Assassin's Creed II

Haters be damned, this game's a ton of fun. Ezio's a fantastic protagonist, the Italian Renaissance atmosphere is awesome, and the soundtrack is intoxicating.

What an improvement in this one. This is a game to play. This is an empire to build, a family to elevate. And it happens at such a great time in history. I really enjoyed that side. The flipside with Desmond was starting to show signs of flaw, though.

AC2 takes the somewhat barebones experience that was the original, and improves it on every level. Ezio is a brilliant protagonist, the story is engaging, and renaissance Tuscany a wonderful rich game world to explore. Sure the years haven't been too kind to it (as evident when playing the remastered version released in 2015) but it's still one of my all-time favorite games.

Addressing almost every notable flaw from the original AC, AC2 is one of the definitive examples of a game developer learning from their mistakes and following up with a far superior game. Taking control of the charismatic Ezio Auditore through renaissance Italy, AC2 is arguably the high point of the free running, stab and slash franchise. The modern day Desmond sections are dull as always, but I loved this game on PS3 and will definitely replay it again in the future.

Now we're talking. This improved on almost every aspect of the first game. Ezio is a great character (he got 3 whole games to himself) and the Italian Renaissance era is captured beautifully.

[PS3] A great sequel, and perhaps one of my all time favourite gaming experiences. The storyline is on point, keeping you engaged throughout while setting up a greater mystery. Jasper Kyd's soundtrack is amazing, narrating your time spent in ancient Italy. Everything great about the first game is brought into this one, and built upon, adding new content and gameplay. Definitely the best game in the series.

The systems aren't perfect, but they really did take the criticisms of the first game to heart to come up with a winning formula here. Things are more driven by the plot, which makes good use of the historical setting. Stealth and running away actually work as well as the premise suggests they should, and platforming's more fun, if still a tad uncoorporative when in a hurry. Non-setpiece missions are often rather basic still, but at least the lower-effort side activities are easy to ignore.

I don't think Ubisoft is ever going to top this one in this franchise. They ticked off every criticism the original had and offered the perfect package. There's just enough here, not shoehorned multiplayer, not dumb Ubisoft license nonsense, the story is still followable, the added mechanics are all great. Best of the franchise.

My wife walked in the room just as I was bashing the Pope's head in at the end, observed for a few choice moments, and walked away in confusion and dismissiveness. I will say that the game improves if one changes the spoken langauage to Italian. It's a spoonful of sugar for the Ancient Aliens subtext, which I hope blows the mind.

Interesting setting, cool design, dumb future storyline, repetitive and un-fun gameplay, one-button-climbing-that-makes-up-the majority-of-the-game?

Didn't play any other titles in this franchise. The game looked like it should be super fun, with a cool setting, lots of climbing on walls, stabbing, etc. And it was a ton of fun at first, but then very quickly grew repetitive and there was little story to keep things going.

decent gameplay, could never really get into it though

pretty cool game. not much else to add to the whole assassins creed series.

While I didn't like Ezio as much as I liked Altaïr, this game is just phenomenal and an incredible improvement over its predecessor in a lot of (mostly gameplay related) ways. The opening sequence is one of the best I've ever seen in a video game, bundled with a great soundtrack and easily the most interesting modern day timeline from all the Assassin's Creed game. The modern day timeline goes downhill after this game. A shame, because I think it would've had amazing potential.

Really great improvement over the first one..You can now go anywhere even in the water. This one you don't have a stupid ship too power up and all this bs they started putting when the third one came out.. This is just play with your character and do missions.

The original game was mind blowing. Now, the DLC is fully incorporated into the game. Along with being poorly made, it breaks the flow of the story. Would be a 10/10 game if it was still in its original form.

Assassin's Creed II is a marked improvement over the original in a number of ways. The individual elements are not perfect but I think the game is greater than the sub of its parts. Gameplay is slightly more varied, the main character is more interesting, the story less hamfisted (except the present-day stuff), and exploring Italy is fun by itself. The soundtrack perfectly accentuates climbing rooftops and stabbing corrupt Catholic Church officials.

Took everything bad about Assassin's Creed and fixed none of it, instead adding campy Italian accents and hundreds of extraneous features that don't actually impact gameplay.

I liked it because Ezio it's an interesting characther and because i'm an italian, so, it's compelling walking around Firenze or Rome. But thinking about it now, what a non-sense is all the AC plots.

Watched my roommate play basically the entirety of the first one without playing much myself. The assassin stuff was good and the present or future stuff was boring and lame. Gameplay is repetitive but I didn't really get tired of it until near the end.

Refined the gameplay from the clunky original to the form we know today, but began the franchise's trend of sacrifcing narrative for gameplay additions. Plays best if you just treat as a tourism advertisement for Italy.

A clumsy game that never gets anything right - the platforming is really unintuitive, and even if it wasn't the platforming challenges are dull. The stealth is the most barebones shit imaginable. The combat is disgustingly simple. The plot is boring, at times absolutely retarded. It has a cool setting and the lead character is likable enough, but this game tries to do so much while failing at everything at its attempt to do so.

Huge improvement on the first one but hope you like playing this exact same game forever.

Well, these games have nice settings...