black_vegeta
Member
Yeah boooiii, I just picked up this game on the 360 for $40.00 from Amazon.com.
Can't wait until I get it in my hands!!!
Can't wait until I get it in my hands!!!
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Assassin's Creed II - The |OT|
- Thread starter Costanza
- Start date
You may not have cared about why Ezio is targetting who he is but the game does provide a reason for all the targets and it does make sense (although iirc Forli was a weak spot). As memory serves:Mikey Jr. said:
In Florence he's killing the direct murderers of his family, then protecting and elevating Medici, who in turn helps him find the chief conspirator (Borgia).
In San Gimignano he's chasing down the other conspirators and consolidating Medici's power.
In Forli... well, he gets stuck there with Leonardo. This part was strange and felt like there should have been more to it.
In Venice he's continuing his search for Borgia, which requires him to help the Venician middle class (merchants and thieves).
In Rome... well.
In San Gimignano he's chasing down the other conspirators and consolidating Medici's power.
In Forli... well, he gets stuck there with Leonardo. This part was strange and felt like there should have been more to it.
In Venice he's continuing his search for Borgia, which requires him to help the Venician middle class (merchants and thieves).
In Rome... well.
The Conspirator map in the Animus menu also details the chain of command, and why Ezio is working his way through certain people to get to others (although I thought the bit with the brain damaged guy was kinda strange).
I think the biggest oops in the storytelling was not having a better sense of transition over time (other than a number on the screen between DNA strands). While I liked Ezio's questioning of
whether or not the last 10 years of hunting were actually worth the one moment of revenge, the fact that it had been 10 years came as a shock to me, because the game did a terrible job of showing that. The connection to the PoEs was not integrated as well as it could have, too, but it was better than AC1 imo
Mindlog said:
:lol So true, I giggled when I saw that. Can't say the cutscenes are the strong point of this game, so many idiotic scenes, especially the one with (spoilers!)
Borgia during the fight I mentioned above, he runs away from you and MANAGES to get away while just being like 15 meters from you, and you have ALL the allies you've accumulated around you sticking their fingers where the sun doesn't shine. Even though you've managed to do waaaaaay more badass stuff throughout the game, that fatty makes a run for it, and succeeds.
Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny. I know the designers could wave those complaints away with "it's the Animus" but still.Spasm said:
Also,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI
Wonder if the last DLC will have Ezio
finish the job, given how Borgia died in real life. I'd love to see another run on the Vatican with different areas for viewing. Loved the virtual tourist aspect of the game. IIRC the DLC for Strand 12 will be Machiavelli in Florence, 13 is Forli again (maybe hooking up with the Countess or something), but a 15th (or 25th) strand with finally poisoning Borgia would be nice
Dr Zhivago
Member
faceless007 said:
Everything is permitted = any code works. That's how I read it anyway.
criesofthepast
Member
This game is blowing me away. Just met Mario so i'm not that far into it but I'm just about ready to say...moooove over uncharted 2 for my new GOTY!
I absolutely loved the first Assassin's Creed and I enjoyed AC2 for a while, but then it got totally tedious to me. Yeah the graphics are amazing and the improvements like swimming are nice, but it is not that much fun after a while. Maybe it is a matter of too much to do. After a while I quit doing side missions and looking for more useless crap to collect. I am close to the end, so I will push to finish but I look forward to putting this one away.
Mikey Jr.
Member
slewis7 said:
I was the same way actually. Quite funny. In the beginning I was doing every side mission possible, collecting all loot even though I had lots of money anyways. Then half way through, I just said fuck it and just focused on all the primary missions. I think it was because by then I had over 100k and all these missions were doing were just giving me more useless money.
The assassination side missions were the best, but even those became tedious after a while. But what really pissed me off was that after each one, you had to run ALL the way back to get a new mission.
Agreed. AC2 was designed for the people who were disappointed with AC1. For those of us who really liked AC1, AC2 drags heavily in the middle, and the side missions start getting tedious by the end. Even if the dialogue writing is improved over the first game, the overall narrative structure and pacing isn't up to snuff in the sequel.slewis7 said:
SolidEyeSystem
Member
You'll run out of contracts eventually.g23 said:
Alright, finished the game a couple of hours ago, here are my short impressions:
+ The game is BEAUTIFUL; the cities are amazing-looking, and aside from the character model close-ups, pretty much every sum of its parts hold up well, textures, sharp shadows, etc. The LOD issues didn't bother me too much, neither did the tearing in the PS3 version, though if the engine was (perfectly) smooth, it would be the coolest engine for the current-gen consoles.
+ First impressions are amazing; when the game opens up, you feel like the king of the world, finding new shit to do pretty much everywhere.
+ Story, albeit stupid is fuck, is FUN to follow (aside from the ending, more on that later).
+ Most missions are solid, especially the side missions. There's also a lot to do, which is a rarity in single-player games these days.
+ The gadgets/items you could use are all fun in their respective ways.
+ Combat, while easy, is really fun, and the counter-kills never cease to be cringe-inducing.
+ The climbing mechanics are the best I've ever seen, and not once through my gaming sessions did it glitch in some awkward way. If they tidy up the sometimes cumbersome controls (while chasing on rooftops for example), this should be the standard others want to live up to. Also, a bit of a speed increase in the animations would be swell as well.
+ I liked that you could use/purchase a lot of different things, gave some minor depth to the game.
+ The catacomb side missions were the best thing in the game, completely amazing.
+ The voice acting was overall really solid if you ignored the faked Italian accents.
+ Unlike most here (I guess?) I like the real-world parts, since they were brief and changed things up. Also, the other brief thing not related to Italy/RL was really cool too.
- As I mentioned before, I think most of the assassination missions are too one-dimensional. Eventhough you have a bunch of toys to tinker with, you can still kill pretty much any target by brute forcing. As said, something more along the lines of Hitman would be better, in that it should force you to think in original ways, and let you use environmental kills for example. As it is now, the easy combat boils down in you bruting your way to the target, and then just jumping onto him and slicing him up. This is honestly a pretty big negative to me, and it became more apparent as the game went on.
- It overstays its welcome with too much filler stuff, but this can be attributed to my OCD behavior. Some missions are truly completely redundant.
- More contextual missions, like the wagon chase scene and the glider mission would've been awesome, but it's not too big of a negative. More missions where the horse is needed would've been great too; as it is now, it feels a bit like an afterthought and a feature bullet point. And the chase missions like in the catacombs were too awesome to be used so seldomly.
- Annoyances that crept up; the buy menus (extended white flash after exiting the store, the overlay of an item when you purchase something covered the rest for too long), sometimes cumbersome controls that don't do what you want to do, the overall unpolished feel of cutscenes etc.
- The economy aspect was busted. In the beginning it was awesome, but by the end it was too easy to earn money (and also made the hunt for treasure chests BORING).
- The ending... WTF? I mean, I could accept the futuristic stuff in the beginning, but the revelation points were a bit odd, to say the least. Not that it bothered me too much, though. (major spoilers)
- Forli, which I though was the most beautiful area of the game, was severely underused; I hope this is remedied in the DLC.
- To expand on the con above, several parts indeed felt rushed. But others have already touched upon this better than I could.
- Also, the lapse of time was badly handled in the game. Goatee?! The characters in your villa sit around for like 385 years without changing at all.
I probably come off as very negative, but it's still a fucking great game. It's just that my initial impressions (that this would be a candidate for my personal GOTY) were marred as the game progressed. It dropped from the second place on my 2009 top 10 list to a 7th place... Anyways, the game is a strong 8/10, still highly recommended. I hope someone finds my impressions somewhat valuable.
+ The game is BEAUTIFUL; the cities are amazing-looking, and aside from the character model close-ups, pretty much every sum of its parts hold up well, textures, sharp shadows, etc. The LOD issues didn't bother me too much, neither did the tearing in the PS3 version, though if the engine was (perfectly) smooth, it would be the coolest engine for the current-gen consoles.
+ First impressions are amazing; when the game opens up, you feel like the king of the world, finding new shit to do pretty much everywhere.
+ Story, albeit stupid is fuck, is FUN to follow (aside from the ending, more on that later).
+ Most missions are solid, especially the side missions. There's also a lot to do, which is a rarity in single-player games these days.
+ The gadgets/items you could use are all fun in their respective ways.
+ Combat, while easy, is really fun, and the counter-kills never cease to be cringe-inducing.
+ The climbing mechanics are the best I've ever seen, and not once through my gaming sessions did it glitch in some awkward way. If they tidy up the sometimes cumbersome controls (while chasing on rooftops for example), this should be the standard others want to live up to. Also, a bit of a speed increase in the animations would be swell as well.
+ I liked that you could use/purchase a lot of different things, gave some minor depth to the game.
+ The catacomb side missions were the best thing in the game, completely amazing.
+ The voice acting was overall really solid if you ignored the faked Italian accents.
+ Unlike most here (I guess?) I like the real-world parts, since they were brief and changed things up. Also, the other brief thing not related to Italy/RL was really cool too.
- As I mentioned before, I think most of the assassination missions are too one-dimensional. Eventhough you have a bunch of toys to tinker with, you can still kill pretty much any target by brute forcing. As said, something more along the lines of Hitman would be better, in that it should force you to think in original ways, and let you use environmental kills for example. As it is now, the easy combat boils down in you bruting your way to the target, and then just jumping onto him and slicing him up. This is honestly a pretty big negative to me, and it became more apparent as the game went on.
- It overstays its welcome with too much filler stuff, but this can be attributed to my OCD behavior. Some missions are truly completely redundant.
- More contextual missions, like the wagon chase scene and the glider mission would've been awesome, but it's not too big of a negative. More missions where the horse is needed would've been great too; as it is now, it feels a bit like an afterthought and a feature bullet point. And the chase missions like in the catacombs were too awesome to be used so seldomly.
- Annoyances that crept up; the buy menus (extended white flash after exiting the store, the overlay of an item when you purchase something covered the rest for too long), sometimes cumbersome controls that don't do what you want to do, the overall unpolished feel of cutscenes etc.
- The economy aspect was busted. In the beginning it was awesome, but by the end it was too easy to earn money (and also made the hunt for treasure chests BORING).
- The ending... WTF? I mean, I could accept the futuristic stuff in the beginning, but the revelation points were a bit odd, to say the least. Not that it bothered me too much, though. (major spoilers)
I did laugh hard when the pope started Force draining everyone in the chapel, and when he used his Jedi... ahem, Eden staff.
- To expand on the con above, several parts indeed felt rushed. But others have already touched upon this better than I could.
- Also, the lapse of time was badly handled in the game. Goatee?! The characters in your villa sit around for like 385 years without changing at all.
I probably come off as very negative, but it's still a fucking great game. It's just that my initial impressions (that this would be a candidate for my personal GOTY) were marred as the game progressed. It dropped from the second place on my 2009 top 10 list to a 7th place... Anyways, the game is a strong 8/10, still highly recommended. I hope someone finds my impressions somewhat valuable.
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
Loved AC1, one of my fav games of 07. Didn't too much care for AC2. The story just didn't grab me like the 1st one did. Still digging the series, but Im no longer a OMG fanboy like I was in 07. Right now I'm just finishing up doing some trophy whoring then I'll probably sell it . Hopefully they can win me back with AC3. Unless there's a drought, probably won't pick it up day 1 next time.
. Hopefully they can win me back with AC3. Unless there's a drought, probably won't pick it up day 1 next time.rollingstart
Banned
The cost for DLC seems fairly reasonable. $9 total for both and a good amount of new content. Now I just need to buy some MS points.
Just read about the DLC. Reasonably priced, can't wait!!
People who missed the Fly Swatter achievement/trophy might like this
People who missed the Fly Swatter achievement/trophy might like this
CrunchinJelly
formerly cjelly
So what is that in Allards?
theMrCravens
Member
Just found all the feathers with online maps. Pretty tedious to do, but I wanted it done.
Did anyone actually take the time to find them all without using a guide ?
I personally think they should've made a pricey map in-game to find them all.
(25k per area or something)
Did anyone actually take the time to find them all without using a guide ?
I personally think they should've made a pricey map in-game to find them all.
(25k per area or something)
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
LiK said:
im going feather hunting now
i have 2/5 cities done, now im grinding away in venice. looks like im gonna keep the game for the dlc. $9 for ~12 or so new missions is a good deal. it'd be nice if all SP games did that. I'd go dlc crazy.NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
The DLC sounds pretty awesome. Definitely gonna get it. For those of you who haven't seen it, there is a video with footage of the DLC, but it's at the site that cannot be named...
I hope they do a Sequence 15 where you finally
Edit: Video of the DLC is now at IGN:
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/.../videos/ac2_trl_dlc_dev_interview_121609.html
I hope they do a Sequence 15 where you finally
put that sick fuck Borgia into the ground.
Edit: Video of the DLC is now at IGN:
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/.../videos/ac2_trl_dlc_dev_interview_121609.html
Haven't read this whole thread yet, but does anyone else think for ACIII
Altier is going to be the final villian? Maybe along with Ezio as his henchman?
It seems like the dream sequence and the writing about his new found love and then the final codex with him giving into temptation and using the apple...all the traits of someone who falls into villainy. I mean I think the last codex page alone is proof Altier will still have a role to play in the story.
As for Ezio, like Altier, he we leave him with this power in his hands and don't find out what he does next.
I dunno, just a thought.
It seems like the dream sequence and the writing about his new found love and then the final codex with him giving into temptation and using the apple...all the traits of someone who falls into villainy. I mean I think the last codex page alone is proof Altier will still have a role to play in the story.
As for Ezio, like Altier, he we leave him with this power in his hands and don't find out what he does next.
I dunno, just a thought.
Bebpo said:
There's also a suggestion of Altair's temptation with god-hood, immortality, and his growing disillusionment with the world in general. Either that's there just for an interesting bit of character development, or he plays a large role in the game's meta-story. Perhaps it is Altair who "fathers" the race of gods who are "more advanced in time" than Ezio. Impossible to guess at this point. If the game is going to stay historically accurate, the "Assassins" proper didn't exist prior to around the 11th or 12th century, so they can't really go back in time and say that the Assassins are part of some ancient cult. It'd be much more consistent if they instead said that the Ancient god-like people were there because of some sort of interference from the future--which would also explain how Minerva "knew" that Desmond/Ezio would find the vault.
Yes. They're really not that difficult to find. I found most of mine in the regular course of playing the game. The rest I picked up as I was hunting for the treasure chests. Just left the Eagle Vision on while I went looking for chests, and managed to find them all. Didn't take any extra time or effort. Only one I can think of was in a hard-to-find area, but I ran into it while looking for a glyph.theMrCravens said:
EDIT: Also, for those of you who were disappointed by the story-related reward for collecting all the feathers, you obviously weren't as disturbed as I was by
the rape of Ezio's mother and her subsequent lapse into silence. Her words were chilling and heart-warming at the same time. One of the few high points in Ezio's storyline IMO.
Like the hat?
Banned
Finished it up last night. Wow, what a great game. Can't wait for AC3. Hope we get it next year instead of 2011.
killing templars as Desmond was so good
JodyAnthony said:
I also finished it last night. I was going to go back and get all OCD on the feathers and whatnot, but I think I'll wait until the DLC comes out and give it a shot then.
I am considering going back and finishing up the 'Truth' this weekend. I have about 6 or 7 glyphs still to find.
N
NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
Struct09 said:Just read about the DLC. Reasonably priced, can't wait!!
People who missed the Fly Swatter achievement/trophy might like this
So i can either start from scratch or pay to get it? I'll get this anyway but they need to get a patch out for mission replay, even if it means only having access to the skills and weapons you had at that point.
Grimm Fandango
Member
Finally beat the game today. Trippy ending. Just need to collect the rest of the feathers. I'm glad it at least tells you how many remain in each district. I'll try to look for them instead of resorting to a map like the first game.
Will buy DLC for the game unless it's awful.
Will buy DLC for the game unless it's awful.
One time these three bards came up to me. Normally I deliver one swift punch to the face and they run off screaming. This time I unknowingly had the dual hidden blades equipped so when I pressed X he ended up stabbing two of them in the face. They died faces red with their own blood with the most shocked expression on their faces. Awesome.
I do this thing where if I kill people I feel compelled to stash their bodies somewhere. Like the guards that stand in front of houses with chests and codex pages, I'll jump them from above, then methodically drag them into the house. Once I killed some guys near a well and I was slowly carting them over, but more and more guards kept seeing me. Ended up stuffing 15 bodies down that well. Maybe it's all the days of Deus Ex and Thief that's trained me to do this. Or maybe I'm a psychopath. I loved Deus Ex 2 strictly for the reason that you could fill up dumpsters with your kills and then set them all alight with a flaming barrel!
Whenever I kill an archer I wonder how people must feel about dead bodies and weapons raining down from the sky.
Whenever I kill an archer I wonder how people must feel about dead bodies and weapons raining down from the sky.
finished the game up earlier this week. One of the few games this gen I went out of my way to finish the extras i.e feathers, The Truth, getting the villa to 100%, and Assassin Tombs. I skipped over the first game (picked it up yesterday tho) and I have to say I love the free running in it. All in all I think it took me about 35 hours to finish and I have 92% of the trophies. Can't wait for AC3.
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
Just an FYI for feather hunters. If you go to St>DNA> you can see what feathers you need and location they're in. Helped me get my plat trophy.
CitizenCope
Member
First off let me say I really enjoyed the first one.
Right now I'm 3-4 hours into the ACII. Did you think it started out slow?
Does it pick up after that? I end up playing about 30-45 minutes every time and move on to a different game because this just isn't grabbing me yet.
Right now I'm 3-4 hours into the ACII. Did you think it started out slow?
I'm at the part where your father is jailed and you go and pay him a visit.
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
CitizenCope said:
same thing happened for me, it just didn't pick up and it kinda just drug on. And I didn't really get grabbed by the story either. The gaf consensus tho is it's a great game, so hopefully it picks up for you
BrassMonkey1010
Member
Just beat the game. Overall, I really enjoyed it.
Positives
+ I really like the combat and controls for climbing
+ The graphics were amazing and the citys were really immersive
+ The amount of stuff you can do in the world is outstanding
+ Assassin tombs were awesome
Negatives
- I though the story was bad..like really bad.
Positives
+ I really like the combat and controls for climbing
+ The graphics were amazing and the citys were really immersive
+ The amount of stuff you can do in the world is outstanding
+ Assassin tombs were awesome
Negatives
- I though the story was bad..like really bad.
Digital-Hero
Member
I just got the platinum trophy (100%) the game.
Positives:
1. Less time out of the Animus.
2. Game had a a better story and was easier to grasp. The characters grew on me as well.
3. Music was amazing, I will buy the original soundtrack on Itunes. I've always liked Jesper Kyd's music since Hitman 2.
4. Battle animations were amazing. Some of the counters were hilarious and fun to watch.
Negative:
1. Assassins Creed II Dev team has issues when developing on PS3. There were a few annoying framerate dips. Also, I crashed sometimes when using a ton of smoke bombs and Double Hidden Blade attacks.
Positives:
1. Less time out of the Animus.
2. Game had a a better story and was easier to grasp. The characters grew on me as well.
3. Music was amazing, I will buy the original soundtrack on Itunes. I've always liked Jesper Kyd's music since Hitman 2.
4. Battle animations were amazing. Some of the counters were hilarious and fun to watch.
Negative:
1. Assassins Creed II Dev team has issues when developing on PS3. There were a few annoying framerate dips. Also, I crashed sometimes when using a ton of smoke bombs and Double Hidden Blade attacks.
N
NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
voltron said:
Yeah, you can do all of those things but you cannot replay storyline missions.