Platform: X360, PS3, PC

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Genre: Action

Released: November 17, 2009

Ubisoft’s ambitious open-world action series is back with Assassin’s Creed II. While the first game had players stealth-killing and leaping across rooftops in the middle east during the Crusades, this time around the action takes place in Renaissance Italy. The setting may not be as controversial or politically relevant as that of the first game, but it’s easily one of the most compelling reasons to play Assassin’s Creed II. The developers have reconstructed cities like Florence and Venice, some of the most architecturally impressive areas in the world, to an almost exact likeness of their appearance in Renaissance times. If a famous building or bridge was only half-finished in those days you’ll see it under construction in the game. Anytime you encounter a famous piece of architecture you can not only climb it, but stop to read about the actual history of the structure if you desire. Even if architecture isn’t your thing; all the water, stone, and culture of Renaissance Italy acts as a beautiful backdrop for the story.

You play as Ezio, a brash young ladies man who’s quickly thrust from his carefree life onto a dark path to avenge the death of his family. While the onset of the story is an all too familiar tale of revenge, Ezio will quickly earn your empathy and the story will become exceedingly more complex and engaging as time goes on. There’s actually a story within a story taking place here and newcomers to the series may be a bit confused initially. The frame story takes place in the present day and ties all of these Assassin’s Creed games together. There’s a brief rundown of the plot early in the game so new players shouldn’t feel too disconnected, especially since Ezio’s story is both the central focus and completely new to this game.

As the title implies you do a lot of sneaking and killing in this series, but it’s not as stealth-centric as you might imagine. You can approach missions in Assassin’s Creed II entirely from the shadows if you choose: carefully picking off archers with throwing knives, waiting to ambush lone guards, and hiding bodies in stacks of hay to avoid detection, but typically you don’t have to be that careful. Games built around stealth, like Metal Gear Solid, can be rather unforgiving if you are discovered while sneaking around, but in AC2 you can usually complete your assassination missions in a number of ways including charging in rambo-style for direct combat. The variety of killing options is welcomed and fitting for an open-world game, but hidden-blade kills are easily the most satisfying of the available choices. This game introduces dual hidden-blades so you can simultaneously kill two adjacent enemies at once from the ground or by leaping onto their backs from a rooftop. These kills are overwhelmingly stylish, graceful, and truly never get old. You can also use the hidden-blades while hanging from a ledge to pluck guards off of it and toss them to their death or from a hiding spot to kill and simultaneously hide bodies out of plain sight. While you get to use these tactics often, it’s a shame
there aren’t even more opportunities to do so since these elaborate hidden-blade maneuvers are the most entertaining and satisfying abilities in the game.

Several characters assist Ezio on his quest for vengeance, including Leonardo Da Vinci who constructs a number of useful tools like the wrist pistol or flying machine. The time spent with these allies in preparation for each major assassination is somewhat of a bonding experience, which is a nice contrast to the bland and forgettable supporting characters of the original game. Mechanical grinds and procedures no longer break apart the flow of the story like they did in the first Assassin’s Creed. In fact Ubisoft listened to and addressed all of the major complaints players had with the original game including issues with countering and water. In AC1 even the toughest combat situations could be overcome simply by repeatedly countering enemies for an instant kill and if your character so much as came into contact with water in the previous game you would drown instantly. In Assassin’s Creed II water is no longer the angel of death, but yet another potential method for eluding guards. Swimming and diving isn’t particularly fun or interesting unto itself, but it’s a welcomed change to have it on your side. Countering is no longer the end-all solution in combat either, but it is still quite effective. For enemies that are highly resistant or altogether unaffected by countering, new abilities are available including grabbing, disarming, or throwing sand in their face. Additionally you can take weapons from fallen or disarmed enemies, such as spears or lances, and perform unique ranged and sweeping attacks. These features add some variety to the combat, but it’s unfortunate how unnecessary they are to success. I found myself able to simply mash the attack button to wear down and trump advanced enemies or even to take out the main assassination targets at almost any point throughout the game. The ability to spam counter-attacks has seemingly been replaced by the ability to spam regular attacks. Still, combat situations arise in which you are completely surrounded and must do something a little trickier than mash the attack button.

Despite all of the resolved issues from the first game a notable new one has come to light, which either didn’t exist in AC1 or wasn’t readily apparent. Free-running, or quickly and intuitively climbing most surfaces in the game with a single-button, was and still is a big appeal of the series. However, the freerunning in AC2 doesn’t seem quite as smooth. That is, Ezio will occasionally attach to unintended surfaces or plummet to his death from great heights instead of making a jump to a nearby ledge as intended. Most of the time this isn’t an issue, but it happens often enough to be noteworthy. The discrepancy could lie with the fact that the architecture in the first game was, for the most part, symmetrical and rectangular, so freerunning was probably easier to achieve on those simple surfaces rather than on the more complex renaissance architecture. Certain freerun paths expedite travel and are pretty entertaining (like swinging around a corner via a tethered potted plant), but others paths like flat vertical climbs are slow and become tired after several hours of play. You may be tempted to simply run through the streets to your next destination rather than hop across rooftops, which is unfortunate, but the lack of truly expedient freerun paths often deems it so.

A few puzzle, sim, and equipment elements have been thrown into Assassin’s Creed II for flavor. None of these elements are major game changers, but they’re all pretty fun when they pop up. The puzzles are wrapped up in ‘DaVinci Code-esque’ historical conspiracy theories and they’re presented in a creepy, but involving way. Essentially you have to align portions of famous Renaissance paintings, perform number or word substitutions, and decipher messages left behind by a now mentally broken man who’s stumbled onto a hidden truth and left behind these encrypted clues for you. Eventually Ezio will come to own a villa and you can use the money earned from missions, found in chests, or pickpocketed to renovate and open shops there. The renovations generate money as the game clock runs and you can collect this money at any time to further invest into the villa or to purchase equipment for your character. Ezio can have a plethora of weapons and armor equipped at any given time and more becomes available in shops as you progress through the game. Higher quality armor adds more to your life bar and higher quality weapons inflict more damage at greater speeds. It’s not an elaborate equipment system, but it’s fun to upgrade and you can certainly feel the difference new gear brings to combat.

The developers managed to crank this game out in 18 months, which is rather astounding since they not only fixed the major issues seen in the first game, but also essentially modeled all of Renaissance Italy for an open-world experience. There’s still a few gameplay mechanics in this series that need to be smoothed out, but with the success and popularity of both games and the note the story ends on in AC2 we are sure to see the next evolution of Assassin’s Creed in the near future. Since there’s no multiplayer and this game and all of its achievements can be completed within a few days, I’d give it a very strong rental recommendation. I finished it quickly, but I also couldn’t put it down once I started.

My Score: 8/10

You can find other reviews, as well as downloadable games, mods, and other game related content on my website: PhantomTap.com

Platform: X360, PS3, PC

Developer: Rocksteady Studios

Genre: Action

Released: August 25, 2009

Putting aside Lego Batman, the Dark Knight hasn’t seen a successful video game adaptation in a long time. But the lack of successful Batman games hasn’t stopped their development by any means. Dating all the way back to 1986 a Batman game has been released every two years or so, usually to coincide with the release of a Batman movie (whether it be a major motion picture or some sort of animated feature). The development of these games has never been handled with love and care, so to speak, so the product has always been sub-par…that is until now.

Arkham Asylum is Batman’s most recent entry into the video game world. It is a third person action game for the PC, X-Box 360, and Playstation 3 developed by Rocksteady Studios. The basic premise of the story is this: the Joker allows himself to be caught by Batman in order to lure him into Arkham Asylum, lock down the island, and slowly release all the criminals and murderers upon him. Truly Arkham is the perfect setting for a Batman game and allows for the logical inclusion of any and all villains without some insanely convoluted plot. The story is faithful to Batman lore, but original unto itself.

Since the Joker has control of Arkham he observes and narrates the action via loudspeaker. This quickly sets the eerie atmosphere and establishes a game of cat and mouse which unfolds between Batman and the Joker as the story progresses. Longtime Batman fans will notice that nearly all of the voice actors are reprising their roles from Batman: The Animated Series. This includes Mark Hamil’s unmistakable and frightening rendition of the Joker. It quickly becomes apparent, while playing this game, that the developers are big Batman fans themselves and did their best to stay both faithful and respectful to the universe in their design.

The gameplay in Arkham Asylum really captures the essence of Batman as a character: part detective, part shadowy predator, part brawler. Clues, such as fingerprints, will guide players to and from areas of confrontation throughout the game. Activating a feature called Detective Mode causes the screen to be washed over in a transparent blue x-ray which highlights relevant clues, objects that can be interacted with, and even enemies in a red-orange glow. This view is incredibly useful from a strategic standpoint as enemies can be seen through line of sight blockers like walls, but it is also extremely helpful for progressing through the game quickly. When your path is obstructed, you’re lost, or you need to sneak around detective mode will make destructible walls or ventilation shafts obvious. Sadly, the usefulness of detective mode is also its greatest fault. There’s no downside to having it turned on so for the sake of efficiency you’ll end up spending most the game under a haze of transparent blue instead of enjoying the gorgeously dark and noir-ish visuals.

Playing the role of a detective is fine, but the real fun in Arkham Asylum comes from taking out henchman. Combat transitions seamlessly between sneaking around and picking-off enemies from the shadows to mixing it up in one-versus-many style brawls. If you stumble upon a room filled with semi-automatic wielding henchman it’s probably time for predator combat. Batman can use his grappling gun to lock-on to a nearby ledge, railing, or gargoyle and quickly move about the higher reaches of any area. From an elevated position you can then glide down to kick and incapacitate an enemy, throw various types of batarangs to stun or distract, and even use your grappler to string an enemy upside down from a gargoyle in classic batman fashion. Variety is the really entertaining part of predator combat. You can do anything from simply sneaking up behind an enemy and taking them out to blowing an adjacent wall open and finishing them with debris. As the enemies in a room begin to the dwindle their level of fear will rise. Fear stricken enemies show visible signs of terror and will band together and patrol the room in pairs. The level of fear will continue to rise until there’s only one enemy left, who’s so paranoid and alone that he can be dispatched quite easily.

Groups of enemies without guns will often impede the progress of Batman and while predator combat can sometimes to be used on these enemies as well, they are typically huddled together in tight masses that call for a more straightforward approach. This leads to brawls that are not unlike those in Assassin’s Creed. Enemies will spread out around Batman and charge as the opportunity arises. If an indicator appears above an enemies head it means their attack can be countered with the same colored button. So you’ll spend some of your time going on the offensive with single button combos and the rest reacting to and countering enemies. The brawls get a bit more complicated as the game introduces enemies with knives that must be stunned before they take damage, enemies with electrified batons that can only be attacked safely from behind, and enemies that wander off to find firearms or things to throw at Batman. There’s also a combo ability system that makes devastating attacks available after Batman has chained together a sufficient number of hits within a single Brawl. Adding to the overall feel of combat, heavy blows to the head will blur the screen and enemies rendered unconscious go rag doll in entertaining ways.

Dispatching enemies awards experience, which in time will level Batman and afford him new abilities. You can choose the order in which these abilities are unlocked and gain upgrades to throw multiple batarangs at once, increase Batman’s health, and so on. This feature is supplementary so don’t expect an RPG style leveling system or vast skill tree here. Most of the abilities are passive, but the customization is a welcome addition that gives a real sense of character building.

The action in Arkham Asylym stays fresh by rotating between detective work, predator combat, and brawls and by periodically adding new gadgets to Batman’s arsenal. There’s even a small dose of exploration and platforming thrown in to make transitional moments more interesting. The boss battles are climatic, especially the atmospheric and fear-heavy battles against the Scarecrow and Killer Croc and the voice work and character design in this game simply gush personality. There’s a real sense of power that comes from quickly taking out groups of henchman as the Dark Knight and whether it be from the shadows or in a brawl it is EXTREMELY satisfying. Arkham Asylum makes it truly difficult to put down the controller until you’ve wiped that taunting grin off of the Joker’s face.

My Score: 9/10

You can find other reviews, as well as downloadable games, mods, and other game related content on my website: PhantomTap.com