whenever it comes out just to see what happens with that story. Hell, it could be a minigame collection and I'd still go for it. I am sorry to say though (looking at you, Jon) that I don't see how anyone could consider this one of the best games of 2009. One of the best game stories, sure, but the gameplay itself seemed like it was trying at every turn to get me to hate the fucking thing. Then the story would convince me to keep playing. I still overall had a positive experience with the game, but I came way too close to a ragequit way too often. And once I ragequit, I'm typically done with a game for good.

EDIT:

The following spoiler contains details of the final boss fight. You have been warned.

When I loaded up the game on Christmas for the first time, I was a bit surprised that the "this game was made by people of all faiths blah blah blah" warning came up again. I understood it in the first game, but as this one no longer took place during the Crusades, I didn't expect to see it this time. I joked in an online chat with a friend that night that "I dunno, maybe this time I'll have to kill the pope?" Imagine my surprise and delight an hour ago when I discovered that the final boss in the game is a fist fight in the basement of the Sistine Chapel with Il Papa himself. Bizarre, completely ridiculous, fucking rad.

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Haha. Yes, while I was playing that bit I was totally thinking "How the hell has this not turned into some massive controversy?".

I don't think I agree with your gameplay criticism, though. Maybe it's a difference in platform or controls or something, but when I played it on the 360 I thought the controls were extremely fluid and was constantly making personal notes about how impressive it is I'm able to seamlessly thunder across this complicated environment with hardly any slip-ups.

With that said, my first few hours were pretty frustrating as knowing how to combine the three seperate levels of movement (walking, running, free running) takes some skill to ensure you don't constantly go off ledges and shit. But once you get it — which may be very difficult with a keyboard — it works almost perfectly IMO. Initially I just tried to constantly free run and this proved disastrous.

And I absolutely loved the 'Prince of Persia' sections which require particularly considered and precise movements. The only gameplay criticism I'd really have is that I could've used more of those sequences, and perhaps some with more involvement of enemies to take out via stealth.

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I was on 360 as well. By the end of the game, I wasn't having any difficulty with getting where I needed to be, but adding in a timer that necessitates moving as fast as possible while doing it was what ruined things for me. When you're in that much of a hurry, the controls go from passable to broken. The tombs were particularly bad about this. The one under Santa Maria Novella was beautiful, excellently designed, and had no time constraints. I completely fucking loved it. Basilica de San Marco was the last one that I did, and I already related my experience with that one. Dear developers: No more timed platforming, please.

Regarding stealth, one thing I really missed was the "blend" option from AC1. Being able to mix with any crowd you wanted was nice, but it seemed like if you weren't doing that guards would be after your ass just for walking down the street. At least in the first game I could just hold A when guards were around and they'd leave me the fuck alone. Artificial in a different way, sure, but at least you didn't get chased around just for happening to walk near a guard. (And yeah, every time I got even a bit of notoriety, I went and tore down the nearest poster. I played the game with as little reputation as possible.)

I'll probably go back and replay AC1 sometime soon now that I've got the itch. It was a lot of fun to get back into that world and now it seems like a good idea to revisit some earlier plot points.

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Haha, yeah I got a bit obsessive about the notoriety thing. The only time I got notorious was when the game forced it on you, otherwise I was pulling sheets down whenever they came up. However then I realised if a guard sees you doing that it adds some more, so I ended up just going for bribes once I had a billion florans. :tup:

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Just wanted to bump this thread, so as to convince the remaining few about the awesomeness of this game. Really, even if you thought the first game was shit, this is better in every way. About the notoriety, I still haven't figured out the fine mechanics of it yet, but it seems to me the guards won't attack you for just walking down the street as long as you're not notorious. They will, however, start picking on you and push you around if you get too close or start pushing old ladies or making guys drop their boxes, etc. They'll chase you for a bit, too, but I haven't been attacked for this.

One section I just did, I'm wondering a bit about. There was an assassination mission where I had to follow this guy around a bit until he entered a guarded courtyard. Inside there were a bunch of guards and four targets. On the minimap was just a big mess of crosshairs and red dots. How would one go about doing this as "correctly" as possible? I just climbed the next door building, stood on the edge until the control indicator said "assassinate". I pushed X and Ezio jumped three stories and killed one of the guys. So, now there are three guys left and about ten guards with lances and halberds trying to kill me. Now my only tactic is running back and forth, Benny Hill style, looking for a guy dressed all nice-like, run up to him an kill him. If I'm lucky, that was one of the targets. If not, he was just an innocent dude walking by. I had to do this until I had killed all the guys, at which point I fled awesomely across the rooftops.

Except for the daring escape, the whole thing felt like a mess. Anyone remember this, or have some idea how to be all assassin-like about it? I know there's no Hitman-style solution like stuffing the chef in a closet and poisoning the appetizers, but how I went about it felt more like a massacre. Last time I checked, this game wasn't called Massacrist's Creed 2.

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One more thing. Just by adding some small actual reward for collecting stuff in the game, I find myself always making small detours to get the chests. I'm not so sure about the feathers, though. There are 100 of them (I've now got 5, all by accident), and it seems like there's no way of locating them other then by spotting them in the landscape. This seems ridiculous (although I guess they would like to cater to the hardcore collectors, like with GTA IV's pigeons), but do you get some sort of feather radar later on? Currently, this seems like the one thing that might prevent me from getting everything in this game.

I've learned my lesson from GTA IV, though, so I'm spending more time between missions collecting stuff. For some reason, once I've finished the game, running around in the game world seems so dreary and depressing, like making out with a corpse. I guess I'll do the chests, and let the feathers be. Still haven't touched Dragon Age, and Mass Effect 2 is coming... Jesus.

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For some reason, once I've finished the game, running around in the game world seems so dreary and depressing, like making out with a corpse.

Ahaha! I completely understand what you mean. That's the best way to put it I think I've ever seen. Well done. I don't think you get any feather-radar. At least, I didn't, and I had all weapons and non-feather items by the time I finished the game. I think by end-game I had about 28 or 29 feathers, also all found completely by accident. I'm really not motivated to go back and get more now. I may do so when the DLC comes out to fill in those two missing DNA sequences, but I'm with you on the corpse thing and don't want to head back in without any new content. All you really get for it is a new cape and a couple of achievements (one for actually finding the feathers, one for parading the cape around) so I can't be arsed to go through with it right now.

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Yeah, I'm curious about the DLC. I mean, multiplayer? It seems strange that they're adding this on. In my experience, tacked-on multiplayer is never any good. Of course, they may already have the stuff in the engine, but that also seems strange. I don't know if the platforming is smooth enough that multiplayer chases would be satisfying (just look at how clumsy the thief chasing parts are), and I don't see what other parts of the game would be any fun playing with others. Certainly they're not going for deathmatches?

Oh, and another thing. What's the deal with the thieves and the messengers? When I spot them, I chase them down and tackle them. Tackling the thief gets me some money, but am I supposed to kill the messenger?

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I have no idea what to do with the messenger. I think if you kill him you get full notoriety, but if you tackle him you get an achievement or something. I dunno.

I thought the multiplayer was part of a different game they were planning for this year? Like, an expansion of Ezio's story, but a retail one or something? That's what I'd gathered from the blogs, anyway. I didn't think they were adding it as DLC...

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Yeah, I'm curious about the DLC. I mean, multiplayer? It seems strange that they're adding this on. In my experience, tacked-on multiplayer is never any good. Of course, they may already have the stuff in the engine, but that also seems strange. I don't know if the platforming is smooth enough that multiplayer chases would be satisfying (just look at how clumsy the thief chasing parts are), and I don't see what other parts of the game would be any fun playing with others. Certainly they're not going for deathmatches?

I'm hoping for MW2-like Spec Ops Cooperative missions, personally. I think those could be pretty well implemented, if done correctly.

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I've just arrived in Venezia, and the first mission was very different from everything else I've done so far. The game is still managing to feel fresh, even despite its very limited number of mechanics. I would really like for someone with a keen insight in game design to really identify what kind of magic must have taken place between AC1 and AC2.

If I were a big fat money man asked to decide if AC1 got a sequel, I'd deny them any money at all, on account on the fact that the game was such a failure in even the most basic of ways. However, the sequel, while still very similar to the first one, feels like a very different game. To be fair, I'm not really sure any more what features are new, and which have just changed, but either something fundamental been changed, and I'm not seeing it, or the sum of all the little improvements (improved this and that, added RPG elements, etc) have brought out whatever awesomeness was not evident in the first game.

Also, having synced a couple of viewpoints in Venezia, the game says I've still done just over half of them. Either Venezia is that much bigger than the others, or there's another city waiting.

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I agree completely that AC2 feels like a completely different game in many ways. I enjoyed climbing buildings in AC1, but the main story was boring and some of the decisions made (like the game's ending) were baffling in their stupidity.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed AC2. I'm even looking forward to the third game. A bit. Certainly more than I thought I would ever be!

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Also, having synced a couple of viewpoints in Venezia, the game says I've still done just over half of them. Either Venezia is that much bigger than the others, or there's another city waiting.

Venice is the last major city, but it is the biggest and there are definitely lots of viewpoints. You might have skipped over the viewpoints in Forli since you don't really do any story missions there (except for the DLC, of course)

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Jesus, I went back to Forlì, since I have to pass through there to get my cash at the villa, and holy crap this place is huge. I thought it was only a muddy dingy place with some shacks, since that was all I saw as I rode through there on my steed, but there's a huge city too. This game is huge. I just did the assassin's tomb there, and, although I thought they were cool at first, the controls and game play mechanics don't really lend themselves well to that kind of stuff, I think. I end up just killing all the dudes and then retrying all the timed jumping until I reach the end.

Anyway, I had one of those awesome emergent moments in Firenze. I was chasing a thief, and as he was running around ahead of me he was spouting the usual semi-comical things to me ("Mamma mia, don't-a kill me," etc). At one point he jumped and grabbed a beam, and I jumped after him and grabbed the same beam right next to him. Apparently the situation was some edge case, because the guy hanged there for half a second, and then, without saying anything, lost his grip and fell. He didn't scream or anything, just fell three or four stories down and hit the bricks, killing him. I know it's stupid (although not really), but it really got to me, because it felt like instead of this stereotypical, slightly comical thief character that you chase and tackle for money, suddenly he was this real guy who was just trying to get money for his family or whatever, and it was like he looked at me, realized I was not going to give up, and maybe he just let go.

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