honestgamer's Assassin's Creed II review

You may have finally convinced me to pick up Assassin's Creed II, Jason. I really wasn't interested after playing and beating the first game, which was one of the major disappointments of the PS3 for me. I became less interested as I saw the games branch out into side-sequels and side-prequels and side-quests on the PSP and finally became overwhelmed by the amount of games and potential story I'd have to catch up on if I wanted to take the series seriously.

I still am not interested in doing all of that, or in ever playing the first one again, but I think you sold me on giving the whole thing another shot and jumping into number II.

The first Assassin's Creed felt like a beta for second game. Really II & Brotherhood are the only ones you need to play. Brotherhood only adds one big plot twist near the end, but it had several new gameplay features that made it feel like a legit sequel rather than a rehash. Revelations on the other hand is pretty skippable.

I think Revelations is more interesting than Brotherhood if only because Istanbul is more interesting than Rome (which I kind of hated) and the Altair stuff is cool. It has a great ending, for both Altair and Ezio.

AC I, II, Brotherhood, and Revelations (and soon III) are the "must play" ones. The spinoffs for PSP and DS and stuff are unnecessary.

ACI isn't that bad, but it's probably hard to go back to after playing II.

I would argue, looking back, that ACI is actually a pretty bad game, if only for the opening "cut scene" to each stage that is totally unskippable and consists of an old man talking for ten minutes.

Aye I've never heard someone say AC1 is a must play, lol. Game was a total mess.

I had a lot of fun with ACII, though. My interest tapered off at some point in the middle and I never went back to it, but it was a good time. It was just the side stuff got a little too repetitive for me, and something about AC's combat has always bothered me. It looks fantastic but you can literally counter attack the entire city guard, which begs the question -- why am I running?

Thanks for reading, and for the discussion. I'm working through Brotherhood right now and I do plan to follow it up with Revelations if I don't get distracted along the way, so you'll probably see more reviews from me soon. I'm so totally going to be ready to cover III when it comes out. It looks amazing.

AC1 is "must play" for anyone who wants to play the Assassin's Creed series and experience the story. It's not exactly one of those games that everyone in the world needs to experience at some point.

It's not some terrible game, though. Play an actual bad game some time and then get back to me. Maybe Sonic '06.

Luckily youtube exists =]

I replayed AC1 once after playing the more recent ones and it is indeed a bad game. It's got plenty of wonderful ideas (which, it needs to be restated, its sequels properly expanded on), but it operates with a complete disregard for pacing, structure, depth, and variety. I respect it for laying the groundwork for what became, I believe, one of this generation's best new franchises, but then the fact that its sequels got it right only makes AC1 look all the more dated.

I did enjoy AC1's story significantly more the second time around, though, now that I knew where it was going.

Hmm, I might have to go and play this. I wasn't planning to after playing AC1, which I enjoyed for the first few hours but eventually drifted away from because it got so repetitive. It sounds like AC2 might have alleviated that somewhat.

I said AC1 was awful before it became the trendy thing to say!

I've always been open to trying out ACII, provided I see it at the right price and my backlog isn't ungodly. Alas, neither of these things have yet to happen.