Assassin's Creed II (2009)

 In the wake of the original Assassin's Creed success, Ubisoft went ahead with production of the second game in the series, Assassin's Creed II. It was released in November 2009 for XBox 360 and PS3 to critical acclaim. It was remastered for XBox One and PS4 in 2016. 

Plot

Desmond Miles is still a prisoner of Abstergo Industries and the Templars when he is rescued by an mole for the modern day Assassins, Lucy Stillman. She takes him to an Assassin safe house where he is introduced to two other Assassins, Rebecca Crane and Shawn Hastings. Deciding to help the Assassins, Desmond gets into the Animus 2.0 to explore the life of another ancestor, Ezio Auditore. 

Ezio's story starts with him as a teenager in Renaissance Florence. He lives a care-free life, getting into street fights with a rival family, running around with his older brother, and visiting his love Cristina. Unbeknownst to him, his father Giovanni is an Assassin who is betrayed and arrested along with two of Ezio's brothers. They are executed before Ezio can rescue them and he must go into hiding to keep his mother and sister safe. 

Ezio escapes Florence with his remaining family. He makes his way to Monteriggioni, where his uncle Mario lives. Mario trains him to fight as an assassin and Ezio begins to fight back against the Templars responsible for his family's death. He stops the Pazzi conspiracy in Florence and travels to Tuscany to finish off the rest of the Pazzis. There he meets the Templar Grandmaster, Rodrigo Borgia, finding out the Templars have set their sights on Venice. 

Heading to Venice, Ezio works to disrupt the Templars there, eventually driving them out. However, it is revealed that the Templars were about to abandon Venice anyway to retrieve another Apple of Eden. The Apple arrives in Venice and Ezio intercepts along with other Assassins that had aided him in his time fighting the Borgia. After some time, Rodrigo is elected Pope in order to gain access to a Precursor vault in the Vatican. Ezio goes after the Vault, fights Rodrigo, defeats him and opens the Vault. Inside, there is a message from Minerva, a Precursor woman, warning about an apocalypse that threatens humanity. The message is not for Ezio though, it is for Desmond. 

Desmond emerges from the Animus to find that Abstergo has found the safe house. Using skills learned in the past, Desmond defeats the Templars and escapes, heading towards another hiding place. 

Gameplay

Assassin's Creed II greatly expands on the setup started by the original game. The combat is not nearly as clunky and allows for much more variation by expanding the weapons catalogue the player can use to include swords, greatswords, maces, knives, and the hidden blade. Assassination mechanics has been expanded too, with air and blending assassinations now possible. More interactions are now possible with both the crowd and the environment, allowing for more unique interactions with enemies. 

The setting of Renaissance Italy was very well done. The player can explore Florence, Venice, part of Rome, Tuscany, and Forli, which look more realistic than the previous game as the color palette is not muted this time around. The only thing that threw me off in the original version at least was if I spent too much time looking at the cloud movement at night. 

Where side activities fed into the assassinations in the last game, the side activities are independent of the main storyline in this game. There are foot races, assassination contracts, and beat up events. There is a series of glyphs placed in the game by Subject 16 (Desmond is Subject 17) that reveal the origins of humanity as a workforce for the Precursor race. There are also a series of missions that allow the player to explore Italian basilicas and gain emblems of past assassins in order to unlock Altaïr's armor and sword.

This game introduces an economy system, where the player generates revenue from improving Monteriggioni. This money can be used to buys weapons, armor, medicine, and even color palettes for the player's clothing. Additionally, the player can purchase the services of thieves, mercenaries, and courtesans to either distract or fight guards for the player. 

Thoughts

Whereas I felt the original game did not realize its full potential, this second game exceeded it. Like a good sequel does, it improved on every aspect of the original game. Whereas the plot in the first game was repetitive, the second game actually had a storyline that had a main character that I got emotionally invested in. This game spans something like 20 years and you feel it towards the end of the game. Ezio clearly has a character arc and you can tell what he is going through affects him. 

I did enjoy the setting, which felt more vibrant than the original game, especially during the sequence set at Carnival. I am a perfectionist sort of player and enjoyed going through all of the cities in the game finding every collectible I can and doing all of the side activities. 

The new game engine ran smoothly as well. If there was one thing that annoyed me with it, it was the climbing mechanic. There would be cases (and this was a problem in the next game as well) where I would be up on top of a building and jump off, but I would jump in the wrong direction and fall to my death instead of safely into a haystack. However, this did not occur often enough to be considered a serious problem. Running through crowds was problematic as well, as if you ran into too many people while sprinting, you would fall over. 

It should be noted that the original game was a good game in its own right. So the fact that the second game improved on everything in what was already a good game makes it a great game. Having played through the early games multiple times, I always look forward to getting back into this one as much as any other.