MD1032
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2003
- Posts
- 5,977
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- 20
It's been a long time since I've had one of these, probably since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Legend of Zelda stands out from all of the other games I played on N64 because it was unique, well-thought out, well-structured, well-engineered, complex, but not terribly difficult. Since then, I've played quite a lot of games, both PC and Xbox that have been moderately satisfactory but nothing truly good. The first Assassin's Creed was a really great game, it just didn't have much depth, room for exploration, and just overall became very repetitive and linear after a while, like most games I've played in the past ten years or so, but still delivered a fine gaming experience. Assassin's Creed II is one of the only games I've played within the past ten years which I can truly say was exceptional.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and just go ahead and say Assassin's Creed II is the best Action-Adventure that has been released this decade, period. The storyline is completely kick-***. If someone wrote a book based on this game, I'd run right out to B&N and grab it right now. MYST is the only game I can think of that produced a meaningful series of books, but MYST isn't an action game, it's an adventure game, so it depends on its storyline in the first place, plus its creators were geniuses. Assassin's Creed II not only has an adventure game-like storyline, it has some seriously gratifying action in it that in almost every way triumph over the first game. The graphics? Ridiculously good, the best I've seen come out of an Xbox 360, period. Ubi is knocking on the door of needing a faster console to go further with the graphics. The sound? Excellent, almost like a movie script, but in real-time. The challenges? Simple, but gratifying. The game is very easy, but it never gets old. The little dungeons you have to jump through to get the seals remind me a lot of Tomb Raider or Legend of Zelda and that's appreciated. The monetary system and customization ability of your hero is an awesome addition and really enriches the experience in a semi-world of warcraft way. The pace of the game is just fantastic. You get breaks in between each big chunk of the main mission to do whatever you want, including little mini-missions or the aforementioned mini-dungeons. The game encourages you to explore the surrounding area and makes it worthwhile to do so...something the first game completely lacked.
Are there drawbacks to this game? Well, yes. Firstly, the control of the character is largely the same as the first game (but becoming more like Prince of Persia). I know people claim that it's faster or easier to get around on rooftops and climb towers, but to me, it feels almost exactly the same, which is just slightly short of ideal. The jumps and everything are highly automated and if you're going to go that route, I think they need to improve...honestly, when the only thing in front of me is a pole I'm trying to jump on to and my hero jumps 10 degrees to the left instead of straight onto it, then misses, couldn't they have made the game think about where I wanted to go? I got stuck in this one dungeon on this timed jumping thing and it really made me frustrated when I couldn't do it over and over and over again when it was so simple, but that was the only instance I can think of. Second drawback? Fighting. For some reason they decided that giving your enemies at least twice the health in this game was a good idea. Now fighting off a pack of guards takes about three times as long because you can't just one-hit-kill them like you could in the first game, and the power of the sword has been greatly diminished in general. I noticed little actual improvement in slaying ability once I bought the ultimate sword compared to the one you get at the beginning of the game, although it was cool to have different weapons. Also, like in the first game, I never used the short sword. One big plus in this game was that move that you could get Altair to do 1/1000000 of the time with his hidden blade is gone and now you get to kick @$$ all the time with the now dual-hidden blades. Very fun.
But those are being extremely nitpicky. Overall, you just cannot deny the fact that this is a top-shelf, primo game. Except for the unnecessary cursing and blood, this is a very general-audience game that is sure to satisfy pretty much anyone. I had more fun playing this game than I've had in a long time. Just be prepared to give it a solid chunk of time because it is much longer than the first game.
edit: This game got game of the year from IGN and best Xbox 360 game from Gamespot.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and just go ahead and say Assassin's Creed II is the best Action-Adventure that has been released this decade, period. The storyline is completely kick-***. If someone wrote a book based on this game, I'd run right out to B&N and grab it right now. MYST is the only game I can think of that produced a meaningful series of books, but MYST isn't an action game, it's an adventure game, so it depends on its storyline in the first place, plus its creators were geniuses. Assassin's Creed II not only has an adventure game-like storyline, it has some seriously gratifying action in it that in almost every way triumph over the first game. The graphics? Ridiculously good, the best I've seen come out of an Xbox 360, period. Ubi is knocking on the door of needing a faster console to go further with the graphics. The sound? Excellent, almost like a movie script, but in real-time. The challenges? Simple, but gratifying. The game is very easy, but it never gets old. The little dungeons you have to jump through to get the seals remind me a lot of Tomb Raider or Legend of Zelda and that's appreciated. The monetary system and customization ability of your hero is an awesome addition and really enriches the experience in a semi-world of warcraft way. The pace of the game is just fantastic. You get breaks in between each big chunk of the main mission to do whatever you want, including little mini-missions or the aforementioned mini-dungeons. The game encourages you to explore the surrounding area and makes it worthwhile to do so...something the first game completely lacked.
Are there drawbacks to this game? Well, yes. Firstly, the control of the character is largely the same as the first game (but becoming more like Prince of Persia). I know people claim that it's faster or easier to get around on rooftops and climb towers, but to me, it feels almost exactly the same, which is just slightly short of ideal. The jumps and everything are highly automated and if you're going to go that route, I think they need to improve...honestly, when the only thing in front of me is a pole I'm trying to jump on to and my hero jumps 10 degrees to the left instead of straight onto it, then misses, couldn't they have made the game think about where I wanted to go? I got stuck in this one dungeon on this timed jumping thing and it really made me frustrated when I couldn't do it over and over and over again when it was so simple, but that was the only instance I can think of. Second drawback? Fighting. For some reason they decided that giving your enemies at least twice the health in this game was a good idea. Now fighting off a pack of guards takes about three times as long because you can't just one-hit-kill them like you could in the first game, and the power of the sword has been greatly diminished in general. I noticed little actual improvement in slaying ability once I bought the ultimate sword compared to the one you get at the beginning of the game, although it was cool to have different weapons. Also, like in the first game, I never used the short sword. One big plus in this game was that move that you could get Altair to do 1/1000000 of the time with his hidden blade is gone and now you get to kick @$$ all the time with the now dual-hidden blades. Very fun.
But those are being extremely nitpicky. Overall, you just cannot deny the fact that this is a top-shelf, primo game. Except for the unnecessary cursing and blood, this is a very general-audience game that is sure to satisfy pretty much anyone. I had more fun playing this game than I've had in a long time. Just be prepared to give it a solid chunk of time because it is much longer than the first game.
edit: This game got game of the year from IGN and best Xbox 360 game from Gamespot.
