Assassins Creed II

Ubisoft recently released the much awaited sequel to the big hit Assassins Creed. The first game is about Desmond Miles, a bartender in the future, who was born into an elite group of fighters called Assassins. They have been around since the dawn of time fighting against the ever powerful Templars. Desmond is captured by these templars and forced into a strange machine called the Animus, which uses your DNA to retrieve memories that have been found to be biological. Throughout the game you play as Altair, an Assassin back in the crusade times, righting the wrongs of the Templars. Your status grows as you complete more contracts. Back in the real world Desmond begins to suspect that the assistant lucy isn't as bad as he first suspects. The game was an instant hit, selling many copies to people all over the world. It uses historical fact and mixes it with fiction to create a whole new world.

The game had a few things that were criticized such as the general repetitiven

ess and not a lot of freedom in the game to deviate from the storyline. The sequel to Assassins Creed was recently released in november 2009. The game was fantastic. At the start of the game Desmond escapes the templars with lucy after discovering the new animus subject, Etio. In this game you work together with the assassins to figuring out what the templars were after when they captured you, working through the life of young Etio in Italy from the years 1476 to about 1490. Etio does not know himself to be an assassin until a family friend sets up his father and he barely escapes. His father and his brothers are both killed, and Etio's journey begins. As Etio grows in strength so does Desmond, after the animus is upgraded for this purpose.

Everything that was criticized in Assassins Creed seems to have been remedied. In the new game there is a system of money, using florins to buy medicine, armor, weapons, and much much more. You can spend money on your estate to get it back up and running and to increase your income. The game fixes the repetitiveness with almost unlimited options in which to explore or do quests or search for feathers hidden all around the world. You also have to search through buildings to find ancient sarcophagi to gain Altiar's armor, the best in the game. You also get a new friend, one you probably know from your good ol' history lessons. Leonardo da Vinci proves to be an invaluable assistant as he helps you decipher clues given to you by your ancestor Altiar. Many of the events in this game are based on true historical fact and it leads you through an exciting adventure through time in which you will be both surprised and invigorated as you watch Etio grow and mature.

I give Assassins Creed 2 a 9.5 out of 10 as it is one of my favorite games of all time. The only thing that I can possibly get mad at this game for is a that the ending was a little too out there for my liking, however I already eagerly await the arrival of the next game, and the conclusion of this Trilogy.

-Until next time,

Pope Jesus I