Assassin’s Creed II – Preview (X360, PS3, PC)
Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed proved to be one of the most contradictive games to come out back in 2007, collecting an insurmountable amount of hype but becoming the fail of the year for many. The rest of the gamers, on the contrary, praised the beautiful atmosphere of the middle ages. In the end, everyone agreed that the game possessed a powerful mechanic dissolved by repetitiveness and strange AI. The studio in Montreal heard the fans and decided to enrich the potential game by releasing a perfect sequel. Assassin’s Creed II was first shown, live, at E3 2009. As of this day, a load of details have been revealed.
Now's the tricky part: not to miss the guard...
Part 2 continues to twist the alternate, “future plot”, beginning right were the first game left off. Desmond Miles once again explores the memories of his ancestors, this time putting himself in the shoes of Altair’s distant descendant, a Florentine noble called Ezio Auditore De Firenze (Ezio, like Altair, means Eagle, or “The Flying One”). The story takes place in Italy, in the fifteenth century, the dawn of the Renaissance. Ezio, once a successful young man, is betrayed by a family friend and goes through a heavy loss. Longing for revenge, he joins the Brotherhood of Assassins, becoming the instrument of death and beginning to hunt down the men responsible for his family’s death. Using his high status in society, he quickly contacts one of the greatest minds of that time, Leonardo Da Vinci, assigning him as his personal inventor and a helping hand in his quest for vengeance. Ezio will also meet people such as Machiavelli, Medici and visit places like Saint Mark’s Basilica, the Rialto Bridge, and virtually everything there is to see in Venice and Florence. Rumors say that a third city is yet to be revealed.
Apart from changing the overall motivation of the storyline, Ubisoft proudly announced that gameplay has been completely tweaked to fit the pretentious fans as well. First off, the repetitiveness will get a hard blow to the face: Fifteen new mission types will be introduced, and they will each possess a unique structure which will most likely flow into different scenarios and fuse with other side-quests. Apart from the missions, Ezio will also be able to lower his wanted level in areas where he had been active lately, like by tearing down propaganda posters and killing people spreading words of his mischievous deeds. But all of this is a drop in the ocean compared to the variety in the main assassination quests.
The demo shown at E3 was designed specifically for the event, showcasing many of the new abilities Ezio possesses. First off, the number of context-dependant assassinations are off the charts: This comes from a new AI type called the Seeker. If a guard passing Ezio sitting on a bench suddenly recognizes him, it’s no big deal to just stealth kill the poor guy and swap places. The same goes with haystacks: After noticing that something big fell inside from a 50-meter height, a guard will stick his spear inside just in case. As always, we can relive him of the suspicion and silently drag his lifeless body in the hay. Air Kills, one of the most difficult moves in the first part, is downgraded by simply targeting the foe and pressing one button. Traditional assassinations are also bringing something new, allowing Ezio to perform double kills using his two hidden switchblades. But it’s Assassin’s Creed, and sooner or later you will want to step out of the shadows (crowd?) and bring the fight to the enemy.
Judging from the gameplay video, the fights are unchanged in the core mechanic, still incorporating half a dozen soldiers attacking one by one. However, the pacing of the action is increased dramatically: Ezio enters the confrontation with nothing but his twin blades, and close to the beginning nailing counterattacks will be the key to victory. Getting possession of your foe’s weapon and sticking it into him will also be a necessary option. There is a wide variety of arms, including axes, swords, maces, spears and daggers. Ubisoft also swear that skilled players will be able to fight their way through the second half of the game exclusively with the arm blades, since the mechanic has also been improved to fit the description of “the deadliest instruments in-game”.
Like Altair, the name Ezio translates as "the Flying One", with the only difference from the former being the fact that the interpretation will be much more literal.
Not to mention other, more creative ways of dispatching your foes. Ezio will learn to swim (A necessary skill for surviving in Venice), sometimes silently inviting other soldiers to join him or using the canals to simply get away from another chase. He’ll be able to grab and throw people off balconies before climbing up. There will be countless variations in major assassinations as well, ranging from basic stylish stabs to things like buying a poison from a merchant, silently tricking a guard to drink it, and then observing how the maddened soldier will accidentally kill your target. And then there’s Leonardo. He will supply our hero will a gazillion of gadgets giving you an unfair edge against your enemies. Today we know only that Da Vinci was the one who found a solution to fixing the switchblades in such a way that Ezio was left his ten fingers. He also modified the left knife by adding a trigger mechanism firing a bullet (XV century!), and supplied Ezio with smoke bombs, allowing him to escape difficult situations ninja-style. And, most importantly, we’ll get quite some time flying in his famous winged machine.
The glider will be directed by fires lit throughout the city, and it will gain additional speed and altitude by flying over the flames. According to Ubisoft, you will have to complete a series of side quests so that saved citizens will help organize those fires. Air navigation may or may not be free as these fires are mission-exclusive. Or so it seems.
And lastly, the parkour. We have been informed that this element will get the least of the tweaking as it was quite praised anyway. But there are some notable differences from the first part. Firstly, the overall process will be quickened. Second, there will be a proper momentum system so you’ll need to gain certain speed to manage tough jumps. The size of the towns will be roughly three times the size of Jerusalem from the first game, and there will also be underground catacombs available for traversing. But there is no information about a hub connecting those cities or a refined horse riding mechanic (though the enemies will learn to do so and Ezio will be able to hijack carriages).
However, if there was something that we got 100% from the demo, it’s that the presentation will absolutely blow you away. Italy was the definite logical choice to deepen the atmosphere, and you first notice it by the awesome art design: The colorful rooftops, the detailed architecture, the mask carnivals, and fireworks lighting the sky. The assassins’ iconic robe has also been masterfully rehashed to fit the era.
Apart from the obvious above, the pure graphical content seems pretty much unchanged, however, after close observing, it seems that the models have been drastically improved so they can hold close-ups with much better confidence, and the overall LOD (level of distance) quality of the towns is on a much bigger level than the in first game. The Scimitar Engine at its finest.
Speaking of similarities, the major animations are still present, sending a warm hello to AC1. The parkour system, using Autodesk’s Human IK, has most likely been left with pretty much the same algorithms because the adaptation animations look identical to the first part. Nevertheless, a load of new moves have been added, and the original game held something of a record anyway (Altair had 700 different animations), so there will be no complaints regarding this matter. There’s a hope they’ll make the facial mimics a bit better.
Little is known about the audio component so far. It isn’t even confirmed if Jesper Kyd will return as the composer for the second part, but the little pieces of scores we’ve noticed seem to blend ideally with the cheerful atmosphere of Italy. The miserable amount of voice work we’ve heard shows that much better talent is put in voicing citizens and soldiers, but we never hear Ezio speaking.
To sum things up, this December will bring us one of the most anticipated sequels of the year, hopefully cleansing the nasty reputation of its predecessor and once again showing unparalleled atmosphere coupled with a truly Renaissance-inspired presentation. The developers assure us that what we’ve seen so far is only a grain of sand compared to the full version. To heat us up, they’ve included a special bonus in PSP’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines, by acquiring which you’ll get access to special weapons in the PS3 version of the “elder brother”. Let’s have our fingers crossed and pray that this time, Ubisoft will get it right.
Presenting: a trick unknown to grandpa Altair, very helpful against soldeirs enjoying the tranquility of standing on the edge of a rooftop, a good twenty meters above the streets.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Hey guys, been inactive for a long time, sorry about that. No new texts for now, so I decided to post my only preview here as well, made some changes, enjoy.
Oh and by the way, the square captions with orange text is not my fault. It came out like that itself for no obvious reason.
Great read. All the problems with the original seem to have been addressed, except the combat. I got incredibly bored in the first game when I figured out how to fight thirty guys at once without taking a single hit.
I don’t think combat’s really changed, but new enemy archetypes and a better weapon system may do the job. Thanks for the comment