Game rating: Assassin's Creed 2

[Art Blade]

Game title
Assassin's Creed 2

Category            Rating            Category Details Story line 9 Well told drama and a lot of characters that support the story throughout the game. The story develops as you play, which makes you want to know more and how it goes on. Additional historical facts combined with fiction make for a perfect experience, a mixture of docu and drama (fiction) -- this could have been a good book :) Graphics 8 As it is with console portations, it simply isn't as good as it would have been if it had been a PC game in the first place. Generally speaking it is "nice" but a bit rough around the edges, not really polished as in hi-res details, but good enough to impress, nevertheless. What it lacks in hi-res details, it gains with respect to details regarding how much stuff there is to see in towns, and those towns appear to be alive because there are so many people walking around, and they are dressed nicely.. not bad at all. Sound 9 I liked especially the voice acting, each character has got a different voice and you'll recognise them easily. I love the Italian accents (although it is funny in a way that they all speak English with an Italian accent and every once and then they'll throw in a few lines in Italian). Music and sound effects and ambience are nice, too. A pleasant impression, overall. Game play 8 This game is by far better to play than its predecessor. The controls are better, the fighting sequences are better, your character finally can swim, nice new weapons and all the stuff that makes AC2 what it is: Good entertainment. Still, some stuff is incredibly annoying, like in AC1 they still keep some tomb missions near impossible to solve when playing with mouse and keyboard, jumping off a wall in a different angle while the camera seems to belong to whatever different mission and appears to have lost it (you can't really see what you're doing at times). Especially annoying when you drop dead several times due to a flawed design, and controls sometimes make you do things you least expected, during timed events you suddenly climb a ladder rather than pass it or you jump off a roof rather than climb etc.. that's why I can't say it's any better than "8." Replay value 5 In one word: Average. Maybe you just want to try it again, maybe you like to see it again, that's about it. Unless you're a complete enthusiast and are already so fascinated that no matter what you'd replay it anyway. Some people here keep playing it over and over again, but I couldn't do that more than once. Final thoughts I loved the story and to see how it developed, the controls were simple (good) except those few times in tombs when having to jump around corners with a strange fixed camera position. Picking fights and pickpocketing people, occasional stabs with a hidden blade.. big fun. A chore to collect all feathers, the rewards (50= a club, err, war hammer, 100= a cape that made every guard hate you) were a joke. The scope of the cities and ability to climb around as well as love of details were eye-candy if not the very best of graphics one might have hoped for. Once played through there wasn't much to do.. linear story but free roam ability, the latter one made you want to go back once in a while and climb around or pick a fight again but not necessarily to play through completely from scratch.

[PZ]

I have both the PC and the PS3 versions, and have found advantages/disadvantages with both platforms as far as navigation.  Then again, this is consistent with most of the games I've played under both circumstances.

Although there is only a single main story line that you follow, I've played through a half dozen times or more even though I already know the outcome.  I guess that it's because I can watch the same movie repeatedly if I like it lots  :-()

[Art Blade]

Yes, me too (movies) :) Games.. not always. Particularly if I have to collect 100 feathers or stuff like that, again. So I skip that, skip something else, too.. and end up replaying some from savegames if allowed to.  :)

[PZ]

Diamonds, feathers, skulls, drug drops, etc. - I have yet to play a game where I've collected all of these trivia.  That kind of activity just doesn't hold my interest!  :-()

[Art Blade]

Hehe, to me it's something that keeps me busy while free roaming or on my way from A to B during missions. Usually I try at least once to get them all but I always collect some of them  :)

[JRD]

Me too... is the search that turns me on, not the completion itself!

I've found so many places colecting diamonds and tapes in FC2 I'd never see otherwise. I was doing the same with feathers in AC1, but the combat and minor problems faded the fun for me. I think I killed all Templars though.

[Art Blade]

Yeah, AC1 and its bloody flags to collect. I said I try to collect all of the stuff there is to collect, but with games that present me with enormous areas to find vast amounts of tiny items, I quickly fold  ;D

[Art Blade]

Finally managed to explain my rating  ;D  see orange text. (I had originally rated it before we changed the rating system which now requires you to explain every category)