Assassin's Creed II Preview page 2

12 Oct 2009 at 14:22:44 by John Robertson

Mingling with the crowds is not the only way to avoid attention. Ezio can dive into one of the many waterways criss-crossing the city, either to avoid guards or simply travel from place to place. You're limited as how long you can hold your breath for, but there's ample breathing room to allow you the time to find some cover if you're in a tight spot. Just a quick side note - yes, cover does still include those wagons of hay. Although, be warned that the soldiers of Venice seem much more suspicious than those of biblical era Middle East, searching areas much more stringently whether they saw you enter it or not.

Land and sea-based travel is joined by that most quintessential of Assassin's Creed elements, rooftop travel. Mechanically the process is virtually identical - hold the button, push in the desired direction and away you go, traversing up the sides of multi-storied buildings as though it's a simple child's climbing frame. Ezio succeeds where Altair could not however, in that he has the skills to grab ledges while tumbling quickly to the ground. This comes in especially handy when being pursued by over-zealous guards who like nothing better than to throw rocks at you while you're dangling above the cobbled streets below. It doesn't sound like all that big of a deal but you'll be praising its inclusion the first time it saves you from having to partake in a distinctly one-sided tussle.

Travelling via rooftop doesn't necessarily provide you with a completely safe alternative to the streets below. Archers patrol in fairly large numbers (depending on your proximity to important areas), so it's important that you stay aware of what's going on around you at all - if an archer sees you from afar then expect to either be dead, or resemble a human pin-cushion, before you can make up the ground and end the torment. Sneaking up on a couple of archers and using the new, silent double-wrist knives to assassinate two targets at once is incredibly satisfying and essential for clearing the way to scale buildings with no other point of entry.

When we'd finally made our way to Emilio's castle, it was simply a case of climbing in through an open window and ending the life of our panic-stricken Italian friend. Task complete, all that was left to do was to listen to Emilio, as he lay dying in your arms, explaining that he is a good man and that everyone he has done in his life was done for the sake of good, and to help people. Not knowing much about the characters or plot it was obviously impossible to tell whether he was lying or whether we'd killed an innocent - whatever the real answer, it was fun anyway.

As you have no doubt concluded, the gameplay is very similar to the first title, with only a few tweaks here and there to tighten up an already enjoyable and engrossing system. The real test for AC2 though will be whether or not it can offer the kind of mission variety we're all hoping - given the disappointing lack of diversity of Altair's adventures. With so many third-person adventure games releasing around the Christmas period (God of War 3, Uncharted 2, Avatar et al) AC2 needs to pull out all the stops in its mission design to avoid being lost in the carnage, buried under a mass of guns, aliens and Greek gods. It would be a shame for a game to fail due to a lack of quality in one area, given the obvious polish and finesse of the rest of the game.

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