Assassin's Creed II

Assassin’s Creed II is a sandbox style action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on November 17, 2009 (US), November 19, 2009 (AU) and November 20, 2009 (worldwide) on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The PC version was released on March 6, 2010 (UK) and March 9, 2010 (US).

A direct sequel to Assassin’s Creed, the game is focused again on Desmond Miles after he escapes Abstergo Industries with employee Lucy Stillman. In an attempt to thwart Abstergo and the modern-day Templars, Desmond uses a new Animus to relive the genetic memories of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who lived in Italy during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The player controls Desmond, to a degree, but primarily Ezio, who becomes an Assassin after his family is betrayed. While controlling Ezio, the player can explore renditions of major Italian regions and cities through a mixture of action, stealth, and economic gameplay.

A direct sequel called Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was released November 16, 2010.

Gameplay
Assassin’s Creed II is similar to its predecessor in many ways. The game is non-linear and can be considered "sandbox style" due to the player’s ability to freely roam the generated renditions of Italy. The Animus is replaced with the Animus 2.0 which, unlike the first, possesses an in-game database with historical information about encountered landmarks, characters, services, and glyphs.

The player is now also capable of swimming, and Eagle Vision has been updated to allow for third-person view and use while the character is moving. A young version of Leonardo da Vinci is included in the game and translates Codex pages left behind by Altaïr, allowing for weapon upgrades. Other weapons, such as swords, daggers, and maces, can also be purchased throughout the game as well. Leonardo further contributes to game play with the inclusion of his flying machine in one of the game’s missions. The player is also able to use gondolas and ride horses that are found.

Monteriggioni, the Auditore family’s villa, acts as Ezio’s primary headquarters throughout the game and a new economic system allows for the property to be upgraded and enhanced, creating income for the player at twenty minute intervals. As shops within Monteriggioni are renovated and upgraded, Ezio receives discounts on the particular goods that are sold. As more property is enhanced, the amount of income is increased with income also being affected by the purchase of paintings, armor and weapon sets and collections of various items. Such items are displayed throughout the villa as they are collected and Ezio’s personal room is updated with portraits of his assassinations as the game progresses.

The combat system for the game has been updated and allows for further options, such as disarming opponents. There also more methods of hiding (the player is able to dive underwater to break line of sight with an enemy) and blending may be performed with any small group of individuals rather than with specific people. Ezio is capable of learning new modes of assassination, such as ambushing individuals when hiding in haystacks or pulling individuals off buildings to fall to their deaths. There are also several types of enemies, some more agile or stronger than others. Ezio can also use smoke bombs and hire groups of thieves, courtesans, or mercenaries to aid him in covering his tracks and avoiding contact with guards. Health in the game is measured via synchronization and minor wounds will heal automatically. Major wounds must be healed by side-street doctors or with medicine purchased from them.

The game introduces a new system known as notoriety. Depending on his behavior, current location, and current mission, Ezio will become more recognizable by citizens of the city, specifically guards. When the notoriety icon is empty, Ezio is known as "incognito" and may travel through the city as he pleases. As the player behaves in more "socially unacceptable" ways or due to the consequences of a particular mission, the player will become more noticeable by the guards and more likely to be pursued by them. Notoriety can be decreased by bribing city heralds, assassinating corrupt city officials, and removing wanted posters. The level of notoriety is set within each city, so that while the player may be completely unknown in some cities, he may be infamous in others.

Like its predecessor, the game features the same ability to climb buildings and perform Leaps of Faith into haystacks and carts of soft materials. Climbing has been updated to allow Ezio the opportunity to learn to leap while climbing, allowing him to reach higher positions previously unavailable.



A day and night cycle has been added to the game and the player will notice the sun rising and setting throughout game play. In addition, specific missions and game events occur at certain times of the day and night.

Due to complaints of the some of the missions in the original game, the mission system has been expanded and structured a little differently. There is approximately 200 missions in the entire game with roughly half of them being relevant to the primary storyline. Side quests include the location and search of hidden areas which upon exploration and successful completion will reward the player with seals of past Assassins. A full collection of six seals rewards the player with the armor of Altaïr.

The game also possesses a system mildly similar to the "glitches" from Assassin’s Creed, where pressing a specific button during a cutscene will produce specific changes and actions within the scene.

Plot
The game begins approximately a few hours after the events of Assassin’s Creed, where, in the year 2012, Desmond Miles is being held prisoner by the modern-day Knights Templar in Abstergo Industries, after being forced to relive the genetic memories of his ancestor, Altaïr, to aid Abstergo in discovering the location of artifacts known collectively as the "Pieces of Eden".

Due to the "bleeding effect", Desmond has gained "Eagle Vision," enabling him to see a variety of messages and symbols written in blood on his bedroom wall by its former occupant, known only as "Subject 16". While staring at the message, former employee and researcher of Abstergo, Lucy Stillman arrives, covered in blood, and frees Desmond from the room. He re-enters the Animus briefly as she makes a copy of the files located within the machine. The two escape after a brief scuffle with the guards and arrive at a factory where Lucy and two other modern Assassins, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane have set up their own base of operations, complete with their own version of an Animus.

Desmond is asked by Lucy to enter their version of the Animus and relive the genetic memory of his ancestor Ezio Auditore Da Firenze in order to continue the search for the remaining Pieces of Eden before Abstergo locates them. The number in the Assassins Order seriously dwindling, Lucy informs Desmond that she intends to train Desmond in the various skills needed to become an Assassin by exploiting the bleeding effect and having Desmond absorb Ezio’s abilities.

Ezio, living in Italy during the Renaissance, approximately 300 years after Altaïr’s time, is approximately 17-years-old when he discovers that his family was betrayed by a close friend of his father’s in the midst of a political 'coup d'etat' plot. Ezio’s father’s final instructions lead him to a hidden room in the family home with a chest containing the clothing and weapons of an Assassin. Ezio is ultimately unable to save his brothers and father from said betrayal and all three are convicted of treason and hanged.

Ezio brings his panicked sister and now mute mother to the family’s countryside villa where they are given shelter by Ezio’s uncle Mario, who begins training Ezio to become an Assassin. Mario also provides information and leads on the conspirators involved in his family’s betrayal, which becomes a trail stretching from Florence to San Gimignano, Forlì, Venice, and eventually the Vatican.

During his travels, Ezio befriends several citizens of Italy who aid him in his pursuit for revenge, including a young Leonardo da Vinci, who translates and decodes pages of Altaïr’s Codex, enabling Ezio to gain new weapons and assassination skills. Ezio begins slowly locating and assassinating the conspirators involved and is ultimately able to identify Rodrigo Borgia as the overall leader, whose main goal is to bring down the Medici family and take control of various portions of Italy.

Ezio tracks Borgia to Venice and discovers Borgia has obtained the Piece of Eden known as the "Apple," a piece that Altaïr possessed almost three centuries prior. Borgia has been researching the knowledge surrounding the Pieces of Eden extensively and believes himself to be a prophet named in the documentation of the pieces, which would ultimately lead him and other Templars to a location known as "The Vault", which is believed to contain powerful information and more Pieces of Eden.

Ezio and Borgia duel and when Ezio gains the upper hand, guards appear and begin to move the fight into the favor of Borgia. The allies that Ezio has made over the years arrive shortly after and they defeat Borgia, who flees for fear of his life, leaving the Apple behind. The allies and friends of Ezio finally reveal their common trait &mdash; that they are all members of the Assassins, including the great Niccolò Machiavelli. They induct Ezio into the Order, informing him that they believe him to be the actual prophet who will lead the Assassins, not the Templars, to the Vault.

Desmond takes short breaks from the Animus and during one is tested by Lucy to see if the bleeding effect has been working. Desmond is able to demonstrate all of Ezio’s skills, indicating that he has absorbed years worth of abilities in only a matter of hours. During this break, however, Desmond suffers a strange hallucination which returns him to the body of Altaïr in Acre. During the memory, Altaïr makes love to Maria, a Templar, and Desmond is confused to find that after Altaïr leaves, the memory stays behind with Maria.

Throughout the genetic memories, as Ezio, Desmond discovers multiple glyphs placed on various landmarks that are only visible to someone using the Animus. The glyphs are found to be the same ones drawn on Desmond’s bedroom wall in Abstergo, and analysis reveals that they contain computer code, hidden in the Animus. It is ultimately discovered that Subject 16 hacked the Animus and placed the glyphs within the memories himself, which were carried over to the new Animus when Lucy loaded the information she had recovered at Abstergo. Each glyph contained a great number of historical artworks, photographs, and messages, past and present, implicating a great number of prominent events and figures with the Templars, and Pieces of Eden. Each also contained a puzzle of some sort which when solved contained clips of a larger video. The clips, however, are short and out of sequence. After locating and solving all twenty glyphs, a video is revealed.

The video begins with the Abstergo logo shown above the title, "Subject 16, Session 12, Classified Date B.C.E." The video follows a man and woman, who call each other by the names of "Adam" and "Eve", running through a strangely modern and futuristic world, apparently being chased by someone or something. They pass through a complex where workers are busy building more Pieces of Eden and climb to the roof. Eve holds up the Apple and the video suddenly ends with a flash of binary code that translates to "EDEN".

Desmond returns to the Animus and the team finds that many of the following memories are corrupted. They are able to begin again but only years after the fight between the Assassins and Borgia. The memories restart in 1499 and the team discovers that Borgia gained influence and power in the Catholic Church, ultimately becoming Pope Alexander VI. Ezio and his allies have searched long and hard and collected all thirty pages of the Codex and discover through it that the Vault lies in Rome, specifically under the Vatican. They realize that the Papal Staff is another Piece of Eden and Borgia is hoping to use it to achieve access to the Vault.

Ezio travels to the Vatican and attempts to assassinate Borgia. However, Borgia uses the Staff against Ezio who retaliates with the Apple. During the ensuing battle, Ezio is stabbed and Borgia escapes with both Pieces of Eden. Ezio chases after him and finds Borgia trying to open the Vault in vain. The two fight once more and Borgia finally falls. However, Ezio refuses to kill him, insisting he has killed enough in his life and the continued deaths will not reverse the deaths of his family.

Ezio proves himself to be the Prophet when in his hands, the Apple and Staff open the Vault. Inside the Vault, he finds not Pieces of Eden but an empty room and a holographic figure named Minerva. She claims that she brought Ezio to her so that almost six hundred years later, Desmond and his allies would hear her words through the Animus.

Minerva explains that she and her race were part of an advanced society that settled on Earth before a celestial event that destroyed most of the life on Earth. The remaining members of her species rebuilt the world as best they could and created humans in their own image. The two races lived side by side for a time before eventually coming to war. The humans seemingly won and those remaining of the advanced race sealed themselves in temples around the world, hoping to prevent the same disaster that had destroyed most of their kind from occurring once more. As Minerva finishes, she speaks to Desmond by name and informs him that she has done all she needs to and the rest remains up to him and his allies.

The memory ends and Desmond awakens in the present to find that Abstergo has located and begun attacking the Assassins as Shaun and Rebecca pull him out of the Animus. Desmond is given a hidden blade by Lucy and the two run downstairs to stop the guards as Shaun and Rebecca pack up their equipment. With the skills he absorbed from Ezio, Desmond is able to dispatch the forces that have been sent against them and he discovers Warren Vidic standing in the back of a truck. He sarcastically tells Desmond to enjoy his temporary victory and the truck drives away. Shaun and Rebecca finish gathering the equipment and Lucy assures Desmond that Vidic will get what he deserves.

The group vacates the hideout and head north to a cabin where, according to Lucy, they should be safe for some time. As they drive, Lucy prepares to review the tapes of Desmond’s latest session, noting how the situation has escalated dramatically and how Minerva’s words proved everything she was afraid of. She theorizes that Minerva was discussing the Earth’s geomagnetic reversal, which could have detrimental effects on the planet. Rebecca prepares the Animus for Desmond to re-enter as Lucy speculates there may be more to discover in his memories.

Development
On January 22 2008, it was confirmed by Ubisoft that Assassin’s Creed II was in production, but no details were revealed. A promotional video was released by Ubisoft on April 6 showing a map of Italy, some hidden blade designs, and Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine on a scroll. On the official site after the teaser is viewed a symbol is given to print and show in front of a webcam. Doing this will unlock a picture displayed on the site. 4 of the 5 symbols have been given by Ubisoft, and the other was found by a fan. Later, on April 10, Game Informer magazine released details on the game, as well as pictures of Ezio. There are about 240 team members, some of these members were sent to Italy, traveling through Venice, Florence, Tuscany, and Rome. ScrewAttack also released a video with some of the pictures from the magazine. In early May, Ubisoft has stated that they are putting full emphasis on the game and that 450 team members are now working on the title. 75% of the original developers for the original game are now working on the second.

The White Edition

 * Ezio Auditore da Firenze figurine.
 * Collectible White Packaging.
 * Bonus in-game playable content.
 * Santa Maria Dei Frari

This version is in only available in parts of Europe, as well as Australia. Also, this version was sold in South Korea as limited pre-order edition from December 10 through December 15 only for the PS3 console.

The Black Edition

 * "Master Assassin" Ezio Auditore Da Firenze upgrade figurine with black collectors box.
 * 3 in-game bonus quests, allowing the character to explore the following:
 * Palazzo Medici in Florence
 * Santa Maria Dei Frari In Venice
 * Arsenal Shipyard Warehouse In Venice
 * "Conspiracy book": A book from the developers of the game, describing the development, and the storyline (with extra commentary on the "conspiracy"). 64 pages, hardcover, "leather style".
 * DVD with all the videos, behind-the-scene interviews and "e-goodies" about Assassin’s Creed II and game soundtrack by Jesper Kyd (British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominee for "2009 Best Original Score in a Game").
 * Black packaging with unique holographic signature.

This edition of the game will be made available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC. It is confirmed for Europe, as well as Australia and certain Asian nations like South Korea. (However, 360 version will be the only version available.). Retail price £70.

The Master Assassin Edition

 * Ezio Auditore Da Firenze figurine.
 * Artbook: The Art of Assassin's Creed.
 * Premium Collectible Metal Case.
 * Two In-Game Maps:
 * Palazzo Medici
 * Santa Maria Dei Frari
 * Additional Content DVD with Behind the Scenes of Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed II Soundtrack.

This edition can be bought in North America.

Several days before the release of Assassin’s Creed II, EBGames Australia offered an unlock code for Palazzo Medici when you pre-ordered the normal edition.

The two bonus maps are not so much maps as bonus missions which are contained within their own maps. The Palazzo Medici map has Ezio rescuing Lorenzo De Medici from Templar soldiers who have invaded his home, for which Ezio receives a substantial monetary reward. The Santa Maria Dei Frari map is very similar to the Assassin’s tomb maps which are found elsewhere in the game, although there is no Assassin’s seal to retrieve at the end; there is only a monetary reward.

Deluxe Edition
The deluxe edition is a digital edition that can be downloaded through the PS Store and Steam (not confirmed on Xbox Live). It costs US$29.99 both on the PS store and Steam. In addition, standard editions of the game can be upgraded to Deluxe edition on Steam for US$4.99.

It comes with the original game, Sequence 12 and Sequence 13, 3 bonus maps (Palazzo Medici, Santa Maria Dei Frari, and the Arsenal Shipyard Warehouse).

Inter-connectivity
The PlayStation 3 version of Assassin’s Creed II has the ability to connect to Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines for the PlayStation Portable. Once connected, upgrades can be earned for both games. When you defeat a boss in Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines you will receive the boss’ corresponding weapon in the Villa in Assassin's Creed II. You can also earn extra florins in Assassin's Creed II depending on how many Templar Coins you have found in Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines.

Sequel
Even before the release of Assassin’s Creed II, discussion of the details about a possible Assassin’s Creed III were already ongoing.

Scriptwriter Corey Mays has stated that the developers wish to keep the settings of the games of those that are normally unvisited in most video games. Some postulated settings include the Middle Ages (specifically the time frame of King Arthur) or feudal Japan.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was released in November 2010. The game is a sequel to the original Assassin’s Creed II, but once again features the genetic memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze and contains a new online multiplayer mode.

Won

 * Spike TV Video Game Awards
 * "Best Action-Adventure Game"


 * IGN Best of 2009
 * "Xbox 360 Game of the Year"
 * "Xbox 360 Best Action Game"


 * Gamespot’s Best of 2009
 * "Best New Character - Ezio Auditore da Firenze"
 * "Best Xbox 360 Game"

Nominated

 * Gamespot’s Best of 2009
 * "Best Action/Adventure Game" - Lost to: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
 * "Best Story" - Lost to: Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason
 * "Best Graphics Technical" - Lost to: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
 * "Best Original Music" - Lost to: Afro Samurai
 * "Best Improved Sequel" - Lost to: Killzone 2

Trivia

 * During an interview for G4, one of the developers stated that the game starts 1-2 hours after the original Assassin's Creed ended.
 * Unlike Assassin’s Creed, which spanned only roughly two months of an ancestor's life, Assassin’s Creed II spans a period of twenty-three years of an ancestor's life.
 * On PC, the game must be played with a constant internet connection.
 * This was later changed with a patch, now an internet connection is only required upon launching the game. The same patch was released for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
 * The Assassin's Creed II Japanese version has a different box art, and includes both DLC: the Battle of Forli and Bonfire of Vanities.
 * The 'Game of the Year' edition includes both DLC: the Battle of Forli and the Bonfire of the Vanities.
 * In the E3 trailer the man who is killed by Ezio is a member the Borgia family, evidenced by the Borgia emblem on his glove. He also bears a resemblance to the Pariah, a multiplayer character in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.

Videos
thumb|350px|left|Assassin's Creed 2 E3 trailer