Me, my blades and Ezio - Venice Painted in Blood

 

Assassin's Creed 1.5?

 

In short, no, but let's face it, the game's core is nothing new from the previous, it's everything around it that has changed. Assassin's Creed had an appealing story and the somewhat interesting character Altaïr but it the lack of content around it made it incredibly tedious and bland to play through. Don't get me wrong I plowed through that sucker with a gleeful smile to my lips as I cut fools from left to right out of simple mischief.

The problem was that I had to create my own challenges to survive the boredom of doing yet another flag run or pick pocket missions. Like playing with a hand and a foot or trying to complete a side mission without blinking my eyes. While that in it's own can be fun it's not exactly the experience I payed for. I could just go outside and pretend I have friends in that case.
  
I'll leave it with that and continue with my impressions of Assassin's Creed 2 and why it's not just a 1.5.
 

Desmond, meet Ezio

Assassin's Creed 2 starts out with the re-appearance of Desmond Miles but this time around he feels more aware of his surrounding and playing him doesn't feel like a drag. Something you realize in the first minutes as he and Lucy literally fight their way out of the Abstergo complex.  Naturally the game revolves around the blade of an assassin so it's not long before they arrive at an assassin safe house and Desmond is introduced to the new operatives Rebecca and Shaun who together show him to their version of the Animus. It's not as advanced as the one at Abstergo and it shows immediately on the ingame HUD that has lost that radiant and high tech design in favor of a more simple and clean one. It feels a bit strange at first but it does feel like an intelligent design when thinking about why.

 From here on Desmond and his new friends will only make a small number of appearances compared to AC I but they feel more natural and interesting. Instead we're following the story of Ezio Auditore di Firenze, the Italian nobleman of Florence. Unlike Altaïr, we're following him from birth all the way to his thirties and most importantly through his youth where a big portion of his family is betrayed and sentenced to death.
 
This is where Ezio must assume his father's role as an assassin and uncover the truth behind the templar conspiracy. And it's this that draws me into the story because it feels like he's properly learning how to be a cold, blade wielding assassin and it's more clear to what drives him.  

The Renaissance Men

Ezio will meet a lot of interesting characters that really existed during the renaissance and the most impressive addition is a Q-like take on Leonardo da Vinci. The renaissance is the home of many stories, legends and myths and Leonardo's supposed inventions is the primary example of this.  Ezio is not like Altaïr, he does not already know the secrets of the assassin. He finds them in the shape of codex pages. Codexes that incredibly few can solve, Leonardo being one of them. 
 
He'll supply Ezio with tools such as the twin blades, hollowed out blade for poison attacks, increased health and even a small wrist mounted gun to really kick the myths behind the inventor into gear. This offers huge motivation to explore the cities and uncover map sections to find the codex pages. That together with the subject 16 truth, a series of video snaps that together offers a startling revelation. These are hidden behind glyphs that are strewn throughout the cities, finding them can feel a bit tedious but the building descriptions are kind enough to alert you to the proximity of one by an icon of an eye in the corner of the picture.
 

The Game he Plays

The game play in Assassin's Creed II handles more or less the same like the previous one with a few smaller changes. Ezio is a noble and he walks like one, instead of hiding by praying he hides by walking among the crowds of people and you can actually walk around without alerting guards, so long you're not notorious.   You can lower your notoriety by taring down posters, bribing, or killing corrupt officials. Once you're not notorious you can walk freely and it feels more plausible to blend as the clothes are closer to what most people wore during the renaissance era.  
 
There's also more tools against the guards, toss gold on the ground and some of the lower ranked guards runs up and begins to pick them up while the officer is left to be killed. Or throw a smokebomb and you can calmly leave the area while they cough and wave their arms around blindly. It just generally feel like you always have the means to get the upper hand on even the strongest of opponents.
 

His movement is exactly like the first one, hold down the trigger and he abandons his walk and begins to run, jump and climb rapidly.  This is both good and bad as you again feel like this agile and fast parkour artist that leaps across the rooftops to your goal... so long you're doing it like the designers wants you to. Doing complex jumps left and right or trying to jump from certain walls to the other can prove fatal as Ezio many times does a leap into thin air and falls to his death. They have been more clever in the design this time around but in the Assassin tombs this became painfully obvious when you have to do wall jumps to catch timed levers or swing points.
 
Sometimes Ezio really work against you.
 

I got a job for you. it's different, I swear

The mission structure is the same like the first game, run to a mission trigger and work your magic after the ingame cutscene. What stands out here is the fact that the work around you do before you go in for the kill of a major character feel more different and weaved deeper into the story.  Instead of doing your fifth pick pocketing mission for some shred information, you sneak around the canals of Venice to acquire guard uniforms or you tail officials by using hired courtesans as a cover.
 
There are still proper side missions but they also feel more worked on, like assassination missions that can wary between killing people in unarmed combat or tossing them off rooftops to make it look like an accident.
    

Money, feathers, Villa!

The money you earn from the missions or pickpocketing are used to upgrade your equipment, buy new throwing knives and even used to renovate your own personal city. The Villa will offer you a steady income of more money and discounts from the stores you upgrade, something that can be appreciated at the ends where new weapons comes at quite a hefty price.
 
The Villa will also become your gallery of stuff you collect throughout the game. Paintings are hung on the walls as you buy them, armor pieces that no longer are used are placed on dummies and weapons on racks for display. It genuinely feel like you do progress even while doing tedious feather collection as there's in-game feedback and reward to everything .
 
(not to mention the kindness from the developers to show exactly how many of what you've collected in each city)

 

Final Words

Assassin's Creed II is a treat throughout and I had a great fun doing everything, including the feather hunting. The Villa motivated me to scavenge entire Italy for the missing pieces and the clues within the Truth was incredibly interesting to dig through. Even if it felt like Ezio's story fell a bit in the backseat at the end it still felt interesting as it was delivered in such a way to describe the future of the assassin.  Being able to play the game with Italian voice was interesting and a thankful way to add more depth to the renaissance era you play in but something I eventually switched back to English for more ease in following dialog.
 
And there's no real replay value apart from continuing the game to find all of the collectibles for achievements, but I still felt a certain level of fulfillment by the end of this game instead of the otherwise emptiness. DLC to continues Ezio's story a bit more would always be welcome but it's not a necessity to increase the value of this game. While there are some hiccups in the movement and some annoying repetition in NPC dialog, I'm satisfied and it was worth every cent in my book. 
 
I would even dare to go as far as to say this is MY game of the year in terms of experience and feel while playing.
 
 
Played Assassin's Creed II on the Xbox 360, using the Black Edition extra content. Completed it in around 50 hours total playtime and had collected everything but the feathers before the final Mission. 
 
Played an extra 3-5 hours to collect the full 1000/1000 achievement points.