Published by: Ubisoft
Developed by: Ubisoft Montreal
Released: November 17, 2009
Score: 93%
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The story revolves around the "Animus", a machine which makes it possible for the player to view the genetic memories of protagonist Desmond Miles' ancestors, a long line of assassins. This time you are based in late 15 century Italy during the Renaissance and take control of a young nobleman-turned-assassin named Ezio Auditore da Firenze who after witnessing his family killed goes on a journey to uncover a hidden conspiracy after the murder of his family.
The graphics are pretty much the same as the first game with a few jitters in frame rate from time to time.
Not much has changed in the way of controls, a few more moves have been added and the free running works well it seems until you are in a rush and little things like jumping away from a wall you are climbing or diving off buildings when you didn’t want to can be frustration and time consuming especially when you are against the clock. This however is a small problem and once I learnt to let go of “X” at places I deemed dodgy areas then I found this problem happening less and less.
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Also added is a meter that will tell you how much guards take notice of you, you can clear this by ripping down wanted posters or bribing a public speaker but they might as well not have this meter as I found I could easily walk around the town with a full meter and no one stop me, the only time I ever had problems was the guards on the roofs.
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Like the first game things to collect are back but instead of flags you have feathers to collect also statues and codex’s. There are also Glyphs which will unlock puzzles to complete which extend on the main game. Delivering letters against the clock, beating up cheating husbands and races are also small sub quests but again too easy. You also have stores to fix any broken armor or upgrade, a healer you can buy medicine from but I found this useless to have so much I never even used more than 2 bottles and I had 15. You can buy treasure maps and paintings and also change the color of your clothes.
Also swimming has been added which also adds another way of evading the guards as you can duck under the water and somehow they seem to forget you were ever there. Once out of the water your clothes will look wet and you will be dripping for a while which was a nice small touch to the game.
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