Explore the historical cities of Italy whilst hunting down the man responsible for killing Ezio's father and brothers.
Story: This time the story follows a different protagonist from Assassin's Creed 1. Ezio Auditore, a noblesman from the Italian Renaissance, seeks revenge for the murder of his father and brothers and finds himself unravelling secrets by joining the Assassins.
Gameplay:The gameplay is exactly the same as in AC1, with a few tweaks here and there of course. I found myself enjoying the combat more in AC2 because the controls felt much smoother and the variety with the weapons was more fun to explore.
Since AC is a stealth series, of course travelling through high rooftops and tight alleyways are the ideal options, and therefore, you are at time required to be very swift in your controlling. Ubisoft did a great job with the controls and I found myself rarely displeased with how Ezio moved around, almost never failing to jump between or evading.
Enemies/Monsters: The Templars! The ferocious guardians of Virgin Mary, however in the game their cause is simply to cause world disorder with the help from the Apple of Eden. Naturally, you find them roaming all over the place just waiting to spot you in order to attack you in thousand folds! Jokes aside, I did find it hard to blend at times during missions that strictly required you to finish them in complete stealth mode – no detection whatsoever.
Skills: As the game progresses the combat system becomes more complex, with new execution and counter-attack moves available due to either armour or combat upgrades. The armour upgrades is all thanks to the yound and enthusiastic Leonardo da Vinci and his keen interest for engineering.
As I mentioned previously, I did find the combat a lot more fun in AC2 compared to it's predecessor. I would've expected some more development in the actual free running skills as they were the same, with only the flexibility upgraded. The slight dislike for blending I mentioned is still an improvement as this one allows you to blend in anywhere in a crowd or bench or haystack or even underwater. The options are clearly there and it does make it easier to break the guards' sight.
Overall: An amazing game, despite the minor dislikes, but the story and scenery makes the experience so much greater that the game mechanics seem dull in comparison and thus the 10/10 I gave it.
I loved how they'd packed in multiple things to do in the game, for example how you could just roam around, pickpocketing, stealing gondolas, throwing money at the poor, randomly execute a civilian.. So many choices haha!
All in all, amazing game and for those of you who have yet to play Assassin's Creed, I highly recommend you to!