Posted March 05, 2013
10. Assassin's Creed II- 360; 3/5/2013 8/10- This makes the 3rd time that I have beaten the game now (I actually have an old file that I never finished that was on the next to last sequence, so you could say this s my fourth playthrough of the game).... that being said it is both an amazing feat that I have finished it that many times now & a sad fact that my original love for it is wearing off. While the story & locals are amazing (the best in the series if you ask me), its gameplay is starting to show a bit of age. While I was perfectly happy with the gameplay as early as last year, some things really annoyed me while playing it this time around (& to be fair, they are not necessarily the fault of the game so much as they are a reflection on how the series has progressed since then). The first & most noticeable problem is the lack of the kill streak mechanic introduced in Brotherhood... for some reason I was not so bothered by this on last year's playthrough (perhaps because I had only beaten Brotherhood & Revelations once a piece at that point) but it just felt incredibly limiting & made fights go on much longer than I felt they should have. Another complaint is how the counter system works (which makes me a bit fearful to play the other 2 Ezio games now)... while I am not a fan of ACIII's story & protagonist, I will admit that the gameplay was fluid & intuitive. You do not have to stand in a defensive state to counter like in ACII.... you just hit a button at the right time (even in the middle of an attack) & you counter... it makes the system in ACII feel primitive by comparison. Speaking of primitive... the lack of the tree running mechanics in this game (& I mean the mechanics themselves not the actual act of tree running) was a glaring problem for me. I would be running on beams, hit an upright beam & just stand there instead of running around it. It really slowed down the pace of the game & on a few occasions made it so I would have to backtrack quite a bit to find the path the game wanted me to take.... all because Ezio couldn't just step around the damn thing. Like I said previously.... these are not flaws with the game itself... if anything it just shows how the series has evolved over time. They in no way BROKE the game for me & I was still able to get enjoyment out of it (hence the 8 rating I assigned it) but it really isn't as great as it once was all things considered.
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Post edited April 22, 2013 by Roberttitus