Assassin's Speed

The other day I looked at my PS3 game collection, and realised that although I have only had my PS3 for a few short weeks (3 in fact) that I have accumulated a large amount of games (Dante's Inferno, Aliens Vs. Predator, Ghostbusters, Heavy Rain (aka Hard / Solid / Dense Rain), Assassin's Creed 2, Resistance 2, Bioshock 2) and have only completed 1 to completion. These games do not demand my attention as ,much as PC games do, and so I can put them down to my hearts content, and pick them up again when I want (this is excluding Dante's Inferno... I am really into my Greek mythology, and religion at the moment, and also Heavy Rain). So I decided to play one of my other games and write a little review of it, as I now have completed it... 1 week later, although this is better than the 1 night that Heavy Rain took. The game I decided to lay and write about is Assassin's Creed 2 as I loved the first one, even though its restrictiveness was a bummer. If you haven't played the first one, you start of in an alternate universe present in a facility owned by a maniacal company Obstergo. You are given the mission to travel in the past to relive your ancestors past in dream-like sequences using something called an 'animus'. So you toddle off into the past, and I'll have to leave it there because I may be told off for spoiling the game. So lets fast-forward to the second one, where you are rescued by the lovely Kirsten Bell and taken to another 'facility' to re-enact some more of you ancestors dreams. Although this facility is run by your friends the atmosphere is tenser than Obstergo, thanks to Danny Wallace's dry wit, and aggressiveness towards you.



Picture the scene, you are in Italy in the 15th Century where I have a loving family and am a bit of a playboy. Well you can guess what happens next when his family life is compromised he falls into the harms of the assassin's guild with a little help from his friends, family, and Leonardo Da Vinci. As always the Assassin's Creed team, have delivered a top-notch story (sort-of) and has immersed the player in this world completely alien to us, to explore and play around with. With this though, I regret to say the game has decided to create some new limitations, which make me want to play the first one, even one of it's boring eavesdropping missions. As I said I have not had my PS3 for long, but I am a daughter of Playstation, I have been there through all its incarnations, and its six axis differs a small amount to the PS2 controller. So it was strange to me, why I was having so much trouble controlling Ezio, I wanted to jump off a building, he wanted to run up a wall. To be frank, I found the controls counter-intuitive, and for a game based on free-running I find it strange.
To add to this, I found the graphics for this game a real shame. This is a next-gen console and I found the graphics, on par or even worse than my PC offering of Assassin's Creed 1. The characters eyes, and mouths scared me more than a Japanese horror film, when my phone rings. There were just disjointed and ugly, and all I could think was 'what a waste'. I know this was a big game, and the graphics for the scenery was gorgeous, but to not push the boundaries of the PS3 is just a shame, and when done right graphics can take you and keep you in a game.
I have one more gripe, but I can't talk about it, as it is a story related gripe, and I will probably get shot if I reveal anymore.




Overall, Assassin's Creed 2 is a title I would recommend to people who played, and enjoyed the first outing, and wants to know where the story goes from there. If you are not a ticking time-bomb, which I realised I am, after trying to jump off a roof, and again running up a wall, and attaching myself to the chimney it is attached to for the 20th time, this is also a title for you, but be warned this game has magnificent vista, just don't look at any of the characters maybe apart from Ezio and you will be fine.

Summary
7/10

Pros:
Great story, I dived the height of canary wharf into a haystack and SURVIVED!!!,

Cons:
Characters Facial Graphics, Character Control, (SPOLIER!)

Please comment, as I would LOVE to know what you guys thought, as you can probably tell, I am gonna get through my games now, and I think ghostbusters which I will review when I complete it.