You initially find yourself back at Abstergu Labs controlling Desmond Miles who has been detained in a futuristic quest to gather information from the past. Following straight from the first game, a familiar face busts you out and requests your assistance with stopping the Templar’s efforts in locating parts of Eden. With a new team including the abrupt Shaun (Danny Wallace), you strap into the Animus and journey once again into the past.

 

 

This time you are set in Italy, 1476, a time rife with renaissance and corruption. You play as Ezio who is a banker’s son and a charming womanizer and of course an ancestor of Desmond, controlling him via the Animus you try and link DNA strands and piece together what the Templar’s are up to.

 

You start in a very small area of a city which lets you get to grips with the numerous items on screen like the small but helpful map which is littered with icons to help you navigate, your Social Status Indicator which changes when you have caused too much trouble and a health bar that has a small amount of regeneration.

 

The first hour of gameplay does not grab you straight away but stick with it as once the story gets moving you start to get a lot more in the way of weaponry and skills. The blade returns allowing for up close assassinations plus you have daggers, swords, poisoned daggers, throwing knives and the ability to pinch opponent’s weapons and use it against them. Not all items are offensive as you also have a handy smoke bomb to get you out of tricky situations and a few health vials that you can carry.

 

As you run around the city there are plenty of areas to interact with, hay bales and towers return allowing you to hide, areas highlighted by an eagle allow for a better viewpoints and also opens the map a little more. There are also lots of people around the cities that you can use. Doctors and blacksmiths allow you to purchase medicine and new armour and weapons. The general populace are also more interactive, if you walk into a group of people you can blend with them, allowing you to walk past guards. With some groups you can also purchase their services, courtesans will walk with you and when ordered will flirt with guards, giving you a chance to slip past whilst they are distracted. To fund all of this you need cash, this can be gained by completing quests, finding chests, pick pocketing unsuspecting civilians and also looting dead bodies. Later in the game you are able to run a Villa, opening churches and shops and take in an income to help fund your quest evermore.

 

Considering its setting the game allows you to meet Leonardo Da Vinci who takes on a James Bond Q approach, offering new weapons and gadgets that you find scrolls for like the dual blades. You later also get a go on Da Vinci's flying contraption that allows you to glide around the city knocking off archers from the roofs. Other modes of travel pop up like horses and also boats to traverse the city during certain missions.

 

Controlling Ezio can be a little difficult at times, whilst the free running by holding RT and A works smoothly, allowing you to run around roofs and up walls with ease it can at times throw a wobbly, making you jump away from a wall or even getting stuck on curbs, for someone who can climb 100ft with ease up a church wall, getting vertigo on a 3 inch curb is funny to watch but annoying. This is mainly down to the context sensitive controls which at times can change without you being aware. The city itself is very easy to navigate, with rooftops reaching into the distance, allowing you to plan your approach very easily whilst running around. Sensibly the game also allows the ability to swim, again offering new assassin opportunities. Fighting has been refined with a simple LT to lock-on, allowing you to sword fight grab and block attacks with ease.

 

The main beef with the original was it's very linear quests, scout, investigate and kill was all that occurred; this time around they are more varied, from helping a maiden in distress, tailing people and of course assassination plus some very claustrophobic and trap laden tomb levels. As well as the main story there are plenty of side quests to carry out like collecting feathers, locating the mysterious Agent 16's markers and using all of the viewpoints. Just by walking up to certain characters and talking to them also opens new quests, speed challenges and fighting for peoples honor are the majority but they do earn you cash so keep an eye out.

 

 

Ezio moves around the great looking city unlike any other game character, confidently grabbing hand holds and running up walls with ease. When you are on street level the amount of characters just walking around is impressive, just minding their own business and chatting. The sounds of the city emanate from all around, really putting you in the hustle and bustle, you can almost smell it.

 

Tucked to the side of the main menu is Uplay, Ubisoft's internal reward system for their new releases. Though not fully implemented at the time of review there are certain achievements that earn points which you can spend on a few cool things like some Altair clothing, themes or more in-game throwing knives.

 

Assassins Creed II is a much more solid title that offers plenty of the same from the original plus loads of improvements (shows that game companies do listen) that make it a better game to enjoy, fans of the original will love it and naysayers will have to eat their words.