Assassin's Creed II (Xbox 360) review "I’d barely hesitate to call this to the most beautifully realized game world of all time, a feat attributed to both its considerable knack for detail and its incredible draw distance – prepare to be wowed the first time you see Ubisoft’s rendition of Venice circa 1484 unveiled before you. The very act of exploring these locations and admiring their beauty is so satisfying that there’s an entire game mechanic based around climbing to high places and enjoying the view. And whereas the three major locales of the last game more or less felt like the same set of buildings shot on a different color of film stock, visual landmarks and a genuine push to instill variety into each district gives every city in Assassin’s Creed II a uniqueness all its own."

I’m experiencing a rather abrupt change of attitude here. I was fairly underwhelmed by the first Assassin’s Creed, yet I’ve just now finished its sequel and I’m fully prepared to call it the best game I’ve played all year. This franchise always had the right ingredients, and it’s important to remember that while the first game fell victim to many obnoxious design choices, many of its individual components worked surprisingly well. I loved the Crusades-era locales, the sprawling, free-roaming environments, and the stealthy killing of high-profile targets, many of whom were based on actual historical figures. I’ll even accept the plot’s modern-day setting, with a bartender digging through his ancestral memory, as a perfectly acceptable sci-fi twist in the right hands. Forcing players to trudge through the same menial tasks ad nauseum and sinking the adventure into a rut of predictability didn’t help matters, though. It felt like the potential presented by some great ideas was squandered due to a complete misunderstanding of what the game’s great ideas were.

Assassin’s Creed II, in addition to simply being a great standalone title, is an exemplary sequel, one that demonstrates just how much a development team can accomplish when they take constructive criticism to heart without undermining the very elements that make a franchise unique in the first place. From a glance, very little has changed, to the point that you could watch videos of Assassin’s Creed II in action and not even realize that any improvements were made. Yet mechanically, there was very little wrong with the first game; the go-anywhere, climb-anything mentality of the sandbox environment, matched with its fluid controls, was that game’s strong point.

The sequel plays almost identically, and the free-running spirit of its predecessor hasn’t been lost. Desmond’s second journey into the Animus brings us to Renaissance-era Italy, and the locales are stunning. I’d barely hesitate to call this to the most beautifully realized game world of all time, a feat attributed to both its considerable knack for detail and its incredible draw distance – prepare to be wowed the first time you see Ubisoft’s rendition of Venice circa 1484 unveiled before you. The very act of exploring these locations and admiring their beauty is so satisfying that there’s an entire game mechanic based around climbing to high places and enjoying the view. And whereas the three major locales of the last game more or less felt like the same set of buildings shot on a different color of film stock, visual landmarks and a genuine push to instill variety into each district gives every city in Assassin’s Creed II a uniqueness all its own.

Where Assassin’s Creed II truly trumps its predecessor, however, is in design and pacing. Gone are the tiresome eavesdropping, pickpocketing and flag-fetching quests that plagued the first game. Even the plot itself has taken a tremendous step up from merely giving you a list of people to kill. The writers at Ubisoft saw fit to give protagonist Ezio a genuine backstory and real motivations as a character. When we first see him (disregarding his birth at the beginning of the game), he’s a dashing young hothead who’s picking fights in the streets of Florence and courting women by climbing through their bedroom windows at night. He’s only pulled into the war against the Templars when his family is betrayed by one, and the plot that unfolds afterwards, following his evolution to a skilled Altaïr-esque assassin, is a deeply personal one. Every story-essential mission has a direct bearing on Ezio’s own goals.

In that regard, Ubisoft Montreal made the incredibly wise decision to eradicate much of the monotonous questing that plagued the first game, while simultaneously boosting the amount of optional content in which players can engage. This gives us an incentive to familiarize ourselves with the Italian locales beyond simply gazing at the sights (admittedly quite a draw in and of itself), thereby making Assassin’s Creed II’s status as a sandbox game totally relevant. The side quests are actually exciting, too – many of them are legitimate assassinations, you’ll be happy to hear, yet even the generic-sounding rooftop races and fetch quests have more flair than nearly any of the mandatory missions found in the previous game. A full-blown monetary system, with weapons and armor to be purchased, only increases the amount of time the typical player will invest in Assassin’s Creed II.

The assignments pertaining to the meaty central story line are more engrossing still. Each hunt for one of Ezio’s prime targets has an large-scale air of authenticity about it, as if you’re really fighting the power and initiating a one-man crusade against a greater evil. DNA sequences (the "chapters" of the adventure) are bookended by such events, and the missions in between can actually be called varied, something the first game never was. This is a game that had me running alongside the network of Venetian canals, frantically picking off archers who were trying to shoot down a friendly gondola – and that’s not even one of the most imaginative or memorable sequences here. I’m hesitant to ruin those. Even the game’s interruptions from the Animus hold a significant weight to them. Again, Desmond feels more like a fully-realized character this time around, and the suggestion that he may be inheriting his ancestors’ parkour abilities only makes his side of the story all the more intriguing.

I could probably go on for ages. There’s the much-improved combat, which isn’t as abundant this time and unfolds at a much faster pace. There’s also the addition of the helpful notoriety system, which gives players control over how easily guards will recognize them, and how quick they’ll be to attack. I’d love to cite the Dan Brown-esque puzzle sequences that weave historical references into the writers’ all-encompassing conspiracy, or the linear treks through hidden tombs that bear more than a passing resemblance to last generation’s Prince of Persia trilogy. While the last game could be summarized in very few words, the strength of Assassin’s Creed II is that it offers so much to talk about. There are an astonishing number of improvements and details that might not warrant a mention in this review, but which certainly come into focus while playing.

There are people who really enjoyed the first game, and I suspect they’ll love Assassin’s Creed II even more than I did. Yet it nevertheless feels tailored for people like me, who saw potential in the original and were disappointed that the resulting product was so lackluster. In that regard, Ubisoft Montreal have crafted one of the greatest sequels of all time, because I can’t think of a single complaint I had about the first game that hasn’t been addressed here. Assassin’s Creed II is truly the adventure that its predecessor was supposed to be, and I give it my absolute highest recommendation.

Freelance review by Mike Suskie (November 23, 2009) Mike Suskie is a freelance writer who has contributed to GamesRadar and has a blog. He can usually be found on Twitter at @MikeSuskie.