Assassin's Creed 2: The Game That Would not End

The Game Room
1

I know this is an old game and this will sink like a rock but I just beat it so here goes. This game was very good. Good characters and good plot, in the past any way. But the game just would not Fucking end. Even when it felt like it should be over, it wasn’t. Then you fight th e boss and get a long speech and, it’s not over. The desmond has a long scene then, it’s not over. Here’s the credits but, it’s not over. Then I fight template and more credits but, wait, still more dialog.

Ugh. I just wanted it to be over so I can start Brotherhood. Please tell me that game doesn’t drag on forever like this?

2

I didn’t notice it being exceptionally long. Maybe because first played it right after I beat Modern Warfare 2 in six hours.

3

Nah, Brotherhood is a lot more compact (both in scope and in terms of plot and secret society fuckery) - but I gotta warn you, the gameplay itself is a bit more bogus as well, and some of the plot points might make you /headdesk violently.

As for Revelations, the game is kinda fun but VERY easy, the plot meanders a lot and, in the end, it’s not quite clear WTF Ezio is doing in Constantinople in the first place or why he’s getting involved w/ the local templar/assassin business (besides his chronic backstabbing disorder, of course). Or why what he’s doing in Constantinople matters SO MUCH that it’s the key to Desmond’s plot thingy.

But then, that was also sort of true of AC3, and I wholly expect it to be the same in the upcoming Black Flag & Liberation games - at this point, it’s a given that the focus character will take part in every last notable historic event there was and meet everybody you might have heard about from that time and place ; but the reason why starts getting lost in the fog of plot bullshit and forced characterization.
Like, Connor had no stake whatsoever in the US Revolution, quite the opposite in fact (since either side decisively winning meant Whitey could get back to rapid expansion and Mohawk hunting), but because it’s an Assassin’s Creed game sold to Americans, of course he’ll be the great friend of George “the Town Destroyer” Washington and exchange dick jokes with Benny Franklin… even if that doesn’t make much sense be it from his own PoV or even from an Assassins vs. Templars one.
Ah well, fucking about in the Frontier being all Injun-like was still lots of fun in between bouts of muttering at the screen, so there is that :slight_smile:

4

I actually started ac3 this past weekend and found it to be boring as hell compared to ac2 so I put it away after I got grown up Connor and went back to finish ac2 from years ago. Ezio is just a much better character than Altair or Connor. I found the free running in ac3 to be kind of broken too. Hard to string together a long run. And it was really hard to decrease notoriety in 3. Just booted up brotherhood and it seems cool so far.

5

Did you get a version that included all the DLC? I felt the same way about the game and thought it was odd that it had a bunch of endings, but later, someone explained that I basically played through all the DLC without realizing it.

6

Okay, I’ll grant you that Ezio’s Adventures in Constantinople weren’t the best spelled out, (it seemed to just be “there’s a lot of Templar activity here, I’m here to help”), but they definitely tied it into Desmond’s narrative. The idea was that the bleeding effect was so severe that he had to wrap up Ezio and Altair’s lives so his mind didn’t completely fragment. What Ezio and Altair did wasn’t really important, as far as Desmond went, what was important was closure. Why was closure important? Because that’s the way animus science magic works. An asspull plot, certainly, but an adequately explained one. And of course we got the hilariously coincidental boon of Ezio living Altair’s memories so Desmond could do both at once.

Of course, in a meta sense the point of Revelations was to put Ezio and Altair in the ground so that it would be clear that their stories are done and no further games will be made about them.

I didn’t like Connor much, but AC3 actually had a pretty good story, or at least parts of it were good. I really liked the humanization of the Templars (we’ve been told they’re well intentioned extremists so often it was nice to see them portrayed as such and not cartoon villains), and the father/son dynamic was pretty interesting. They didn’t really pull too many punches with the Founding Fathers, and while you could argue that the criticism was too much lip service, not enough action, whatever, they at least acknowledged that the Founding Fathers could kind of be dicks, and were somewhat hypocritical about the whole “Freedom” thing. They certainly didn’t idealize Washington. In fact, I’m struggling to think of a positive thing they said about Washington in the game. Almost everything was “he’s weak”, “he lacks confidence”, “he murdered Indians”, and so on. Pretty much the best thing that was said about him was that he A. wasn’t a templar and B. was elected and thus had more “legitimate” authority compared to Charles Lee.

Honestly, the worst part about AC3 for me was given the isolated nature of the American assassin cell, it was a little too much about Connor, and less “Assassin’s Creed”. I felt like Achilles was almost pencilled in because “shit, this is an Assassin’s Creed game”.
Edit: It took waywayway too long to “get good” though. The majority of the game is setup, the “good parts” are all post-Bunker Hill. Which means it’s actually a pretty crap story, but I can’t deny that the good parts for the most part wouldn’t have been as good without the crummy setup.

I’m not sure where you got that idea, I played it a week or so ago and I regularly combo-killed my way up to 2 notoriety and then immediately turned around the corner and bribed a guy. There are a couple odd places (mostly northern New York) where you have to travel a little bit to find a town crier, but for the most part you can yo-yo notoriety fairly easily.

Unless you’re referring to the Frontier in which case I’m pretty sure you’re just locked at 1 notoriety forever except between certain plot missions.

7

Yeah, the architecture was a bit naff (and the cities all blended together, unlike AC2 or even AC1 where each had its own style and flair), but I really liked the tree running. Felt agile as a cat.

Bwuh ? Not really - there were town criers everywhere, and posters too, just like AC2 (although those didn’t appear on the minimap for some reason). Going to the printers for the big removal might have been a bit more bothersome than just stabbity-stabbity Random Guy, but I don’t think I actually ever had notoriety rise that high anyway. Those criers are really everyfuckwhere.

I had a funny bug with those, too - for some reason at one point every spawning spot had three of them all shouting over each other instead of just the one. So it was quite comical to bribe one and have him spout the usual “There’s a sale on fish, british soldiers have been spotted, blah blah blah” while right next to him the other two were screaming their lungs out about those DASTARDLY MURDERERS ABOUT :).

[QUOTE=Jragon]
And of course we got the hilariously coincidental boon of Ezio living Altair’s memories so Desmond could do both at once.
[/quote]

You know, I always wondered about those bits - whether Ezio memory-hopped for realz just by staring into his Magic CDs, so that in effect Desmond was going recursive (and *that *cures his identity disorder and meshing together of multiple personnalities ? :p) ; or whether that was more of a vivid rendering of “Ezio reads a biography” for the player’s benefit.

Oh absolutely - I loved Kenway and his nonchalantly self-assured way of being a complete cock to his son. And I’d lie if I said Connor’s Important Haircut didn’t get me in the end - war paint is really effective at instant badassing a guy, I can see why isolated Colonists were scared shitless of Iroquois warriors :D. But, yeah, as you say much of the game is either very very drawn out setup, filler, or there just to be there (Paul Revere’s ride, anyone ?).

I got the Tyranny of King Washington pencilled in for just before Black Flag comes out on the PC though, maybe that’s more balls-gripping throughout, since they could afford to take a lot more liberties with the historical background.

8

One problem I had with AC3, besides the drab, dreary humorlessness of it all, was the lack of a sense of fun. Like all that awesome Da Vinci stuff in 2. I mean, Ben Franklin - the greatest inventor of his generation - was already in the game. Why wasn’t I electrocuting people with kites or, I dunno, baking them in convection ovens?

9

My difficulty with notoriety in ac3 is that it seems like there are million guards around every turn and they can see two miles around a corner so I’m basically constantly being pursued so I can’t actually bribe the crier until I’m anonymous. That and not showing poster locations on the map is hard for me to adjust to because I have a hard time spotting the swirly white clouds around the posters.

10

Cubsfan- I’ll try to explain as best as I can (it’s been a while):

The first time you fight Rodrigo Borgia, in Sequence 11, is the last major turning point of the game. Ezio meets with his allies, who turn out to be Assassins, and officially joins the order.

Sequences 12 and 13 are DLC-only mini-adventures that aren’t absolutely required, but do add some minor characters and flesh out the story a little more (and also have a fun little free-flying area, where, incidentally, you can also pick up the Flyswatter trophy if you didn’t get it earlier). It’s possible to play them after completing the game if you buy them then (I did), but the story is most definitely not over at this point.

Sequence 14 is the big showdown against Rodrigo Borgia, and, as typical for an AC final boss battle, a doozy. First is the big fight to get to his doorstep, then a tricky stealth sequence to the Sistine Chapel, and finally, an air assassination right on him…

…which isn’t enough, of course. Now you have to fight him with the help of your shadow clones. It’s going to be a grueling fight, but eventually, victory is yours…

…no it isn’t; he gets right back up and stabs you in the gut! That’s it for you…

…no, don’t be silly, it’s a Fission Mailed (look it up! :D). You confront the Pope once more get to beat him for real this time. And then, after learning the true purpose of the Vault, then, finally, you’ve triumphed.

Oh, as for that little skirmish with the Abstergo guards while the credits are rolling…if you haven’t noticed, these games have really, REALLY long credit sequences. Apparently UbiSoft found it just as tedious as most of us, so they gave us a little something to do to break up the monotony (as well as showcase how far Desmond Miles has come).

So, actually…yeah, you’re already done.

That help? :slight_smile:

11

Nice summary. Thanks!