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Assassin's Creed II - The |OT|

ive played through the story and done almost all of the side stuff and am still missing two locations in the Venice Database.

Could anyone please check theyre database and tell me whats:
to the right of San Giacomo Di Rialto
to the left of Madonna Dell'orto

Ive tried googling and ive also tried running around Venice with no luck, so im worried that my database is simply glitched which wouldnt be good.
 
Finally completed the game, PS3 version, last night with a Platinum trophy, game time 35 hours, which is some testiment to how it kept my attention.

Loved the game generally, however as mentioned before the race missions with the arbitary jumping off buildings at full pelt were a bit of a let down and could have been dealt with better.

Couple of bugs (guards not attacking unless taunted, sudden army of 100 when only one existed before & lock ups), which considering the variables needed for the openworld, isn't too bad.

Await the 3rd with anticipation.
 

Meier

Member
I've been playing this the past few days.. just got to Romagna. I enjoyed the original quite a bit personally, so while the sequel is definitely better, it's not as big of a leap forward to me as it seems to be for others. I love the voice acting.. actually kinda wish it were all in Italian. I know there are other spoken language options but hadn't considered actually changing it permanently. Maybe I should.

I like the upgrading of the town but I wish the cosmetic changes were more pronounced. I've brought everything back (not up to level 3 yet) but the town still looks pretty desolate. Maybe that will change once I do have it all to 3, I guess we'll see.

Anyway, long story short.. as someone who enjoyed the original, this isn't a huge improvement IMO despite still being very good.
 

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
Finished the main story a couple days ago, and overall this game was great and addressed many issues from the first game. Im now just doing post-story stuff to get my platinum.

I dont know if its possible, but they really NEED to address the controls for when you are moving really fast in a race, or trying to climb someplace quick. I cant even tell you how many times that Ezio just ran into a wall or jumped on the completely wrong thing i was aiming at when i was trying to get someplace in a hurry....
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
sloppyjoe_gamer said:
Finished the main story a couple days ago, and overall this game was great and addressed many issues from the first game. Im now just doing post-story stuff to get my platinum.

I dont know if its possible, but they really NEED to address the controls for when you are moving really fast in a race, or trying to climb someplace quick. I cant even tell you how many times that Ezio just ran into a wall or jumped on the completely wrong thing i was aiming at when i was trying to get someplace in a hurry....

As many have said, and I agree, take the controls from infamous and add them to this game and it would be far better.
 

Meier

Member
sloppyjoe_gamer said:
I dont know if its possible, but they really NEED to address the controls for when you are moving really fast in a race, or trying to climb someplace quick. I cant even tell you how many times that Ezio just ran into a wall or jumped on the completely wrong thing i was aiming at when i was trying to get someplace in a hurry....
Yeah, the controls are fairly frustrating.. I felt like they were better in the first one. I have no clue why it doesn't just default to make you grab a ledge when falling... the biggest annoyance I have with the game. So many times I apparently miss a jump and then have to blow a medicine or two.
 
I gotta say - the second Assassin's Tomb mission where you climb through that giant church - was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in a game. Reminded me a lot of the Bridge level of Half-Life 2. Got a little freaked out by the heights and scale of it all.

Freaking brilliant.
 
RichyDevil said:
I gotta say - the second Assassin's Tomb mission where you climb through that giant church - was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in a game. Reminded me a lot of the Bridge level of Half-Life 2. Got a little freaked out by the heights and scale of it all.

Freaking brilliant.

Go and play Prince of Persia the Sands of Time right now, some of the sequences in that game gave me the same feeling.
 
Just picked this game up on sale at Best Buy

liking the game so far, not to far into it yet
about 45 minutes after your family gets hung

Overall game looks fantastic, but I think the characters and their animations are average, which makes it stand out because everything else is top notch.

I feel like a dumbass not realizing that Nolan North is the voice of Desmond until now
 

Gowans

Member
I rented this and my Mrs has been playing it, shes hooked, the Villa is fully upgraded, loadsa paintings and cash and she's just tracked down some guy to a coliseum, killed him and hot a shoulder clock that will help her with the guards.

How far is she through?

Also I think I'm gona have to buy it new due to her play, what DLC do you get with the box?

Also is it worth getting the DLC thats out? and will it integrate into her game and not mess things up for where she is at currently?
 
Gowans007 said:
I rented this and my Mrs has been playing it, shes hooked, the Villa is fully upgraded, loadsa paintings and cash and she's just tracked down some guy to a coliseum, killed him and hot a shoulder clock that will help her with the guards.

How far is she through?

Also I think I'm gona have to buy it new due to her play, what DLC do you get with the box?

Also is it worth getting the DLC thats out? and will it integrate into her game and not mess things up for where she is at currently?

The 1st DLC is like only an hour long, give or take, but a 2nd one is coming at the end of the month which will be longer. Both are $4 each.
 

Gowans

Member
I have the points as long as it's fun I'll get it, my Mrs is well hooked.


Any answers to my other questions?


She's furious at the moment she can't reach some mountain area.
 
I just finished Assassin's Creed II. I did everything in the game except stupid feather hunting (I have 50/100), which can suck it. I forgot to look at the timer, but I think I was at 40 hours or something. I got all achievements except a couple of the skill ones (sweep 5 guards with a spear, etc.). Mini-review:

GAMEPLAY: B+. It's really awesome when you first get to free-run. Amazing freedom in a really impressive game world. Very complete game -- lots of systems that all make sense and all work really, really well. This is what next-generation hardware is all about: all about seamlessness and scale. I loved the subject 16 puzzles, too, though one was way too fucking hard. Unfortunately, the controls are finicky in pressure situations, leading to lots of hair-pulling and screaming at the screen (like in the Race missions!). Also, marking a target needs to be made much easier... I kept locking on to the wrong assassination target. AC II does a lot of things really well and combines them well but doesn't have that one go-to mechanic that's truly stellar. The game started to finally drag a bit around Carnivale time in Venice... but that's exactly when the AWESOME final mission happened. Bravo.

GRAPHICS: A. Holy shit. Now, there's a ton of pop-in, and human faces look bad. And if this were a linear game like Uncharted 2, I would never give it an A on graphics with these visuals. But this game is massive! Every corner is designed for free-running; there are no sloppy unfinished areas. Venice is so amazing-looking, it's hard to believe sometimes, but there are several other cities, and even the country-side looks great. I'd like to know this game's budget. They had to have have like 500 people designing those cities. Amazing.

STORY/WRITING/ACTING: B+. The acting and writing was great all the way through. Well, it was done well but seemed somewhat by-the-numbers at times. The game could definitely have a smoother narrative flow; it seemed rather herky-jerky. The overall story arc was quite interesting but a little compressed at the end... it kind of seemed you were killing bad guys, but the real gravity of the situation was only revealed near the end. The ending was kick-ass. I also thought the Subject 16 stuff was appropriately Dan Brownesque.

MUSIC: A. Couldn't be more perfect for this type of game.

VALUE: B. Other than the feathers, a 100% run-through of this game should take no more than 30 hours for people, and a lot of that is just getting around the place. It's a big game, but it's not fully engaging the entire time.

OVERALL: B+ or A-. I think this game puts GTA IV in the dust in most ways, though it lacks that one "go-to" thing which GTA IV has -- the driving, which is more fun and creates more dynamic situations than anything in AC II. Yes, I know, it's a different type of game, but the flow of the game makes it the closest comparison IMO. Anyway, Ubi should be proud of this game. It's quite an achievement. It's great in so many ways. The sequel would be fine just by copying this game, but if they can add something AWESOME (like the inter-game connections in ME2, or the set pieces in Uncharted 2), they can really take it to the next level.
 
Bluecondor said:
I just finished the last race mission. It took almost every ounce of gaming patience that I have to stick with this tedious format.

Hehe, yeah, those are tough. The Venecian one (I assume the one you meant) took be a good 20 tries. There was actual screaming a-la GameFly commercials involved.

IMO, the "time trial" format with you having to run/jump through spots in a veritable full sprint is very little fun and mostly an exercise in frustration.

I think it can be fun if a little latitude is given OR the controls are made tighter. AC II's biggest problem IMO is the tightness of the controls. Usually it funnels your button presses into what it thinks you mean, and it works well. But way too often, it does NOT do that, and you end up jumping to the side into the water instead of where you were really aiming, because the camera is swinging around wildly, and Ezio does this big stupid leap which is clearly unintentional.

Instead, we have these absolutely mindless "races" where you are trudging through the city and chasing from light to light - while being punished every time you mis-time a button by 1/10th of second (there were two piles of crates in the last race in Florence that were absolutely unbearable because of this).

I do think it would be really fun if the controls were smoother. It makes you explore various ways of traversing the environment. If you put together a perfect run, it's pretty bad-ass.

Struct09 said:
Yeah, AC2 was my GOTY, but I gave up on the optional races after doing like two of them.

I persevered. :D I'm no achievement whore, but I wish there was an achievement for having done that, since there's really no other reward. (Money becomes meaningless quickly in this game.)
 
Triple post... here we go.

Castor Krieg said:
Can I play this if I didn't play the 1st one? I tried it a couple of times, read the plot outline somewhere, but the game was just too painful to play for me to enjoy it.

Thinking PS3. Good? How long to beat it?

I couldn't bear to play the first game for more than 5 hours, so I was in the same boat.

I think I missed some references, but after a Wiki summary of the first game, everything in this game made sense. I think it's very much playable and enjoyable to a full extent without going through the first game.

You can probably beat it, by which I mean finish the last story mission, in 20 hours no problem. But I did everything except lame-ass feather collecting and was at something like 40 hours, which will probably be 30 hours for most other people (I like to run around and stare).
 

Jeff-DSA

Member
AAAAARRRRRGHHHHHH! MOTHER EFFIN' GLITCH!

I'm pissed.

I've passed all six assassin's tomb missions and have collected all six seals. The game only lets me place five of the six seals, however. The one it won't let me place is the one on the furthest to the left. The spot where I need to place the seal is glowing, but when I get close to the statue it won't bring up the prompt to press the B button to place the seal. It also won't bring up the prompt to press Y to examine the thing. It's basically not even recognizing that the statue is even there.

I emailed Ubisoft support about it and they told me to consult a strategy guide. Idiots.
 
So I finished it...

This game blew ass. Ezio is a terrible character, the roster of comic book NPCs are all terrible characters, and the
super nazi pope is... well he was a terrible character up until he leveled up into the friggin Pope.
I loved the first one, but this game was a mess. It's ugly as fuck, the sprawling cityscapes felt bland for the most part. While I like the idea behind including varying locales, turning the countryside into an actual level and the swampland area, Venice is the only place that feels actually developed. And by developed I mean developed by an asshole, the rooftop being carved to shreds by the waterways and by historical landmarks made navigating it obnoxious as hell. The controls were a mess too, I must have blown at least an hour restarting tomb puzzles because it wouldn't register the direction I was trying to jump. And there were friggin load times to open menus. And between button presses inside of menus! Wahhhhhhhhht.

My main complaint is Ezio though. He's no Altair. He's some punk kid. Which is novel, and I actually liked the approach. But holy fuck does it just feel *wrong* to go around murdering guards as him. AC1 was different. It felt like the whole damn world was out to get Altair. By the end of AC2 most the city guards are working for your damn allies, but still the game forces you to rip out their necks if you want to climb a simple roof. Oh and his clothing is overdesigned trash.

I still can't believe people praise this game so much more than the first. Didn't people complain about having to do shitty side missions before getting assassination contracts? That is this entire game tied up in a bow. In the first only a few are required and you could choose which ones, this one you ain't got no friggin choice. Seriously, there's only 9 goddamn targets in the entire game.

The Pazzi Conspiracy was by far my favorite part, everything else is very blah. It doesn't even feel like the game has a point after that, just Crazy Italiano Fun Killing Times With Leonardo da Vinci (And Space Deities and Nikola Tesla).
 
Oh brother. :lol

There was some merit in SOME of the things you said (overstated and exaggerated as they were), but to call this game ugly as fuck is just way off.

Also, you should spoiler-tag some of that stuff. This isn't a spoiler thread.
 
Just finished this the other day, can't really compare it much to Assassin's Creed 1 (never finished) though. Likely spoilers ahead (games been out for some time so I don't think spoiler tags are necessary).

Started out pretty slow, the future-setting areas and character models don't look very good. And the first few moments as Ezio were uninteresting. The game picks up nicely after that though and for the next 3/4 of the game I was in love. I would play for hours and not even touch the main story. Toward the end it really slows down and I really disliked how the final areas in the game (Rome) took the closed-area approach instead of the open world one. I'll add here that having to collect all the codex pages kind of sucks, luckily I had gotten 27 of them along the way but if you were at like 15 it would be extremely annoying and tedious.

Story wise I really hated the future elements throughout the entire game until the ending, in the final sequence I was finally interested where it was going. As far as Ezio's story it can be a bit repetitive, someone rises to power and needs to be killed (or something like that) but that didn't bother me too much because I generally liked the games characters/gameplay so I still had a reason to keep playing.

Speaking of gameplay, traversing the cities is incredibly fun for most of the game. I think it became less interesting toward the end, but considering how long I spent with the game I'm surprised it didn't get old sooner. This isn't to say that the mechanics themselves don't have issues, Ezio can feel a bit delayed sometimes. I'd drop off ledges I didn't intend to (confused whether the game had registered by drop or I needed to do it again) and sometimes I'd jump backwards no intending to. Going down a higher rooftop to a slightly lower one could be unnecessarily annoying, taking the long way of falling to a ledge position over just jumping down (which the game is picky about). I kind of wish the game was like Infamous with anticipating what you wanted to go to, instead of needing to adjust Ezio's hands to the nearest ledge when falling. I could name more little things but they are just that, little things. Overall I liked the platforming/climbing very much.

Combat started out fun but eventually the enemies block most attacks and take forever to kill, so I switched to disarming them most of the time (usually followed by an instant kill attack). If they refused to be disarmed I'd drop a smoke bomb and run around back-stabbing them.

Visually the game looks really great, though surprisingly my favorite visual moments took place outside of the big cities on the plains in between. Some of the cities start to blend together to me though, I remember the game as 3 areas: The clear plains areas, Venice, and every other city. Framerate had some issues, most notably when being pursued by many enemies and there is a good deal of pop-in with textures but it wasn't unbearable or anything (playing on PS3 by the way).

The game has a number of minor annoyances, but I'd probably put it amongst my favorites for 2009. I'd like to see where it goes from here.

On a side note, the DLC missions were probably the biggest low of the game for me. I really didn't like them at all.
 

Agent X

Member
I finally completed the game yesterday, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's definitely one of the best games of 2009.

The last mission
(I'm talking about Rome, not the credits sequence)
was good. Although it wasn't terribly challenging, it wasn't as long or drawn out as the final portion of the first game, and ended up being a good way for the player to put a variety of the skills to good use. It's a fitting way to finish out this story, especially considering we now know we're getting at least one more game featuring Ezio.

I've still got 4 more trophies (not counting Platinum) to get, so I'll be jumping back into the game soon.
 

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
Ah jeesh so I finished the game and I only have about 25 feathers...

Can anyone give me a rough estimation how long it takes to get all the feathers. Give me "how many you had to get when you started" and about how long.
I'm thinking I'm willing to burn a couple of hours if someone would tell me that I could get the remaining 75% or so in that much time. Any longer than that though, I dunno.

... Anyone recently complete the feather hunting and have an efficent strategy for what they did? Print off a map from a certain website, watch YouTube videos? Thanks
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Yeah, the feathers shouldn't take more than 2 hours if you just run through this.

http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2009/06/03/assassins-creed-2-cheats-guide.htm

Follow the numbers to keep track of which ones you've got and which are left, and use your capes so you can easily dispatch guards and keep moving.

If you need more specific direction to the exact spot, check the pictures here:

http://guides.ign.com/guides/14302493/page_59.html

I play it on my PC monitor so I put the maps on my PSP <3
 

CrunchinJelly

formerly cjelly
Clarification from Ubi's Twitter account:

More details: #AC2 Bonfire of the Vanities out on February 18 for €3.99 (PS3) / 320 MS Points (X360)

Also #AC2 Bonfire of Vanities + 3 Templar Secret Locations (Palazzo Medici, Santa Maria dei Frari, Arsenal Shipyard) for €6.99 / 520 MSP

So you do have to pay extra for the pre-order maps... :-/
 

crispyben

Member
cjelly said:
Clarification from Ubi's Twitter account:

So you do have to pay extra for the pre-order maps... :-/
That's so lame, the two I'm missing would cost me €3??? I guess I'll live without 100%-ing the game...
 
RedRedSuit said:
Oh brother. :lol

There was some merit in SOME of the things you said (overstated and exaggerated as they were), but to call this game ugly as fuck is just way off.

I only admit only that I've been accused of exaggeration before. I really don't think this game looks good. At all. Maybe it's been a while since I've played an open world game, but I cannot think of an uglier game off the top of my head without going all the way back to Dead Rising. The characters all look like cartoon puppets, complete with evil soulless eyes. None of the vistas are particularly impressive, and outside of Venice the game is just plain bland. It's still got the same janky clipping and same ugly bloodied textures of the first game (Minor exception being Ezio's face when it gets cut up).
 

mack999

Banned
Adam Prime said:
Ah jeesh so I finished the game and I only have about 25 feathers...

Can anyone give me a rough estimation how long it takes to get all the feathers. Give me "how many you had to get when you started" and about how long.
I'm thinking I'm willing to burn a couple of hours if someone would tell me that I could get the remaining 75% or so in that much time. Any longer than that though, I dunno.

... Anyone recently complete the feather hunting and have an efficent strategy for what they did? Print off a map from a certain website, watch YouTube videos? Thanks

Good feathers map with youtube vids on same page

http://www.mlwgames.com/assassinscreed2/

I actually enjoyed collecting the feathers, same with the flags in AC1, it's strangely relaxing. I just read the text of where it is, then it's off to find it, it's quite puzzly and addictive.

Great game, just as AC1 was. I rarely 1000 games but I did with both games. But I've never understood the 'repetitive' argument with AC1. I didn't find it repetitive at all, I just enjoyed great gameplay, great story and was saddened when it ended.

All games are repetitive, look at the one of the biggest selling, Call of Duty. You shoot lots, load up the next level then shoot lots. Every game nowadays has to have a gun bobbing up and down in the middle of the screen. What's not repetitive about holding down the right trigger every 10 seconds?

I'm playing Tomb Raider Anniversary now I've completed this, WOW, what a great a game. I'm definitely LTTP to this epic.
 
Is there a trick to the combat in this game? I'm a few hours in and really enjoy the free-running. The combat however seems to be an exercise in frustration. I'm constantly wrestling with the camera and the lock on system.

Has anybody else experienced this, and if so am I missing something basic? I'm close to giving up at this point.
 

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
PalaceBrother said:
Is there a trick to the combat in this game? I'm a few hours in and really enjoy the free-running. The combat however seems to be an exercise in frustration. I'm constantly wrestling with the camera and the lock on system.

Has anybody else experienced this, and if so am I missing something basic? I'm close to giving up at this point.

It's silly and at times frustrating. I didn't "get" the combat either until LATE in the game, and I was frustrated a lot. Combat is easily the worst part of this great game. Here are a few things I learned:

The "best" way to do it is to counter attack everything. Hold R1 (Defend) and then press attack when they attack you to counter.
... What the game doesn't tell you though is that it won't always work depending on your weapon, who you're fighting, and their health. Enemies with lots of "health diamonds" aren't going to die on a counter attack until you weaken them up a bit. You have to "soften" them up a bit first by just mashing attack and making them deflect.

Be sure that you have a legit weapon, usually the assassin's blade for most enemies and something stronger, like a sword, for tougher guys. Mash attack on them like crazy until they attack you, then counter and insta-kill them. For the big knight enemies with axes and poles, you basically HAVE to use your fists, get them to attack you and counter attack to disarm them, and then use their weapon on them.

Another great strategy after you've gotten the smoke bombs... drop a smoke bomb to stun everyone, bust out your assassin's blade and just double kill everybody, drop another bomb when that wears off, and repeat. This makes those fights when you're surrounded or when you're up against 3+ guards extremely easy. I wish I had figured this out earlier in the game. By late in the game all the fights became pretty easy, I would go through all three smoke bombs and kill off a group of 20 guards without taking a hit. :lol
 

levious

That throwing stick stunt of yours has boomeranged on us.
pretty sure you can counter/disarm any enemy bare handed. Combat in this game is pretty easy once you get a feel for it. Once you get smoke bombs and poison it gets even easier.
 

Struct09

Member
levious said:
pretty sure you can counter/disarm any enemy bare handed. Combat in this game is pretty easy once you get a feel for it. Once you get smoke bombs and poison it gets even easier.

Yeah, I often would put away my weapon so I could disarm whoever I was fighting, usually if they had a big weapon. I actually really enjoyed the combat in AC2.
 
Son of Godzilla said:
I only admit only that I've been accused of exaggeration before. I really don't think this game looks good. At all. Maybe it's been a while since I've played an open world game, but I cannot think of an uglier game off the top of my head without going all the way back to Dead Rising.

:lol
 
I've been playing a lot more AC1 lately, as I never did finish it, and I'm finding the combat system in the original game to me a lot better than the sequel. In particular, the way you have to fight before you unlock the counter-kill move. You have to rely upon combo-kills, tapping the button to swing your sword and then tapping again the moment your sword makes contact. Its tricky, but rewarding.

If I could change anything about AC2 combat I'd remove the counter-kill entirely. It makes combat too easy as you just wait for the attackers to run into your sword.
 
NullPointer said:
I've been playing a lot more AC1 lately, as I never did finish it, and I'm finding the combat system in the original game to me a lot better than the sequel. In particular, the way you have to fight before you unlock the counter-kill move. You have to rely upon combo-kills, tapping the button to swing your sword and then tapping again the moment your sword makes contact. Its tricky, but rewarding.

If I could change anything about AC2 combat I'd remove the counter-kill entirely. It makes combat too easy as you just wait for the attackers to run into your sword.

You can still do the timing sword swings thing, if you do it with the hidden blades you get some awesome kill animations on the last hit.

And 3 quid extra for the tombs isnt cool :(
 
Adam Prime said:
The "best" way to do it is to...<insert valuable tips here>...kill off a group of 20 guards without taking a hit. :lol

Awesome, thanks for the reply! I'll keep this in mind when I give it another shot tonight.
 
levious said:
pretty sure you can counter/disarm any enemy bare handed. Combat in this game is pretty easy once you get a feel for it. Once you get smoke bombs and poison it gets even easier.
For enemies in the later areas, disarming doesn't work right off the bat; they'll rebuff the attempt. Attacking them and reducing their "health" or whatever the little diamonds represent will make them more susceptible to disarms.

Another really brutal thing: In High-profile mode, press Circle to grab an enemy while holding a bladed weapon. If he's of weak health you'll pull him into a human shield. Press Circle again to slit his throat.
 
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