Backlog Beatdown: Assassinating more Creeds with Assassin's Creed 2

I bought Assassin’s Creed 2 a few years ago, not long after beating the first Assassin’s Creed game. By all accounts the second game in the series was the better of the first two games, but I found when I played it that I wasn’t quite ready to come back into the rhythm of Assassin’s Creed games at that point, and left it for a couple of years. I came back to it with the intention of getting to the end…

The double assassination was a pretty cool move...

Assassin’s Creed 2 picks up the story of Desmond Miles from where the previous game left off, as he escapes from Abstergo’s laboratory. Teaming up with a group of assassins in a safehouse, he investigates the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a charming but foolish young man. After witnessing his father and brothers being executed after being framed for treason, Ezio seeks out his uncle Mario who trains him in combat and sets him off on a quest to kill the men responsible for arranging his family’s death. On the way, Ezio develops new skills, finds new weapons, makes new allies, and is eventually inducted into the order of Assassins, who seek peace through freedom. But where do the motivations of the conspiracy truly lie? And what is at stake?

The initial run of Assassin’s Creed games were the early stages of what would eventually become the Ubisoft Open-World Sandbox game, and while Assassin’s Creed 2 was released before this kind of thing became the standard, many familiar tropes are here. Tall buildings to climb to unlock certain areas of the map, the side activities that involved racing and puzzle platforming, collectibles, assassinations, funnily enough, and the occasional story quest to keep the narrative of the game moving. Some changes were made to the handling of the character between the two games, but we know what we’re getting here – go around the cities, complete all the tasks, and find out what is happening in the long-running battle between the Assassins and the Templars. Talking about it in 2020 makes the whole thing feel a bit old-hat to be honest – but at the time, this was on the cutting edge of what could be done with video games.

This is some point early on in the game, judging
by the length of the health metre...

Assassin’s Creed 2 brings to the game a couple of differently handled sections. There’s a bit where you get to test out Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying machine, for example, and race a carriage. Probably the most significant addition to regular play are the assassin’s tombs that you can investigate, since they involve some puzzle-platforming that is quite challenging in places. Plus, there are a few new weapons you can play with; smoke bombs and poison. Some of these are more useful than others, but they add an extra dimension to gameplay.

The Assassin’s Creed games that I’ve played so far have always been good to look at, and this one is no exception. The cities you visit are cleverly designed and have their own feel to them, the character models are looking a little of their time now but do at least have expression, and the cutscenes are well-presented. The voice acting is fine; the characters are straight and serious when they need to be, and overblown caricatures for the one-shots, and the sound-effects are suitably visceral. And there were no incompetently coded bugs that I could see.

You know that look...

So, is Assassin’s Creed 2 a good game? I reckon it is. It can be to play and tells an interesting story, if a little contrived. It goes on maybe a little longer than it needs to, but sometimes I need to remember that these games are designed for people who would buy this game on launch, and that would be the only game they bought for about three months so there would need to be plenty to do to keep them engaged. I expect that playing the game constantly would get old after a while; I was determined to finish it and was playing the game past the point where I was having fun with it. I don’t expect I will get the DLC for it either, since it adds nothing to the overall plot, but Assassin’s Creed 2 was fun while it lasted.

Final Score: 3/5. Worth a look.