Assassins Creed II review

If you liked the first Assassins creed then Assassins creed II will blow your mind away! I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first, as it didn’t have anything to really grab my attention and keep me interested but ACII definitely did this. The game continues from the end of the first game with Desmond Miles, still a prisoner of Abstergo Industries, after playing through Altair’s memories to uncover a Pieces of Eden. Lucy Stillman a former employee of Abstergo industries helps Desmond escape to a secret hideout before Dr Warren Vidic can kill him. Lucy, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane have come together to design their own Animus system ‘Animus 2.0’ which They invite Desmond too, to help uncover the memories of another assassin ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze to find other pieces of Eden before Abstergo industries does.
Set in 15th Century Italy you will explore the beautiful Florence, Venice and the Tuscan country side to play through Ezio’s memories. Players are introduced to Ezio at the moment of his birth and then taken to his younger years as a womanizer and the son of a wealthy banker. Ezio isn’t a likeable character, but the game pushes us towards a revenge plot that will definitely provide you with plenty of motivation to stick with it. Ubisoft have tied up all the loose ends from the end of the last game and have introduced a brilliant collection of brand new game elements, which include puzzles, treasure hunting and item collecting. Along with the brand new stuff the original elements like finding viewpoints to revel the maps to each city is still incorporated into the game along with many off the track missions such as races, assassination contracts and beat up events.
Without giving too much away Ubisoft have incorporated a brilliant puzzle solving system where Ezio has to find glyphs on historical and noted buildings around Italy and solve them to uncover information placed into Ezio’s memories by a former Abstergo industries subject. Some of the puzzles are overly easy and some of very difficult but a lot of fun to solve, even if you do cheat a little, as they do become frustrating after a while. Along with this, shops have become available for you to buy weapons, dyes and ammunition such as smoke bombs and a collection of art work to show case in the Auditore family home. You also get the chance to hire prostitutes to help you blend and distract guards and other groups of people to aid in your mission. The Xbox version of the game gives away gamer points any chance it can get.
The only problem with the game is the fighting scenes, its quiet difficult to get used too but is similar to the first game, the only problem with it is that once you go into defense mode your enemies will just stand staring at you waiting for you to attack, it is very tedious and spoils the fight scenes totally.
Ubisoft has also introduced a new reward system called Uplay. While playing you start to receive points which you can exchange for a choice of 4 things which include Altair’s outfit and access to the Auditore family crypt. But by the end of the game you would have collected enough points to exchange for all 4, so I’m unsure as to the aim of this scheme.
There are a few teething problems that Ubisoft should attend to before the release of the 3rd instalment but as a whole this game is a highly rated, improved, more appealing and exciting game which will keep you hooked for hours.