Some New Features Added For The Benefit of The Sequel, Has Some Substance But This Series Has Been Sucked Dry, Still Fun
It feels like the original in some places, and the areas that the developers promised enhancement of, or improvement on isn't visible to me - perhaps after playing the other titles in the series both before Assassin's Creed 2 and after, I have lost almost all interest in the series. I will not deny that the game did keep me interested for about three hours, but after progressing so far I just grew bored of the game - it felt like a cheaper rendition of Grand Theft Auto 4.
Assassin's Creed 2 content and plot is it's weakest points, and at times I would prefer a more crime-themed open world game to play that instead.
The Good:
- Some improvement on the original's graphics, and physics.
- More open-world emphasis, with more buildings to scale as part of a city environment.
- Some new content in terms of additional missions and missions; ranging from courier missions to beating up unfaithful husbands of wives for cash.
- A somewhat more fresher story-line with emphasis on a totally different period of history compared to the Crusaders era of the original.
- Upgrades and the opportunity to buy new weapons and gear, can make some battles more fun with new weapons to use against hardened enemies.
- A good soundtrack in some areas, of the game.
The Bad:
- Sadly it's the same content and pretty much story-line of the original, involving the Templers and the Assassins, which in future titles is over used, and even in Assassin's Creed 2 you feel like you've already seen this plot enough from the original.
- The open-world may seem big, but after the first two hours of missions and quests you've already been through most of it, and there isn't much to do other than some additional missions for cash.
All in all, I was quite disappointed with Assassin's Creed 2, but I have given it the score that I have as for the first 2 - 3 hours of my play-through it is fun enough to keep playing. For fans of the franchise, some would say Assassin's Creed 2 was the title that made the franchise as big as it is today - so for fans it is the original to most since it was Assassin's Creed 2 that pulled them in and made them fans of the series. For me personally, I wouldn't buy this game again - so it was lucky I got the full game for free off of Xbox Live for being a Gold Member; but definitely not worth forking out a lot of money on.