AC2 (PC) Screenshots

[Art Blade]

Doing as PZ told me, I pickpocket everyone and go on treasure hunt as long as I don't have a notoriety problem :) The pic shows the top of a church, was more of a difficult climb up there.

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[PZ]

The view is great from way up there!

;)

[Art Blade]

Here's an in-game model of the villa and the small city it is located in. Currently it produces 11.1k florines every 20 minutes... I can hardly spend that much money (all "upgrades" and repairs to that city already completed) ;)

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[PZ]

Indeed - in one of my saved games (PS3) I have over 3/4 million florins - and with practically nothing to spend it on.

[spaceboy]

750k florins buys a lot of courtesans...

[Art Blade]

If you have a lot of money (I'm now at 250+k) you can climb onto a roof and throw coins down at the people for a while, as if it rained them  ;D Funny to watch how guards and people are all the same: greedy  ;)

Here I was not so lucky with the guards in a heavily guarded area, there is a seal somewhere inside. I had girls with me for distraction, but there were more guards who watched me instead. Those who had been watching the girls now started fighting with them, I fought with the other guards, and miraculously I was alone against like 10 guards. All I used were my two hidden blades, now I can hardly move my arm (bloody button-hammering of LMB, RMB, and the "leg" button I use with my thumb) but heck, it was worth it  ;D

Here I have grabbed one of those axes as souvenir which one of the brutes dropped when I jammed my blades through his eyes.

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[spaceboy]

fun to use the guards weapons, be sure to "learn" the techniques to sweep and use long weapons etc. back at your training in the villa.  you can also learn to throw sand from the ground at guards!

[Art Blade]

did that, done that  ;)

I actually never used a guard's weapon. Just looks cool  ;D

A glance at my current stats: 378 kills, 135 of which with hidden blades (rest was sword and knife) and I only died 6 times. As far as I remember (was at the beginning of the game) I only died due to errors regarding how to bloody climb and jump -- basically I just literally "dropped dead" six times.

[Art Blade]

Venice is a nice town. Apart from killing people, you can walk there, climb, swim, dive and... race boats (gondolas)  ;D

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[PZ]

... there is a seal somewhere inside.

Just in case you have not discovered the entrance, you don't go inside to find the entrance to this tomb quest - you need to go behind the building and climb to the roof, then walk along the edge toward a spot where you find a ladder and a flat concrete-appearing area (a treasure box is there).  Look for the entrance among the columns on the west side.

I'm enjoying your pics by the way  :-X

[Art Blade]

Thanks :) Yes, I have all but one seals so far, I haven't got the map location for it (yet). What I do is, systematically climb all viewpoints, buy all treasure maps (which reveal everything else) and then I hunt down those encrypted papers you stick to the wall in the villa and get all seal quests (I want Altaïr's armour). Right now, I'm on the mission where I'll have to use DaVinci's flying machine :)

[PZ]

That's a fun one - you end up inside the palace that you posted about - lots of fun and high speed action.

[Art Blade]

Just managed to shoot this one before starting to fly:

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[Art Blade]

FINALLY got Altaïr's armour... For the last seal, I didn't count the numerous attempts it took to get some of the jumps right. Not that I didn't know what to do, but the PC game (and I f@#$ing hate it) sometimes provides only a fixed camera view from afar, and it is nearly impossible to get the angle within an angle right if you have to jump at a wall and jump off it in a different angle, using a keyboard and mouse. I believe a console controller is a little bit better in this case.

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[PZ]

I agree, and have activated my Saitek controller which works great under these circumstances.  While steering Ezio is great using the mouse, I prefer the console controller with other functions.

[Art Blade]

I can see the advantage, clearly :)

Well, on with the story... I got all the good gear now. And...

Carnevale di Venezia, and I am incognito wearing a mask (lol). Time for some good killings... this one in the middle has just got my spear rammed through his chest, the fellow guards watching with disbelief.

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Did a couple of things then I couldn't afford otherwise... like a double air-kill with blades, jumping off a balcony, killing two guards below in a single blow. NICE  :-* ;)

[Art Blade]

Man I love that. You can kill all guards and they're never the wiser  ;D

Got a decent show-off axe. Now we're talking  ;D

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[spaceboy]

The animations of disarming a guard with an axe and killing him are great.  I had trouble actually fighting axe guards, so I'd just sheath my weapon, then take his away from him and use it on him.  I love the axe-poke to the gut followed by a "Babe Ruth" swing to the head.   :-X

At Carnivale be sure to walk up and knock over one of the acrobatic jesters just to be mean.

[Art Blade]

Haha, good one  ;D

I decided to be a real stronzo and pickpocket everyone on this plaza a little away from the carnevale festivities. Who dared to protest, had to pick up his own teeth with two broken arms  ;D

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[PZ]

Enjoy your incognito status while you're wearing the Carnivale mask - you can do as many bad things as you want  ;D

[Art Blade]

Now I understand you guys (especially PZ) why you were ranting about "races" -- took me quite a bit to find a way to beat that fricking Capture The Flag contestant. Only because I found out that it is better to jump off a roof and lose most of the health points but be quick down and near the flag than trying to catch up with that ba$t@rd who otherwise, for some reason, mostly got and kept the flag. What I have to rant about is that this fricking game counts a not synchronised state (I fell off into water in a zone that was not yet accessible) as a death. Now, again due to that unspeakable jump system (I sometimes started climbing walls and jumping into wells only because I was close enough) I ended up without a chance and voluntarily dropped into an out-of-sync zone to get a quick start-over, only to get rewarded with two more "deaths" - now I have 8 deaths, none of them because of being killed in a fight. Gah!

My stats so far, 604 kills, 233 of which with hidden blades, 16 of which air assassinations and 6 more count as double air assassinations. And never got killed by an opponent  :)

However, I'm surprised at how gigantic those towns are, especially Venice. I have just unlocked yet another part of town.

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[Art Blade]

Man, this is impressive. Here you get a better view, not all cloaked in a haze.

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[Art Blade]

For a change, Monteriggioni. That's where the villa is, your "base" if you like.

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[Art Blade]

So you know what "the villa" means:

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[spaceboy]

nice shots Art, they make me want to go visit Renaissance Italy again.