here come the assassins!!!!
Picking up directly after AC1, it initially continues the beyond-tedious modern world story of whiny Desmond, accessing and learning his assassin ancestors' memories in the hope of defeating a thinly-sketched contemporary evil. This guff, forever interrupting the assassin action with staggering ill-thought out trudging around a white room, nearly destroyed the first game, so here raised fears of the same mistake being made all over again. But, after an infuriatingly slow start as lumbering Desmond escapes to a new lab and a new Animus memory machine, it pings you back to 15th century Italy and his sparkier forefather Ezio.
The slow pace remains a big annoyance for the next few hours, essentially making for the world's longest tutorial as it drip feeds you new game mechanics (of which there are, admittedly, a lot), but all you hear from Desmond and co for quite some time is the occasional voiceover. It makes a big difference - this is Ezio's story, Ezio's lavish Renaissance world, and now you're free to play in it, not be rudely reminded it's a virtual reality fabrication every half an hour.
A good four or five hours in, the learning finally ends. There's plenty of fun to be had during it, thanks to a more relaxed and kinetic combat system, an impressive diversity of missions and weapons, and a spectacular recreation of 15th century Florence (my housemate, a recent visitor to that fine city, was cooing appreciatively at recognised sights as I played), but by God it's slow. Trudge here, trudge there, trudge back here, have something you worked out for yourself two hours ago painstakingly explained to you...
Finally, though, it eases up, offers you a bunch of cities and an expanse of countryside to play in at your geographical leisure, and everything makes sense. The rote mini-games of the first game are fully a thing of the past. Well, mini-games are in there, but they're now optional rather than mandatory, they're easier to access and they're loads more diverse.
AC2 has spilt a big glass of Grand Theft Auto all over itself, now having a hard split between its heavily-scripted story missions and its sideshow distractions. Indeed, its grand cities are now far more than simply roofs to Parkour across and people to beat up. They're peppered with secrets (most of which involve a cash reward), almost anyone can be pick-pocketed, the side-missions have tiny stories attached to them, and there are working shops.
There is something a little silly about a top-secret assassin with the assistance of rich, all-knowing noblemen having to go and buy armour from the local blacksmith, but the pursuit of money and upgrades lends the Assassin's Creed formula welcome purpose. You get rewarded for playing, and you spend that reward on new gear - better armour and a selection of weapons. Whacking people with giant hammers doesn't seem terribly assassiny, but it's certainly a giggle.
The pacing problems resolve themselves too, as you're generally able to find something else nearby to do, rather than wandering all the way back to whichever NPC wants to give you your next mission then send you halfway across Italy again. Snappiness is the watchword, the game dramatically reducing the painful down-time of the first. Sure, the dialogue is still excessive and still largely uninsipring, but it doesn't wear on for ages - most especially, the absurd soliloquies upon assassinating a key enemy are replaced with pithy one-liners
It suits the free-roaming nature of the game more, and it suits Ezio more - a far more liberated and casual character than the first's scowling Altair. The latter is sort of in this game, though, as a long-dead mythic figure from the past, a holder of vital secrets and the benchmark to which Ezio must aspire. Given how understandably keen AC2 is to break with its troubled predecessor, it's good that all the time we spent with the big A isn't dismissed.
The real secret of AC2's success is the ever-shifting challenge. The core missions consistently shake up both the locations and the formula. Sometimes you'll be doing the silent hitman thing, other times you'll be storming a fort at the head of a small army, chasing someone through the streets at high speed or getting a little Prince of Persia across an elaborate system of indoor rafters. Like Batman: Arkham Asylum - whose shadow looms large over this game - it takes a handful of well-realised mechanics and coolly masks their relative simplicity with surface gloss and a powerful sense of urgency. You won't really realise that you're repeating the same few challenges in an irregular pattern, because AC2's really bloody good at spicing things up. There are even a few bespoke shake-ups, such as a wagon chase amidst a hail of flaming arrows.
If there's one thing that lays the game low, though, it's the crazy degree of collectormania. The cities are a mess of things to find, both for the main story (eventually), rare upgrades, a glut of bonus information/conspiracy gumpf to be browsed in the Animus' menus and, always, always cash. It's great to have so much to do, but it can be distracting and irritating. There's forever a sense that you're missing something, a temptation to break off the mission because there's a glyph or a chest or a codex page over there somewhere, or you can now afford a new building upgrade at your Villa (a small town that acts as base, trophy room and money-making mini-game). It disrupts the escapist fantasy, making it too ostensibly a videogame, and the obsession with watching numbers go up is at odds with the solemnity of Ezio's revenge quest. It's delicious, moreish heroin for the Achievement nuts, but really needs toning down a bit for the sake of the lavish world the main game tries to paint.Closing Comments
Nonetheless, AC2 is a dramatically better game than its parent. It takes itself far less seriously, it's identified what was fun and thrown out what wasn't, and it's built upon a core free-running structure that's forever spectacular and thrilling. A little sadly, its fundamental concept and structure has been seriously overshadowed by the slicker likes of Mirror's Edge (in some ways) and Arkham Asylum (in a whole lot of ways). Its controls feel a little awkward and rusty compared to those, allowing too much room for frustration and broken flow as Ezio misreads your intent as hurling himself off the side of a building or flailing at thin air. It doesn't quite respond as you'd like it to, and in that it feels almost old-fashioned. It's a great old time, but it doesn't feel entirely fresh, most especially compared to Batman. But it's fantastic to see a once-vilified series so thoroughly back on track, and so much more aware of how to entertain people. It's what AC1 should have been, and it's a game you should absolutely play.