Assassin's Creed 2

Hopefully with 100% less boredom this time around!

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/04/...-again-active/

These guys say that final image, when photographed and played back to a webcam for the website or some elaborate bullshit produces some 3D concept art.

Awful teaser.

Agree. Not good. and I liked and finished the first one.

Yeah, I have unusually fond memories of AC. The most fun was generally starting a fight and trying to get away - which reminded me of when I used to do it in GTA back in ye olden days.

The fight mechanics, once you accepted it was about timing were actually quite satisfying. The actual assassinations themselves were great and the levels looked gorgeous.

It was just the filler missions that were unbelievably dull.

Is this still set during the French Revolution?

Yeah, I still love the hell out of the first game. Repetitive as it was, I was never not compelled to see things through, and with killing being as enjoyable as it was, even the sloggy bits never got me down too much.

My biggest complaint was that there was no way to go back and revisit specific missions after the game was over. You get taken right back to the ending. Balls to that.

Bummer, with the ending of the first one i thought the sequel was going to take place in japan. I'm excited though. I'm sure they have learned from their mistakes and are going to make things a bit more varied.

Hopefully they wont whore out Jade Raymond as bad this time.

I think it might be in Venice in the 15th century.

I actually quite liked the story in Assassin's Creed for what it was. The main problem with the "Desmond" scenes is that we didn't get to do enough with the stuff that he was learning while plugged into the Matrix-thingy. If they fix that, and make it feel like the player has a more propulsive role in the story, it should make a world of difference. But still, I liked it for the Hollywood conspiracy yarn that it was.

That said, the first game did provide me with probably some of the most exhilarating gameplay sequences I've come across in this generation, particularly some of the chases I was involved in.

Screw the haters, I loved the first one, story and all, and was never bored for a minute. My only complaint was that I loaned it to a friend before finishing the final mission and never got it back.

And yeah, that new teaser isn't much of anything.

Well the new teaser isn't anything special but lump me into the group that loved the first one. I could run around the roof tops of Damascus killing guards for hours and never become bored. Hopefully they make the process behind finding who your supposed to kill a little less redundant this time around though. I also hope they put in the crossbow which is on the guys back in the opening cut scene but you never end up acquiring.

The game was all climbing for me. I agree 100% with Alex's complaints about repetition.

FWIW, I had more fun with Crackdown.

I hope they keep the awesome unarmed counters from the first game. I loved being able to kill dozens of guys without ever unsheathing my sword.

There was something truly wondrous in using a concealed weapon to perforate a guys eyeball. Some of those hidden blade counters were just brutal, in fact I never really got the issue with combat which to me was paced really well and was utterly brutal at times.

The combat achievements were a blast to get. I remember just running around the city, trying to attract as many guards as possible, then destroying them one by one as they were crowded around me.

When I got good at unarmed counters is when I started loving the combat. There's just something about punching someone in the forehead with a knife and then pouncing and shanking the first person to freak out afterwards.

The combat was amazing, except for the final target leaving you to get gang fucked by 20 soldiers with a boss fight on top of it.

I don't remember the review that explained the simplicity of the combat but it essentially said "Treat it like a dance mat game and you've got it mastered"

I imagine people had issues when they tried button mashing and it failed. The combat was actually rather elegant.

EDIT: The hatemail regarding this article was probably somehow ironic, Alex.

I'm just excited to finally hear that there's been progress towards a sequel. I'm in the camp that LOVED the first game, but I was pretty furious at how it just ended abruptly. After not hearing anything else for so long, I was afraid the whole trilogy idea had faded away.

Lest we forget, even though it seems sometimes like everyone and their mother hated the game, it still sold a couple million copies, and was generally Ubi Soft's biggest hit that didn't have Tom Clancy's name on it. The sequel was gonna happen no matter what.

I really wanted to like the game. The story idea was interesting, the visuals were terrific, and in theory the gameplay should've been great.

But it was all just a bore. I found the combat laughably easy - hold block and tap counter, repeat until bored or every guard in town is dead. I never felt any tension or need to run, in fact I only ran if I got sick of killing guys, and running usually made the game harder. The investigation mini-games were practically automated. And it all repeated itself in town districts that never changed or felt like anything other than empty shells.

And yet, I'm still looking forward to the sequel!

So much potential, so boring to run around a new city climbing towers. The pickpocket missions were needlessly difficult until you figured them out, then just time consuming once you figured out how to pickpocket without being caught. Combat was fine, although I tried to stay "true" to the basic idea of the game and spent a lot more time running and hiding than I probably needed to. Killing people was easy enough and the visuals were great but repetitive is definitely the right word.

Perhaps they should take some cues from the Hitman and Thief series for mission ideas and things to do to spice things up and kick repetition to the curve?

Loved the combat system, really felt like you where in an Errol Flynn film.


And the running and climbing was fantastic. The highlight for me was scaling up the side of the Cathedral in Acre and climbing inside one of it's broken spires only to be confronted by a Templar. Threw his ass out the side and watched him tumble all the waaaaaaaaay down.

The first thing they need to decide is whether you're an assassin, or the Terminator.

Ditto.

The first is very high on my list of favorites from this generation, and it is still by far the prettiest damn game I think I have seen. Warts and all I never got bored. If I found myself looking for something to do I would just start a massive brawl and have a great time fighting.

Shit, might give this one a miss then!

Where is the fanfic?!

I'll power through ... somehow.

Tons of new info out on the web, but I don't want to go posting in the event it conflicts with Alex's trip to Montreal.

Cover article in the May 2009 issue of Game Informer is a world exclusive on Assassin's Creed 2. And after reading the article, I'm really looking forward to it. You should check the article out if you can.

Yeah, the side-by-side photos of real-life locations compared to in-game screenshots was very freakin' impressive.

The first game is probably one of my favorite games from this generation, up there with Dead Space and Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3. That being said, I really hope that they make the areas of the cities feel more different, as they all felt the same most of the time.

But that was a terrible trailer.

Oh yeah. It's been a while since a game's graphics were able to unconsciously coerce a "holy shit" out of me, but that screenshot of St. Mark's Basilica....oh man....

Also, I gotta say, the latent history nerd in me is kinda drooling over some of the "cameos" mentioned in the article. Catherine Sforza lifting her dress making it into a video game just boggles the mind.

It's coming out this year? That makes me kinda worried they didn't fix the first one's issues...

Quoted for ... wait for it ... wait for it ... TRUTH!