Ubisoft
Assassin's Creed II

If I'm not mistaken, in the first chapter of Assassin's Creed the creators or people who contributed to making this game numbered 200 (I think I read it somewhere), while this second chapter had 400, and everyone thought it would be twice as good as the first one since twice as many people worked on it?

Let's start with the story, Desmond, a young man, is subjected, or rather forced, to undergo sessions in a machine called Animus created by Warren Vidic, the scientist who will explain how to use this Animus. This machine can retrace the history of Desmond's ancestors through his genetic code, in this game it is believed that DNA contains not only the characteristics of our self but also the history and memories of our predecessors. The purpose of this journey into history is to find the apples of Eden, artifacts with extraordinary powers, and of course, Mr. Warren Vidic wants these artifacts at all costs for his clients. But why Desmond? His ancestors were assassins who fought in the shadows against the Templars who wanted to have total control over humans using these artifacts and eliminating anyone who would try to resist their control.

The great-great-great-grandfather of Desmond is named Altair and he lived during the Crusades with the mission of stopping the war at any cost by eliminating the invaders from the Holy Land and anyone who might hinder the mission given to him by Al Mualim, the head of the assassins. I won't reveal everything about the game, but know that at the end Altair finds a Holographic map projected by the apple of Eden of the world and the places where the other artifacts are hidden. In the second chapter, Desmond must escape from Warren Vidic who wanted to kill him since he no longer needed his guinea pig. Our hero is thus helped by Warren's assistant, Lucy Stillman, who turns out to be an assassin herself, infiltrated to steal files from the Templars and save Desmond. Having escaped the clutches of the villains, Lucy, Desmond, and the other assassins who look like ordinary people start investigating the messages left by a certain Subject 16, another assassin used for the Animus project who went mad and left confused messages written in blood. But that's not the only goal; through excessive exposure to the Animus, an effect called Osmosis should make Desmond as skilled as his ancestors without hitting the gym and wasting time in long and exhausting exercises.

This time, however, he won't impersonate Altair but rather a wealthy young Florentine named Ezio Auditore during the Renaissance; somewhat arrogant, devoted only to fun and revelry until his father and brothers are hanged by Umberto Umberti, a corrupt magistrate who destroyed evidence that could clear the Auditore family from the accusation of conspiracy against the government and complicity with the assassins. Ezio had to flee to his uncle in Monteriggioni with his mother and sister. He also discovered that his father indeed belonged to the guild of assassins, took his father's assassin attire, and vowed vengeance upon all those who were responsible for the death of his loved ones, moving in the shadows and killing according to the code of the assassin guild.

Let's now talk about the game and its structure, starting with the graphic structure that absolutely cannot be disputed, the facial expressions are very realistic, the colors will make you feel like you're in the Renaissance, the movements of both the character and the antagonists are very fluid, flawless, the details of the environment are well cared for and especially the various important monuments like, for example, the church of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence are detailed and we can climb them, and not only that, the game is also educational. Every time we enter one of these places, we will be able to access information about the structure or location, increasing our cultural knowledge without going directly to Florence. Let's talk about the sound, starting with the wonderful soundtracks by Jesper Kyd (original soundtrack of "Assassin's Creed I" and practically all the "Hitman" for those who don't know), they perfectly blend with the environment. As usual, Mr. Jesper has created masterpieces of soundtracks, I can't say I appreciated the Italian dubbing as the voices of the various characters were chosen very poorly, but you can get used to it. I highly recommend the English dubbing, which is really hilarious, not only do they speak Italianized English, but every now and then, they're interspersed with complete Italian words or phrases, especially when it comes to swearing. Many times, we might hear phrases like "Get down you str**zo!" (a guard who sees you walking on the roofs).

But now, let's move on to the most important part of the game, the gameplay. Obviously, we can freely jump from rooftop to rooftop as usual, we have some moves we need to learn during the course of the game or simply by reading the instructions. Compared to the previous version, we will lose life and will have to heal by buying medicine, yes, we need money, and we can steal from common folks or loot chests left by mistake throughout the city, not only medicine but you can also buy weapons and armor, which we will now discuss. Ezio, thanks to his friend Leonardo Da Vinci (I'm not rambling), possesses gadgets and weapons created or rather repaired and perfected by the inventor thanks to the assassin's scrolls, which contain killing tactics and layouts of various gadgets including the old but always useful throwing knives, smoke bombs, poisoned hidden blade, double hidden blade, impractical pistol, and of course, conventional weapons like swords and daggers and not to forget the hammers (?).

There are many weapons and many armors, each with different values of attack, defense, and so on. Small details like the ability to change Ezio's color to have him display the local fashion colors and always have a less conspicuous character. And here’s something that no one would have expected from "Assassin's Creed": Monteriggioni becomes Ezio's permanent home but it's a bit rundown and impoverished as a city, so we will have to invest our money in the renovation of the city and increasing its value, even buying items like weapons and armors increases the villa's value and naturally purchasing artworks scattered in various cities might seem useless but it’s not, investing capital in our city will yield an ever-increasing income every 20 minutes or so making us terribly rich.

The combat system is more or less the same system only that, in addition to the usual swordsmen, we will have to face soldiers armed with halberds or big fellows with heavy armor and an ax that doesn’t belong to the genre definable as a light weapon, we'll have to use our brains to create a strategy each time, be it stealing the weapon from the adversary, that is if you have the courage to face the enemy barehanded, or provoke the enemy by insulting him and forcing him to attack. But if fighting isn't your strength, then run, throw sand in the faces of enemies, run while throwing money at people to trip the guards behind you, use the old hiding spots like hay carts, benches to pretend nothing is happening, or blend in with the crowd by closely following groups without acting suspiciously.

People aren't blind and tend to talk, so if you perform too many actions not correctly ethical, you will be wanted, meaning that every time there are guards around, they'll tend to watch you and sometimes even follow if you don't hide in time, somewhat like the classic stars in "Grand Theft Auto". To eliminate this unpleasant effect, we'll need to roll up our sleeves and start tearing down posters with our face on them from walls, or bribe civilians talking ill about us, or eliminate certain individuals connected to our arrest warrant. As you can read, it's very interesting the game, but it doesn't stop only in Florence and doesn't only stick with the classic fight, kill, run, and so on, we will visit with Ezio Florence, Monteriggioni, San Gimignano, Forlì, Venice and a small taste of Rome, in all these cities of course there are important monuments that you'll visit, some have the assassin's tombs which give us disks with which we can unlock Altair's armor considered a great assassin, and others have hidden glyphs somewhere in the structure, which are encrypted files left by Subject 16, these are riddles or even puzzle or mathematical enigmas, don't underestimate as you find more glyphs they become increasingly difficult, with these we unlock fragments of a strange video but I won't spoil what it's about.

My final opinion on this game, without a doubt a excellent adventure title with a very curious and original plot but at the same time difficult to follow closely on certain occasions. Probably the observation points that are necessary and numerous can get tiring over time. They have eliminated the investigation pieces that were done in the first episode as Altair to reach the important memory which is very positive because it made the game too monotonous and repetitive. The stealth element could have been improved as it is not very present in the game. But aside from these small trifles, "Assassin’s Creed II" is an exciting, simple, and complete game, but it's not only a pastime because, as I was saying, we can read about the history of the monuments of our dear Italy during the era envied by the whole world, the Renaissance, it’s more than a game, it’s a masterpiece.

Rumors have it that "Assassin's Creed III" might be set in the 1800s or during the Second World War, but it's not certain yet, it is also said that the third chapter might still be with Ezio but it remains to be seen, we must be patient and wait to see what Ubisoft will roll out next.

Have fun