Assassins Creed 2 was first released in 2009 and is available for older consoles and PC. There is also a mobile adaptation of the game but today I’ll share my first experiences with the steam version of the game. So far I’ve progressed around 2 hours in the game and completed the first parts of the main quests and some side quests.
In Assassins Creed 2 (AC 2) you’re continuing the story that was started in Assassins Creed, the predecessor of this game. You’re playing as Desmond Miles who is recruited and trained through the Animus 2.0, a machine that let’s the user experience past memories. Desmond is experiencing the story of Ezio Auditore, a assassins from florence during the renaissance era.
The story is all about the conspiracy against Ezio’s father and his brother who where killed because they were betrayed by a friend. Ezio is trained to be an assassins and tasked to eliminate everyone who was involved. Another important part of the story is preventing the templars to find the apple of Eden, a piece of Eden which is a powerful artifact.
Things I enjoyed during my playtime
The parkour element in AC 2 has a better flow than in later games such as AC: Syndicate. It is also more of a essential part of the experience other than for instance in AC: Origins where the map is way widely spread and you’ll have to rely on horses to get from point A to point B. Because Assassins Creed 2 is taking place in a ancient city you can basically get everywhere without touching the small streets by taking the route over the rooftops.
The fighting system is pretty simple (at least so far) and involves simple attacking with your fists, blocking attacks or dashing and using the hidden blade that is unlocked later in the game. Sometimes it feels frustrating because the enemies can block lots of hits while in other situations you can eliminate them with 2 hits.
Parts of the game that can be improved
The controls are annoying to configure as the default controller buttons don’t match the buttons shown on the screen and you’ll have to reconfigure them. While playing with keyboard and mouse you’ll still get buttons displayed that relate to controller buttons and its hard to remember which button is which key on the keyboard at first.
The game appearance is, as expected, not very good compared to todays standards but it’s not really noticeable during the fighting and parkour parts of the game and more during the cutscenes. Similar to my critic on AC: Syndicate the menus feel aged and a bit to decorated and animated in my opinion.
The game language is automatically set to your system’s language which is quite annoying. On the other hand you’re able to choose which language you want the audio dialogue in for cutscenes.
If you’re interested in Assassins Creed games check out all of our articles about the series here.
Get Assassins Creed 2 here
I would recommend buying this game either in the Ezio Collection which includes the first 3 parts of the game or on sale on steam for around 3€. The game sure is fun but not worth the 10€ anymore.
