I'll say it now; if you didn't play the original Assassin's Creed you missed out. It was an fresh idea backed up with an amazing system for stabbing random people, let down by having to do the same repetitive mini-games before you got to get on with the people you were supposed to stab, (of which there wasn't enough.) and a bunch of small annoying issues not least that your character could swim as well as a man with concrete shoes.
I was therefore excited when I heard the new Assassin's Creed tore the old one a new ring piece, stabbed it repeatedly and did unmentionable things to its broken corpse. Usually anyone that listens to the grapevine should blow themselves but I was stunned to find Creed 2 was well worth the rib removal. Right from the word go it shoves you into the action, simultaneously coercing a hard-on at the amazingly rendered cityscape around you.
Even more surprising is that the action didn't break for its expected if unwelcome mini games and lengthy conversations with dead bodies. Instead Ubisoft opted for nearly 20 solid hours of stabbing shit, freeing prisoners, stabbing shit, roof chases, hookers and stabbing shit, all nicely broken up with vehicle sections and a paper mache flying machine that might lift an anorexics lunch.
Talking about stabbing shit, killing has been drastically improved in the 15 century. Not only is there a hell of a lot more of it, but you can do it in new and more interesting ways. Some, like the poisen knife seem a bit useless and never get any use but things like double assassinations never get old. Something that kept me amused was that although you have learned the trick to floating in full equipment, the guards of the Venetian canals forgot to attend their gym class and will often follow you into the water kamikaze style, rather than fail their Templar leaders.
However much the design team chopped the bad bits of the first game like a eunuch in training, it can't be all good and no. It's not, all good. For one, the difficulty is permanently set just below the midget limbo record with no way to change it. And although I like the series unique story, it makes the DaVinci Code look like a history book. I can only hope that the designers of the unlockable glyph puzzles went on an acid trip while walking through a museum because with any other excuse they should be committed.
Regardless of the fact that anyone who makes Dan Brown's research look compentent deserves a slow and painful demise, (preferably involving snakes.) Assassins Creed 2 is one of the best games I have played in a long time, and as such I am having to consider letting Ubisoft live. Definitely worth a hire, if not a purchase.