Assassin's Creed 2 Eyes-On

NZGamer recently got a taste of the most anticpitated titles this year from the likes of Sega, UbiSoft, THQ and Warner Bros. at local distributor Monaco's E3 Night in Auckland.

Ubisoft have some big titles in '09, but their crown jewel is surely Assassin's Creed 2. The developers have a lot to catch up on with this sequel, set for release in the fourth quarter, in time for that mad Christmas money. NZGamer got some time to hear the spin and see the trailer, but that's work any of you faithful readers could have done yourselves right? The interwhatsit makes researching these AAA titles that much easier, but the thingynet is no substitute for seeing some real time game time.

We might as well be upfront about it and tell you we didn't get a hands-on. The Assassin's Creed 2 showing happened at RVB on Karangahape Road, in a little "classroom" limited to groups of twenty or so. We sat and watched, locked into the gameplay as handled by Monaco rep Duane, while Ben from Ubisoft talked us through the fifteenth century action.

If you played the first installment, you'll remember Desmond, whose ancestor you played during the bulk of the first game. Another of Dessie's forefathers is Ezio Auditore di Fireze, a Florence nobleman and hardcore cut-throat, and it's his destiny to which you're bound in the sequel. The scant plot details that have been released are well publicized, and as the weak-ish story was a common enough complaint among gamers and pundits following the release of the first title, it wouldn't do to go calling the win or loss this early in the piece. Many gamers will want to find out for themselves anyway. Assassin's Creed 2 is, of course, promised to be meatier and more complex on the narrative front, but what we're all about right now is giving you a heads up on how it all looked on screen.

Let's start with: spectacular. As Ezio goes after Carlo Grimaldi, we were able to see that Assassin's Creed 2 has been improved on a number of fronts. Two other major gripes were poor character AI and repetitive gameplay. Well, both would appear, on the surface, to have been fixed. For one, a haystack, which somehow offered the protection of a Potter-esque invisibility cloak in the first game, is now not such a sure bet. While you can still hide out in them when the guards get on your tail, they'll actually think to search them this time around. Luckily, Ezio is able to kill as stealthily from within the depths of a livestock lunch as he is out of the shadows.

Grimaldi is safely locked away in a fortified palace, and we were able to watch Ezio make his way to the mark in both dark and daylight (with a little cinematic magic courtesy of the Ubi-crew). During both night and day, the environments are beautiful. The ancient city of Venice is realised in amazing detail, and with more advanced and smoother Parkour/free-running abilities, players will be able to get everywhere, see everything, and really drink it in.

But that's not to say the ol' legs are the only way to go places. In AC2, Ezio happens to know a certain inventor going by the name of Leonardo da Vinci, whose inventions include a flying machine that will stay aloft on the thermals of handily lit fires. Your mates will take care of these for you, leaving you to flap about in an artfully rendered pre-aviation contraption based on the real-life genius's real-life designs. This looked to be a particularly dynamic aspect of the gameplay and, alone, ought to silence some of those with concerns about repetition in the first game.



da Vinci will also be responsible for hooking you up with a few new weapons and gadgets, allowing Ezio to kill in exciting, heretofore unexplored, ways. We watched as he took out guards and made his way to the final target, and were assured by our esteemed commentator that over thirty weapons will be available for use in the game. Ezio can steal weapons off others, and also swim, limiting the amount of frustrating drownings. Gamers will not, the publishers assured us, need to listen to long winded confessionals from those they slay either. The gameplay is now faster and a sort of more streamlined version of itself. In turns simpler and more complex.

Essentially, Ubisoft have listened to the fans and the critics (hey - they're usually the same people in this industry) and will be delivering a product they are extremely proud of. This is NZGamer.com telling you we're impressed, and are looking forward to a complete build so we can give you a full review. Far be it from us to go counting chickens though - without actually getting on the controls and really feeling it out, we are reliant on that review code to really give up its secrets.

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