• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Assassin's Creed II - The |OT|

Dead

well not really...yet
The Poison blade is absolutely hilarious btw. Stuck some random guy with it in the middle of courtyard and it turned into some kind of circus with everyone coming and looking at the guy flailing around :lol
 
Snipes424 said:
There is some screen tearing during a couple cutscenes, but I never really notice it. The framerate seems fine to me, but then again, I don't have magic eyes like a lot of people on GAF

It's the hive eye.
 
Dead said:
The Poison blade is absolutely hilarious btw. Stuck some random guy with it in the middle of courtyard and it turned into some kind of circus with everyone coming and looking at the guy flail around :lol

ive yet to do that, ima start doing that from now on.
 
Grecco said:
wow. that sucks dude. The new wagon wheel cases are garbage sad to say.


You are so right about that. This was my first one and I nearly can not stand it. If I knew this was the case with AC2 I may have gone with the PS3 version because I have grown to love the quality of their cases.

Anyways.. game is awesome, 5 hours into it and it seems to really be moving along well.
 
Just curious...
I'm not very far in the game...
Just finished gathered four Codex pages in Uncle Mario's town.

Is Ezio capable of air assassinations while perched from a high point yet? And what about assassinating guards while hanging from ledges right below them? Are these abilities he gains later?
 
TenshiOni said:
Just curious...
I'm not very far in the game...
Just finished gathered four Codex pages in Uncle Mario's town.

Is Ezio capable of air assassinations while perched from a high point yet? And what about assassinating guards while hanging from ledges right below them? Are these abilities he gains later?

yes he gains them later. Take those Codex's to Leonardo Da vinci
 

Zeliard

Member
I went home last night thinking I'd have a tough decision to make between putting time in Assassin's Creed 2 or Left4Dead 2. I decided to start with AC2, and didn't end up playing L4D2 at all.

This game is great. It really does seem to fix every issue with the first, especially when it comes to activities and side missions you can do around the city. They spoiled the player with things to do this time around - your map ends up becoming absolutely littered with various icons. Storytelling and especially characterization have seen a huge improvement as well.
 

Miburou

Member
Althoran said:
I have heard mostly the opposite concerning about what there is to do in the world.
Can you elaborate on this? Don't you like the collecting, the economy part, the upgrading of the villa?

Note: I don't have the game yet, it's been shipped this morning.

I mean the story related stuff. So far it seems mostly just go leisurely from point A to point B, with some light fighting thrown in. I was disappointed when early in the game it tells you to find a secret door in a room only to 2 seconds later tell you to use eagle vision to see the hidden door. I just don't get a sense of accomplishment from what I've done in the game so far. (and it's not helped by the torrent of achievements you get just from going through the story part).

Like I said, I'm not even half-way through the game, so things might change, and the economy/villa upgrade sounds like a neat diversion. But ultimately I don't think the game is that different from the first.
 

Miburou

Member
Sobriquet said:
I could have sworn that I saw an option to turn off the glow in the menu.

Wow, really? I went through the option real quick, but didn't notice anything like that. I'll check next time I play it. If that's true, then that's some pretty sweet news.
 

Ranger X

Member
Miburou said:
I mean the story related stuff. So far it seems mostly just go leisurely from point A to point B, with some light fighting thrown in. I was disappointed when early in the game it tells you to find a secret door in a room only to 2 seconds later tell you to use eagle vision to see the hidden door. I just don't get a sense of accomplishment from what I've done in the game so far. (and it's not helped by the torrent of achievements you get just from going through the story part).

Like I said, I'm not even half-way through the game, so things might change, and the economy/villa upgrade sounds like a neat diversion. But ultimately I don't think the game is that different from the first.

Are you past the first sequence at least? If it's the case you certainly see nothing. Also, it's the sequel of Assassin, it didn't became a flight simulator, of course the basics will be the same. The game is as different a sequel can be. It's even rare that the core structure of a game completely changes (in the case here, from the investigation process of AC1 to the now GTA story driven style).

.
 
Miguelangelo said:
yes he gains them later. Take those Codex's to Leonardo Da vinci
Thanks.

That's good to know because I was slightly annoyed when I
climbed the tower in that small town to assassinate that young Templar snob Ezio fought with in the beginning of the game and I couldn't jump assassinate him while perched right behind him. Had to land on my feet and alert him + his guards.
 

jett

D-Member
I gotta say, I find it absolutely hilarious that instead of being horrified by a dead body, the italians complain about the smell. :lol
 

Miburou

Member
I'm at sequence 3, mostly likely close to the end of it from the look of things.

And I like how you respond to the last line in my post as if I meant it's not a different game in terms of mechanics, when I clearly meant it still has a lot of the flaws of the first one. :D

Anyway, I'm planning on another long session tonight, and by then my mind will be made and I'll post my impressions here.
 

Baker

Banned
I still 100% do not understand the people complaining about excessive hand holding. Other than the quick sword training at the manor, I didn't feel like the game had a tutorial at all.

I mean fuck, the first fight doesn't even tell you what the punch button is and you have to figure out combo timing by yourself (pretty much same as AC1). The first race didn't have waypoints. I could go on and on. I thought it was fucking cool how you started the game as non-assassin Ezio.

In my opinion, treasures and shit should glitter. How the fuck else are you supposed to see them tucked away in a random corner? It beats having to play it anal-Batman: AA-style and run around in Eagle Vision all the goddamn time.
 

Zeliard

Member
Miburou said:
I'm at sequence 3, mostly likely close to the end of it from the look of things.

And I like how you respond to the last line in my post as if I meant it's not a different game in terms of mechanics, when I clearly meant it still has a lot of the flaws of the first one. :D

I completely disagree. It looks like they literally went down a checklist of every criticism the first game got and made a strenuous effort to fix them all. The enemy and NPC A.I. are still hardly what I would call genius, but even that has seen some obvious improvement. And as far as things to do in the world, the two games are incomparable - almost like they're a part of two distinct series.

If AC2 still has one clear weakness that the first shares, it's probably that so far it's quite an easy game, especially the combat. In the first AC, once you got the counter timing right, you were basically unstoppable in combat. Seems to be mostly the same this time around, though I have noticed that enemies seem far less hesitant to attack you while you're engaged with someone else than they were in AC1. And the different weapons add a nice visual variety.

Baker said:
I thought it was fucking cool how you started the game as non-assassin Ezio.

Agreed, the build-up was nice.
 
TenshiOni said:
Thanks.

That's good to know because I was slightly annoyed when I
climbed the tower in that small town to assassinate that young Templar snob Ezio fought with in the beginning of the game and I couldn't jump assassinate him while perched right behind him. Had to land on my feet and alert him + his guards.
I find that half the time when I'm position to do an air Assassination the Assassinate context doesn't show up beside the attack button on the HUD but you can still hit the button to assassinate or jump and hit the button.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Baker said:
I still 100% do not understand the people complaining about excessive hand holding. Other than the quick sword training at the manor, I didn't feel like the game had a tutorial at all.

I mean fuck, the first fight doesn't even tell you what the punch button is and you have to figure out combo timing by yourself (pretty much same as AC1). The first race didn't have waypoints. I could go on and on. I thought it was fucking cool how you started the game as non-assassin Ezio.

In my opinion, treasures and shit should glitter. How the fuck else are you supposed to see them tucked away in a random corner? It beats having to play it anal-Batman: AA-style and run around in Eagle Vision all the goddamn time.
I don't know, I feel like this is the new style of game design: make it impossible to get lost or screw up in the first couple of hours. Assassin's Creed feels very railsy to me for a while because they continually introduce new gameplay elements for like the first five hours. Maybe it's not literally showing you the path on the ground, but it does give you a lot of information on how to play the game in what could conceivably be scenarios in which you learn by doing.

I complained before that the game's pacing was entirely different than the first, and I think I realize now it's intentional and it is not going to attempt to recapture the very measured pace of the first. Which is fine. But I've yet to have a bells-ringing-gates-closing-runforyourlife type experience in this game because the experiences are so neatly lined up with one another that I'm always off to do the next thing. I feel pretty safe in this game, actually.

Combat is still entirely too powerful.
 
N

NinjaFridge

Unconfirmed Member
ZAnimus said:
Oh shit, of course! I forgot that the Black Edition is PAL-land only and thus releases everywhere on Friday :)

Found it on ebay. £100 :(

I got the AC1 LE and i'm so tempted to get this one. Fuck this!!!
 
I'm liking it a lot but...

why does the fucking map (back/select button) run at like 15 FPS? It's horrendous. I dunno if it's because I installed the game (360) or not.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Grimm Fandango said:
I'm liking it a lot but...

why does the fucking map (back/select button) run at like 15 FPS? It's horrendous. I dunno if it's because I installed the game (360) or not.
Mine is like that too :lol

Most graphically intense map screen ever
 
Zeliard said:
I completely disagree. It looks like they literally went down a checklist of every criticism the first game got and made a strenuous effort to fix them all. The enemy and NPC A.I. are still hardly what I would call genius, but even that has seen some obvious improvement. And as far as things to do in the world, the two games are incomparable - almost like they're a part of two distinct series.

If AC2 still has one clear weakness that the first shares, it's probably that so far it's quite an easy game, especially the combat. In the first AC, once you got the counter timing right, you were basically unstoppable in combat. Seems to be mostly the same this time around, though I have noticed that enemies seem far less hesitant to attack you while you're engaged with someone else than they were in AC1. And the different weapons add a nice visual variety.
AC2 definitely fixes a majority of problems. The story flows better, theres some logic to how you do your investigations now (you don't run around and collect flags to gather intel in this one!), the extra missions are intriguing and theres way more variety. That being said I still think the original vision of AC was bigger.

The NPCs are still too generic (thieves and prostitutes conveniently are waiting to be hired near codex locations, you have no conversations with them, none of them are unique, etc) and the crowds are actually less dynamic in this game (you had people walking in all different directions in AC1, in this one you have these artificial groups); although Blend is done much better in this game, the "walking between people" effect should be more natural, you shouldn't have to walk through pre-set groups to trigger that.

Also I don't think they needed to make Ezio move faster than Altair, I always thought the scale of the city was in question in AC1 as you could run from one end of the city to the other in minutes (on foot, let alone on the roofs). For some reason I doubt anyone could do that in real life. And the fact that theres almost no interiors probably makes the city feel small too. You look at the out-of-Animus Desmond and they are only in this small shipping building/office but it feels bigger than most of the buildings you're scaling in the Animus.

Lots of criticism there but don't get me wrong, most games don't do what I want from this series. GTA4's city does feel a little more living/breathing/dynamic (although it still doesn't have enough interiors), Fallout 3/Oblivion do a great job with the NPC's having their own schedules and has lots of interiors (but the cities do feel stale), but neither of those games is perfect either.

AC2 is still a GOTY candidate in my book. Gonna be tough between this, UC2 and Batman (haven't played the latter yet).

In some ways I'm hoping AC3 goes a little more down the adventure game/rpg route (more puzzles, more inventory stuff, dialog trees, theft quests at night, a sneaking mechanic, perhaps even add a little bit of magic, disguises). At this point we know AC3 is going to be a mega blockbuster based on how good AC2 is alone so I hope they take some creative risks and try to evolve the next game to be even better.
 

Returners

Member
Blimblim said:
Some interesting infos:
- The villa level and the stuff you can do in it was developed by Ubisoft Annecy.
- The Catacomb/PoP-like levels were done by Ubisoft Shanghai.

Nice. Ubisoft Shanghai doing something.
 

Minamu

Member
Can someone confirm that the EU white box doesn't come with the artbook & DLC? :( That's what Gamestop told me today at least. You get the game, a big box & the white statue, that's it... Fail if true. I thought the black & white box had exclusive free dlc? Or is that only in the US? Pre-order bonus or something?
 

Baker

Banned
BTW, if you're not planning on getting all 100 Uplay points, don't waste 10 on the theme. It's not premium. I still don't understand why companies are allowed to make non-premium themes since NXE was invented.

*The background pic is pretty cool but I absolfuckinglutely hate the friends list with big white X's and robots.
 

BigFwoosh

Member
A lot of people here complain about the flag collecting in AC1, and I don't get it. It was completely optional. If you hated doing it so much, then why did you do it? Seriously, I think I've seen more people complain about flag collecting in the first game than anything else, besides the mission variety anyway.

On an AC2 note, I am only about 3.5 hours in and am absolutely loving it. Learning skills flows so much better and makes much more sense in this than in the first one ("Since you did a bad job Altair, we're going to treat you like a baby and reteach you everything you already know.")
 

Baker

Banned
BigFwoosh said:
A lot of people here complain about the flag collecting in AC1, and I don't get it. It was completely optional. If you hated doing it so much, then why did you do it? Seriously, I think I've seen more people complain about flag collecting in the first game than anything else, besides the mission variety anyway.
At least the feathers seem to have some purpose in this game. I don't know what yet because I only have like seven of 'em (dropped off 3). :lol
 
I mean fuck, the first fight doesn't even tell you what the punch button is and you have to figure out combo timing by yourself (pretty much same as AC1). The first race didn't have waypoints. I could go on and on. I thought it was fucking cool how you started the game as non-assassin Ezio.

Agreed, I didn't play AC1, only heard it was pretty, but boring, and that AC2 fixed a lot of the issues. So I picked up AC2 to see what the hoopla was about and am pretty much out to sea.

- Given capsule breakdown of some story about exploring historical constructs as part of some war between templars and assasins to discover present-day location of major artifacts? Maybe? Lots of cutscenes, including a frumpy obnoxious English guy who I'd like to punch.

- The graphics are incredibly underwhelming, the lighting on the characters is really janky in the present-day sequences, the Lisa chick has some bizarre busted-up face, and what's going on with everyone's walk cycles?

- Thrown into a combat sequence where I'm just flailing about, luckily I don't seem to be able to die but I have no idea what I'm doing either.

- Free running feels awesome! Great! Let's do a bunch of that!

- I'm going to race my brother? Okay why is he just standing there? Do I have to find some checkpoint? I can't talk to him, and he won't move. What do I do now? I climb up the church to where it looks like there's a checkpoint on the minimap, but it says I'm leaving the bounds of the memory. Huh? Wander around for 10 minutes trying to find a trigger or something to make the game progress. Ooh I found some florins in a glowy box.

- Turn game off in confusion, spend an hour playing New Super Mario Bros, which is both fun and approachable.

I'll flip it on later tonight to see if I just found a glitch somehow with that quest not initiating.
 

Zeliard

Member
I have the 5 FPS map and I installed the 360 version.

infinityBCRT said:
The NPCs are still too generic (thieves and prostitutes conveniently are waiting to be hired near codex locations, you have no conversations with them, none of them are unique, etc) and the crowds are actually less dynamic in this game (you had people walking in all different directions in AC1, in this one you have these artificial groups); although Blend is done much better in this game, the "walking between people" effect should be more natural, you shouldn't have to walk through pre-set groups to trigger that.

Yeah, I noticed the groups. They probably did them that way specifically due to the blending mechanic, since you can blend into any crowd now, instead of just scholars or whatever. You can also pickpocket anybody now, which is certainly a major step-up over limiting pickpocketing to its own side mission, and to just one person at a time.

One thing I like is there seems to be more of a variety this time around in NPC clothing, so you get a better differentiation in class status.

infinityBCRT said:
In some ways I'm hoping AC3 goes down a little more down the adventure game/rpg route (more puzzles, more inventory stuff, dialog trees, theft quests at night, a sneaking mechanic, perhaps even add a little bit of magic). At this point we know AC3 is going to be a mega blockbuster based on how good AC2 is alone so I hope they take some creative risks and try to evolve the next game to be even better.

Yeah, I really like the quasi-RPG route they took this time around and I hope they expand that for the next game.

BriareosGAF said:
I'm going to race my brother? Okay why is he just standing there? Do I have to find some checkpoint? I can't talk to him, and he won't move. What do I do now? I climb up the church to where it looks like there's a checkpoint on the minimap, but it says I'm leaving the bounds of the memory. Huh? Wander around for 10 minutes trying to find a trigger or something to make the game progress. Ooh I found some florins in a glowy box.

You race him to the top of the tower. He both says it and the game literally points you to it. So much for the talk of "hand-holding".

Edit:

Baker said:
Sounds like it might have. When I played that part, he took off before me and was actually winning for half the race.

I think he always takes off before you, but he's slow as molasses.
 

Baker

Banned
BriareosGAF said:
I'll flip it on later tonight to see if I just found a glitch somehow with that quest not initiating.
Sounds like it might have. When I played that part, he took off before me and was actually winning for half the race.

Edit: I think your confusion supports my point about the tutorials. If you didn't play AC1, I could really see people being at a fucking loss in the beginning.
 
Why is it though, that when a game such as AC2 comes out and totally outdoes the first game, people still find reason to bitch about what the game doesn't do. I mean granted we all want the perfect game, but its just sorta shocking. I find AC2 miles above the first and yeah its getting alot of praise and rightfully so, but what more do people really need to be happy? This game ranks high up on the list of best games released in 2009.
 

Returners

Member
PS3 version. No issues. 4 hrs in.

The only thing I noticed is pop in.

Don't have 360 version, can't compare.

PSP connectivity is fun.
 

JambiBum

Member
Can anyone tell me where the hell the glyph at the mercato vecchio is? I can usually find them pretty easily but this one is driving me insane.
 

OmonRa

Member
infinityBCRT said:
Heavy spoilers for those who've finished the game or are near the end (after you've gone to
Venice
).

So it only clicked to me now what that whole weird
dream sequence was about. You know how Desmond knows Altair's memories because hes one of Altair's great-great-great-great grandsons? Well that was Desmond's final memory of Altair. Seems as though Altair impregnated Maria and whoever was born from that pregnancy is where Desmond's memories continue after Altair impregnates Maria

That's why the camera moves away from him and settles on her.
 

Tiduz

Eurogaime
so... im from EU and just spent 10 ubi points on the premium theme

i got a OOPS this content is not available message

then it mentioned to check psn download history, it isnt there! :lol

do i have to wait till the psn update tomorrow or something?
 

McLovin

Member
Sucks that the PC version is coming out later. The console versions look ok.. but the PC versions visuals are top notch. (going by the last AC)
 

JambiBum

Member
Baker said:
BTW, if you're not planning on getting all 100 Uplay points, don't waste 10 on the theme. It's not premium. I still don't understand why companies are allowed to make non-premium themes since NXE was invented.

*The background pic is pretty cool but I absolfuckinglutely hate the friends list with big white X's and robots.

Question about the Uplay stuff, does it tie in to your gamertag and all that? I can't seem to figure out how to tie it into it. I got the 10 points for signing up but that's it.
 

Blimblim

The Inside Track
infinityBCRT said:
So it only clicked to me now what that whole weird
dream sequence was about. You know how Desmond knows Altair's memories because hes one of Altair's great-great-great-great grandsons? Well that was Desmond's final memory of Altair. Seems as though Altair impregnated Maria and whoever was born from that pregnancy is where Desmond's memories continue after Altair impregnates Maria
Was it really a question though? I never thought it could be anything but that.
 
slasher_thrasher21 said:
Why is it though, that when a game such as AC2 comes out and totally outdoes the first game, people still find reason to bitch about what the game doesn't do. I mean granted we all want the perfect game, but its just sorta shocking. I find AC2 miles above the first and yeah its getting alot of praise and rightfully so, but what more do people really need to be happy? This game ranks high up on the list of best games released in 2009.
I don't think its about trashing the game or being unhappy (at least not in terms of my post above). Its just about what the next evolution for video games is. Ten years ago we didn't see games with this scope and I'm hoping ten years from now we see games with an even bigger and better scope. I've always had an eye for game design so thats just how I think when I see a game. I always have criticisms, even for my favourite games, and I'm always looking at what can be better for the next iteration. Its not a bash on AC2 at all.

The other day I told my friend that I really liked UC2 because of the exploration and set pieces and the way they paced the game and theres not really many sections of the game where you are in a shooting gallery for an extended period of time like the first game. I told him I thought the shooting was still a little weak but I thought it was 9/10. The guy freaked and said I was being anal and too critical because I wasn't fully fellating the game.

I think for people who are in the game industry (and I'm not, but I aspire to be there) they have to take a critical approach to all games to be able to create a great game. The guys at ubisoft weren't happy with AC1 and they showed it by what they did with AC2, and I'm sure they aren't entirely happy with AC2 either and they'll show that with their improvements for AC3.
 
V

Vilix

Unconfirmed Member
I've been playing it now for literally 48 hours straight. Yeah, that's pretty messed up. I will say that it still has the same problems that the other one did in the graphics and game mechanics. However, Ubisoft has really revamped the whole play style. I never got into finding all the flags and Templars. It really didn't add much to the game for me. However, now they made finding all the stuff a real compliment to the overall story.

I love a good conspiracy story. And AC2 just bleeds this out of every oraphus.
I love finding out The Truth.
Reminds me a lot of the stuff I hear on Coast to Coast AM with George Norry. :lol
 

Blimblim

The Inside Track
infinityBCRT said:
I just thought it was
a blatant advertisement for AC Bloodlines-- which it still was :lol
I didn't finish the first AC so I just assumed she was somewhere later in the game
 
Blimblim said:
I didn't finish the first AC so I just assumed she was somewhere later in the game
I don't even remember her from the first game but apparently she made a cameo during one mission. But shes a main character in AC: Bloodlines for PSP
 
Top Bottom