Assassin's Creed 2

[dc-arena]

Today I got the game on PS3. See photo here:


I have so far played the game for about an hour, so I thought I would point out a few things about the title.

I will spoiler out slight story based stuff, but as nothing much has happened in the game so far there wont be much.

You start the game

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in the future, exactly where the first game finished, and this sequence lasts about 25 minutes. Unfortunetly this is as boring and as poorly done as the first game, where the character feels sticky and clunky. There is a bit of combat here (a tutorial, you'd think, but there are no button prompts), and some stealth (which is basically running around avoiding the guards) and then the game continues...

When in Italy

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the game starts off very slow with a couple of fights where it finally tells you what the combat controls are (even though you've already been fighting guards from the real world, seriously Ubisoft), and then you go and meet various characters and begin some basic missions. I am a regular dude at the moment with no Assassin weaponry so the game gently warms you up first.

However, a few of us at work along with myself thought this took way too long, and after an hours play you'd expect a little more from the game, much like the first AC did so well. What is wrong with giving you all this cool stuff to do, then to take it away? It's classic game design stuff. The way this is, it feels very slowly paced and a little boring.


Performance wise the game runs pretty sluggishly on PS3 (contray to what others have said). I haven't seen the 360 version so I AM NOT COMPARING IT incase you were wondering. But from playing this, I can tell you the framerate is not smooth at all. The screen tears most of the time, even when the game is hardly drawing anything (in direct view) and even when its not the framerate is choppy to say the least. There are also many moments where windows, textures, and high LODs will pop right in front of you, and this is noticable from just running around the city on both the ground and on the roof tops. Where you do the dives from tall buildings there is very close LODing from character models as you're about to land to earth. The framerate also affects the controls, but more on that shortly.

Peope have said the game runs smoothly, but on this finished, retail UK PS3 copy this is not the case.

Also, the game feels much more glitchy than before. We were able to reproduce a bug 100% which meant the main character kicked an object (he was meant to pick up) THROUGH a brick wall which required us to restart the mission.

Jumping, climbing and generally free running doesn't feel as smooth as before, but that might be down to the framerate performing so badly. I also think we have recently been spoiled by Uncharted 2 being so slick in that department; ACII just feels clunky and fussy in comparison.

Sorry to not be shouting from the roof tops about how awesome this game is, I was looking forward to this just as much as the next guy, but from an hours play I have to say its pretty disappointnig so far.

I am sure it will get amazing reviews.

[FelixofMars]

How are the missions this time around?

[dc-arena]

The missions that I did were doing were all (bar one) different from ACI which is a good sign, so there should be much more to do this time. Once I had completed a few, a load of new ones appeared on the map so there is more different things to do now.

I can't go into details of the new missions as I don't want to get beaten down for spoiling them.

[FelixofMars]

Well to be honest this was the main issue I took with the first game, yeah the 'real world' stuff was very clunky but I could overlook that I think. Still think the first game was amazing even if the missions sucked and all the other issues.

The missions being better means I will not cancel my preorder

[Charlie]

Yeah, the original was amazing - amazing yet kinda boring.

I'm disappointed but not surprised reading dc's impressions as Ubisoft have a history of spoiling what could and should be incredible games.

[Daragon]

I seem to remember the PS3 version of the original was plagued with bugs and glitches too - I encountered a pretty massive memory leak right at the end of the game, which caused the entire section fighting through the

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assassin stronghold

to be so slow I thought that the game made it intentionally slow, replaying it on 360 however proved not to be the case.

High hopes remain, until someone can confirm status of the 360 release.

[112]

Odd are that a patch will be release in the next few days or week to iron out some of them bugs..........

Are the controls pretty much similar to how you control the character in the first game? Also hows the swimming?

112

[chopemon]

Assassin's Creed 2

EDIT - I totally forgot this thread happened many fays ago, sorry!

I got my copy yesterday and got in a couple of hours before MW2 found its way back into my 360.

Thankfully they have done away with the terrible tutorial of the first game and the game starts in a fairly interesting way.

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone but the first characters you meet are horribly cliched and badly voiced. Also; LOOK AT HER MOUTH.

Again, I don't want to give any spoilarz but once you are into playing as Ezio the introduction to him as a character and his place in the world is really well done and I am fully drawn into the story.

I'm getting to the point where the game is about to really open up and there seems to be loads to do.

The only other thing I'll say is that sometimes he doesn't grab things which look to me to be within his reach. I've taken quite a few tumbles and it is either me misjudging the distnace or Ezio just not grabbing stuff.

[elaniel]

The mouth is horrible. And they apparently "digitally created" her using the actress. I don't remember her looking like that!

I love the game myself too. There's still a few flaws from the first game (IE: Randomly jumping off of places you don't want to) but it is a vast improvement over the original (which I loved anyway.)

[Jebus]

The visuals are a very mixed bag don't you find? The first time you see Desmond's eyes it looks astonishingly bad! Moreover, his punch animation actually made me laugh out loud.

Thankfully the visuals improve when you play as Ezio! Though every cut-scene so far (imho) has been very ropey looking.

For me, the game feels dated, but I'm going to carry on playing it in the hope the magic grasps me.

[EvilBoris]

Desmond had a squint when he first appeared on screen, The characters look better this time round but they still have a very cartoony set of facial animations, it's a shame as left for dead and uncharted showed us ages ago just how good character animation can be in a videogame.

It's certainly less jaggy than the first game, I also like it that I can change the language to italian too.

[Len]

Anyone confirm whether the PAL version works on a US machine...?

[EvilBoris]

The net says it's region free

[Charlie]

Are Venice and Florence as visually striking and interesting to explore as Damascus, Jerusalem etc. from the original? Also, is the new architecture as beautifully and faithfully designed as that in Assassin's Creed?

[Len]

Yeh I saw that EB but just wondered if anyone had actually tried it yet on here.

Thx anyway...