So, I decided I may as well put in a spoiler thread so I don’t get yelled at in the other thread.
Who else noticed the morse code? Bad Ubisoft!
I’ve seen the hex and binary and morse code stuff, but I never even tried to figure any of it out as I’m sure the Internet would do that eventually. Has anyone attempted to decode any of it? Any of it mean anything?
“You must defeat Shen Pope to stand a chance.”
A fist fight is not a fun way to fight the last boss, though I did like the game overall. Pretty obvious it was a bridging game, I’m going to go ahead and say that the next game will be a modern day espionage with Desmond being the assassin we control throughout most of the game, with flashbacks to Altair and Ezio intermittently as he remembers more of his skills.
Well, yeah, that’s obviously what they’re going for. But I doubt it’ll be the next game. Part of the appeal of the Assassin’s Creed series are the unique historical settings. I think Ubisoft can still get a lot of mileage from that before they just give us their version of Grand Theft Auto. I suspect when AC finally does cars and guns – both de rigeur in a modern day action game like this – it’s going to take advantage of some generational leap in gaming platforms.
My money on the next game is a Western/Civil War setting. Although, having played that wretched wagon drive out of Florence, I hope they give their stagecoach tech a thorough reboot. :)
-TomI would love to have a Ninja game in this setting, its just a bit unjustifiable; Desmond doesn’t seem to have any Asian influence in his ancestry, so it would be out of canon for a game in this series. However, I would really like to see some more out of the original company that Desmond works for, Abstergo’s company. Without supersaturating the market, they could make some spin-off games that are of other subjects as one shot things, or episodic, for XBL and PSN or whatever.
A western/civil war setting would be awesome, but how much sabotage and intrigue and free running can you get out of that setting? That was much more of enemies fighting. I’m going to put money into a French Civil War setting. Storming of the Bastille as you secretly assassinate people? Yes please.
I invite you to either take a history class or watch Deadwood. Either should disabuse you of the idea that there wasn’t much sabotage, intrigue, or free running in 19th Century America.
-TomI’ll also echo the call for a game set during Revolutionary Paris, let me go to London as well and you’ve got an excellent game setting with a period stock full of excellent landmarks, potentials for free running and some solid combat mechanics (so long as you can make gunplay not suck)
I had a weird bug after I got Altair’s Armor/Sword… went into Venice (fast travel) then all the guards were completely docile. I could kill them right in front of other guards faces and they wouldn’t do anything about it. I was completely anonymous too.
Thought it was a weird effect of the armor at first (I mean Altair did have the apple) but then I fast traveled around a bit more came back to Venice and this time everything was OK (attacking the guards made them attack me back). Good thing too since I was going to be bored running through the game without the enemies attacking me!
I will have to. My focus has been quite a ways away from American history but I am trying to change that this semester. If it could have some fun free running, i’d be all for it.
Well I just beat it… the ending part was really gamey, starting with fighting the last boss Rodriguez for the first time. He’s the only enemy you can’t counter kill with the stealth blade (or kill him with the stealth blade at all for that matter, even as he’s facing away from you). Sure we find out why later… but I think the right thing to do would be to show the animation when an enemy stops a stealth blade with their hands each time you tried to do something like that (and maybe Rodriguez saying something like “hah I’m too skilled to be killed like that”), instead of simply slashing at him…
Then the part where you get into Rome… looked really cool at first but of course we’re railroaded down a completely linear passage which completely goes against the spirit of the game. Finally at the end you fight the stupid Rodriguez guy again. The apple cloning was a nice touch but why were all the Ezios wearing different things? I had Armor of Altair so I was expecting them all to wear the same.
As usual you can’t stealth blade Rodriguez… and why the odd decision to let him live at the end?
Then goes the ‘credits’ gameplay. I found it really amusing all the Templars had riot sticks instead of I dunno guns? So you just stealth blade them trivially since Lucy is actually a badass.
I really hope if they do make a game set in modern times it doesn’t just involve stealth blading guards with riot sticks. There needs to be some sort of gunplay involved. Maybe give Desmond some kind of bullet time reflexes (picked up by some of his assassin ancestors from the 1800s wild west?) to be able to dodge shots as he runs in for the stealth blade kill, but guards definitely need to have guns.
I beat the game right after watching 2012, so I was like WTF for the whole night.
Just beat it. Staggeringly slow opening hours aside, a big improvement over the first in almost every respect. One question: is it my imagination, but is there no way to select and replay individual missions – er, DNA sequences? If so, booooooooo. There are a few mission-specific trophies that I’m not replaying the whole bloody game to get.
Lemming, doesn’t sorting through the DNA strand on the pause menu give you the option to replay missions?
-TomWell I just beat it.
I beat the game
Just beat it.
You’re all just baiting me now, aren’t you?
That’s what I figured they’d so (since it was like that on AC1), but when I went into the strand it let me look at each mission, but gave me no option to play it. To be fair, I haven’t checked since I finished the game; maybe it allows you to replay missions once you beat it?
No. its common video game nomenclature, why can’t you understand this? Everyone has always said that they beat games when they finish the main campaign. Always. Forever.
About the stage coach
I liked the stage coach Tom! I thought Ubisoft did a good job of balancing the mechanics so you could push the stage coach to the edge of tipping over and still proceed. Had a good out-of-control feel while still being pretty easy to navigate around obstacles.
About the future
I hope it’s not a trilogy. I could understand the developers wanting to wrap the story up but the historical settings are so sweet… they need more. Also if they’re going to use a modern setting they need to teach Desmond to deal with guns… which means a visit to a more modern historical setting first. I hope they don’t make it a western though… doesn’t suit. I think London would be a much better setting. Or even New York… you need a location which is relatively built up.
I’ve read people commenting that the ending implies a modern setting for the next game but people said that about the last game as well… this one is just as open. You hear Lucy say they’re going to continue fishing around Desmond’s memory for more information and the codex map thingo shows Assassin groups all over the place. They could easily discover another important ancestor at this cabin they escape to at the end of the game.
About the ending
I thought it was pretty gutsy of Ubisoft to have the Pope admit that the Bible (and all organised religion) is based on fiction. Many games have danced around the idea of religion as the enemy and gods as aliens but rarely do they explicitly use Catholicism. AC2 attacked those concepts head on. Very JRPG.
As for Rome, I wasn’t disappointed that the game forced me down a path because I had no expectation that the game would feature ANOTHER city. By the time I reached Rome it was obvious the story was wrapping up and I was actually quite pleased Rome was as short as it was. No nonsense, just go stab the guy in the head and be done.
I guess it’s frustrating that you can’t sneak attack the last two “bosses” but simultaneously there’s no chance of dieing. You simply have to wail on them a bit longer than normal. I thought the ending cutscene was pretty cool too. Who’d have guessed that the game would end with Ezio in the Vatican, getting a message for Desmond from aliens who seeded Humanity?!
About Adam & Eve
I thought this element of the game worked GREAT. Whether the final video is interesting or not is irrelevant, I was totally intrigued by the first few snippets I unlocked and it made me want to find the rest before I finished the game which I did. I feel like there was an incredible amount of production value tied to these side collectables that many people might simply ignore… that’s the advantage of having a massive budget, I guess.
So… if the world of AC2 embraces the concept of Adam & Eve as the origin of Humanity then wouldn’t it theoretically be possible for Desmond to jump all the way back to the “original ancestor”? I think that would be an amazing turn for the series to place you as Adam, running around in a sci-fi world with Eve, trying to escape the aliens :)
I really hope AC2 is successful so that Ubisoft can continue to make the Assassin’s Creed games so exorbitant, luxurious and ultimately batshit crazy.
Edit: Oh… and I’m unaware of how to replay missions. You can’t do it from the DNA menu seemingly. Which is a shame because the game features so many great moments.
You can’t replay missions. That was something cut at the last minute.
No. its common video game nomenclature, why can’t you understand this? Everyone has always said that they beat games when they finish the main campaign. Always. Forever.
It’s antiquated and needs to go away.