Monday, January 4, 2010

Thoughts and a Question

I currently taste cement, grass, and gravel. I suppose I got off pretty light considering how far into my mouth I’ve had to shove my foot. Around the time that Left 4 Dead 2 came out Lynsey and I couldn’t understand the hype surrounding Assassin’s Creed 2. After all, the first game got such mixed reviews and Left 4 Dead 2 was going to be so fantastic. Well, Left 4 Dead 2 is fantastic but after playing through it I can say with the upmost confidence that Assassin’s Creed 2 is fantastic as well.

I was honestly shocked at how much I loved this game. The story, the setting, the dialogue, the freedom, the side quests (most of them), I loved it all. In fact, I knew fairly early into the game that I was going to regret saying that it wasn’t worth my time.

Getting used to the controls took quite some time and was very frustrating at first. I can’t tell you the number of times I was attempting to run from a group of enemies and instead of scaling a wall to safety I ended up going up and jumping back off the wall and right into the center of the group. This caused an incredible amount of yelling and thrown pillows. This frustration actually played quite a bit into my one (and perhaps only) big problem with Assassin’s Creed 2, which is that the game punishes you for not being perfect.

If you take one misstep, jump this way instead of that, or pull this weapon instead of that one you’re going to royally fuck yourself. Several times I fell or darted the wrong way during a timed event and I just gave up and waited for the clock to reset. Still when you succeeded, it was oh so sweet. Not to mentioned exciting to be racing over the rooftops of old Italy.

Since I have not played the original Assassin’s Creed, I have nothing to compare this game to. I’ve heard from many different people that this game is superior to the original but I would love to hear it from you all: is Assassin’s Creed 2 really that much better than the original? If I enjoyed this game so much should I check out the first one or will I just be disappointed?

Do tell!

3 comments:

  1. Yes, it really is that much better - like night and day, in fact. I've never seen a sequel fix so many issues and improve so much in a single iteration.

    I enjoyed the first one when it came out, despite its shallow gameplay and incredible repetitiveness, but after playing (and loving the crap out of) the second one, I would NEVER be able to sit through the first one again.

    It'd be like playing an mind-numbingly repetitive, 20-hour tech demo - and I couldn't even begin to imagine having the fortitude to see it through to the end.

    So, my recommendation: skip it, unless you're truly interested in seeing just how good the Ubisoft Montreal team really is, cause it'll certainly give you an appreciation for how much work they did on their product over the last two years.

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  2. Thanks so much for this, Kirk. I've heard pretty much the same from other people but I still wasn't sure if I wanted to pick it up or not. I enjoyed AC2 so much I'm actually thinking about running through it again.

    ~ Cary

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  3. I'd say you're better off doing that, and waiting for the (by all accounts substantial) DLC that's coming in a few months, rather than going through the first one.

    If it weren't for Dragon Age, I'd probably be doing a second playthrough of AC2 right now. It was so good that I'm sure it'll happen sometime, and I really want to get Altair's armor...

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