For our blog Sweaty Hands, a revolving cast of musicians, artists and video game connoisseurs reviews games for PS3, Xbox360 and whatever other consoles exist and are playable. For this installment, Nathan Williams of Wavves is back to review Assassin's Creed 2.
So for starters, anyone familiar with the original Assassin’s Creed platform will be stoked to see how open-ended the game play is in this follow up. Closer to something out of the Grand Theft Auto series than what you would expect from Assassin’s Creed. There are thieves and 15th century tough guys you can hire to help you rob places or fight guards, heralds you can bribe to lower your notoriety as a killer, sluts (renaissance sluts!!!) that can be used to distract guards, and tons of other seedy fools to interact with.
The game basically starts right where the first one left off, which is cool because the plot is fucking retarded. Something like Highlander and Matrix Reloaded. Desmond is breaking out of jail and being taken to the secret Assassin’s hideout. Here they have the same technology as the first game that lets you relive past experiences, but instead of 12th century Jerusalem, this time you'll be in 15th century Italy living as Ezio Audituerre de Firenze—a womanizing, street fighter and son of a wealthy banker. The character sucks, but as the plot unfolds you turn your focus towards killing the men who murdered your family. The majority of the voice-acting is even worse than the plot, and the main homegirl sounds like Veronica Mars but I'm too lazy/don't give enough of a shit to look it up to see if it’s her. The story isn't the reason to play this game anyways. They fixed so many of the small mistakes from the first game, that playing this is such a smooth fun ride you just want to sneak around to the next mission so that you can stab a corrupt priest in the neck ASAP. For a “stealth”-focused game, the setup is more based on blending into the crowd than slipping through the cracks which is so fun once you get used to it. High points include being able to buy up property (bars, art merchants, brothels) to make more money, a horse race through the mountains and the ability to climb almost anything in the game by simply sprinting towards it. IF YOU PLAY THIS GAME, REMEMBER TO COLLECT THE CODEX PAGES AS YOU GO, BECAUSE WHEN YOU GET TO THE LAST MISSION IF YOU HAVEN'T COLLECTED ALL 30 IT MAKES YOU TRAVEL ALL OVER ITALY TO FIND THEM AND IT'S A DRAG! TOTAL GAMEPLAY IS AROUND 18 HOURS! 8=====D~~~
