The first Assassin's Creed's charm was in the sumptuous graphics and straightforward action - that incredible climbing and free-running, and the visceral thrill of stapling evil people to the dirt with a wristblade. With AC2 the rest of the game has caught up with the brilliance of those central ideas to create a complete and coherent experience. We can think of plenty of words that could describe Assassin's Creed 2 - involving, exciting, cinematic - but there's only one word that sums it up beautifully. Killer.

I'll admit that I wasn't in love with the first game, it had its merits and some good ideas, but it just didn't execute them well. The second game seems to have taken everything I complained about with the first one and threw it out the window. The missions actually have variety, you don't die by falling into water, the boring scenes where Desmond wandered around in the real world are reduced. The game also kept the fun aspects of the first game, while adding some new features, there are still plenty of little treasures and secrets to find around the cities you will visit, you can still ride horses, climb and jump all over the place, and send roof top guards plunging to their deaths. The new features are also a treat, after you get to a certain point in the game, you get to manage your own estate, you can invest in upgrades for the various buildings and businesses within the town, which will increase the income generated by your estate, RPG elements were also added, you can now earn money and use said money to buy armor and weapons, which will increase your HP and attack power. Lastly, this game will be fun for history buffs, you will get to interact with such famous figures as Leonardo da Vinci, and others I won't spoil. All in all, if you thought that the first game had potential, but was missing something, you will likely enjoy this game.

Impressive graphics and the gameplay was was better than Assassin's Creed 1, with a much better storyline. As someone who tends to play games with the sound off, it's great to have subtitles in this game as compared to the first game, which didn't have any option for subtitles.

For me the best Assassin's creed, more better than Brotherhood or the first.

The story is very cool, the italian background Firenze,Forlì and in particular Venice are spledid.

With a good VGA the image are fantastic.

Performance is better than I expected, on my modest PC. The controls work well, but movement is a bit too 'automated', with moves that are not only context-sensitive, but often require no timing at all from the player, just holding down the right buttons. Graphically impressive, and the mood and dialogue is pretty good if you don't go in with high expectations.

A really nice improvment. The first game had it problems but was really well presented. The sequel fixes most of the problems I had and climbing through the city is as awesome as allways.

It's a nice change of the setting too, while I loved the cities in AC 1 it's good to see something different and new. All in all, if you loved Assassins Creed...well then you probablly allready bought it :)

Truly amazing game. Beautifull cities, awesome free run and story much better than in first part of Assassin's Creed. If you think about buying this game: do it immediately!

Assassin's Creed 2 hits you with a one-two punch of awesome. It starts out with heavy doses of intrigue which are immediately followed by monotony. This is a game where the open world gameplay style really gets in the way of the fun.

You end up in Renaissance Italy as a noble's son. You're the shadowy figure on the box art, but not quite, you're a fledgling who has yet to become an assassin. When you finally do get your robes, you've only unlocked *part* of what you'll eventually do, becoming more skilled as you go. This sounds interesting until you realize it actually feels like core game functionality is locked out until you progress far enough. For instance, there are many places you will want to climb to, but you can't get into them until halfway through the game when a character literally teaches you how to jump to reach a high ledge. Duh? It was obvious, but Ezio, the esteemed main character, hadn't figured it out.

This results in the game only being truly full-featured about when it's almost over. Until that point, there are some genuinely bright moments. The combat is superb, the animations are extremely fluid, the environments are just amazing, and there's a good mix between sneaking gameplay and heavy action sequences. Ezio is likeable, as are many of the characters in this game, and the story to uncover a conspiracy is truly compelling.

It's getting there that's the problem. The cities are huge, and no matter how beautiful the architecture, it's clear with set pieces of this size there was only so much the developers could do before they started making large portions of the city just to fill space. You stop in awe of architectural marvels like the Il Duomo, but for the rest of the time you're dashing across samey rooftops and barging through snaking alleyways to get where you actually want to go. There is a lot of running, a lot of boring back and forth (especially in the late game), and the mission is, and I know Ezio is an assassin, just a bunch of killing. That wouldn't be so bad if for the entirety of the game, it didn't have you the exact same three missions over and over again. Kill a guy without getting detected, tail a guy without getting detected, and just plain kill a guy. It's fun for a while, but everyone wants you to do these missions. You eventually unlock a carrier pidgeon coop that will give you assassination missions from various important figures, but they all follow the same pattern.

It's the beginning and the end of this game that truly shines. For the most part, Assassin's Creed 2 rambles on and on during the midsection, but where the plot is introduced and where it finally ends are the most coherent, breathtaking, and compelling experiences I've played recently. Subsequently, they are also much more linear, which is an important distinction because while roaming about the open world, it was easy to become bored / annoyed that the game drug on for so long and refused to mix up its routine at least with something interesting. If you follow only the mainline story, I doubt it's possible to get such a dreary feeling, but all the extraneous tasks felt more like an uninspired waste of time. Follow the story and the game is 100% worth playing all the way through, and you'll feel enriched. The rest of it is mind-numbing game-stretching fluff.

For me, this was the first Assasin's Creed game and I was really satisfied. The game has a fast pacing, solid story and good combat options. The best thing for me was probably the historical setting in the cities of Venice, Florencia and so on. As I personally have been to Venice this was very rewarding experience for me. To see what the place might look like in the past. AI is overally good, fighting is addictive and the UI is easy. I am still playing the game (80% done) because it is pretty long and I don't know about any weak points or bugs. The only thing I would change is the camera. Sometimes when you get to an area where you have to do a lot of jumping, you have trouble to orientate yourself. Other than that 5/5. Good job.

Everything the first Assassin's Creed should've been. Such a good follow up to the original game. The controls are pretty much the same except a bit refined, so not too much to complain about. The only bad thing about the controls is that it has Mouse acceleration on by default and it's not possible to turn it off. I assume a game pad would handle this game a lot better.

The graphics are very fitting to the game, and pretty nice looking too.

In the game there are a lot to do and most of it is optional. There's a main story line with a bunch of side quests. I started out doing every single side quest but it did get pretty repetitive so I just followed the main story line, which worked out great. There are almost always two main ways to complete the quests - there's the brute force way in which you fight your way to victory and there's the sneaky way in which you stay hidden and only kill when you really have to. This gives a lot of variety and possibilities and fits different play styles.

Assassin's Creed brought as much hope as disappointment; repetitive levels and assassinations, and a general lack of activities. Assassin's Creed 2 not only fixes these problems, but also creates an astoundingly captivating and immersive story and atmosphere. You play Ezio Auditore, a young Florentine noble who takes on the family tradition of being an assassin. You take part in a variety of missions, which I can truly say are quite different unlike its predecessor. In addition, an income and money system has been added, allowing the player to customise Ezio, buy certain weapons, replenish stocks of medicine and gadgets (e.g. smoke bombs-another addition) and just satisfy the peasants by throwing a large pile of coin. Assassination techniques and weapons are gained as you progress through the story, which is a hybrid, telling one of Desmond Miles, and one of Ezio.All in all, the gameplay's been diversified, and the story improved upon with a lot of attention to detail. Perhaps detracting from the game is the DRM Ubisoft has employed, however, this has now been reduced to an internet check at startup. Despite this, it's an amazing game, and will satisfy all types of gamers!

I prefer this one to the first one. Why? The environments, the ambience, the atmosphere, the characters are better. I also prefer the time frame of the story. And I think AC2 is not as repetitive as AC1. Once again, it's fun for a while, if you just want to chill a bit.

Assasins Creed 2 blew the mind of the gamers even more than Assasins Creed 1. The story continues with Desmond Miles but goes even deeper with your ancestors.

The game is very well made, the graphics are wonderful, the storyline awesome, and the feeling is even better. This game is worth buying no doubt.

I haven't played Assassins Creed 1 but the storyline is easy to follow. The story and the environment are top notch. Graphics are absolutely stunning and I really love the renaissance Italy. Some historical figures make their appearance which is a good addition to the atmosphere.

Controls are easy to use and even difficult jumps and aerobatics can be done quite efficiently. However the different buttons for different body part, such as hands, head and legs, seemed a bit weird at first.

Assassins Creed 2 is a action packed adventure game. Its main shortcoming is its short quest and low level of difficulty. I have always enjoyed missions and tasks that last long in games. In Assassins Creed 2 many tasks are over within a couple of minutes but there are some longer missions as well. This ensures a fast tempo which is a good thing for action game but I would have liked more long tasks.

Overall it is a good action game which can be picked up and played for a few minutes or for all night.

Assassin's Creed 2 is Ubisoft's best game to date. The visuals are stunning and bring a great atmosphere to the game. This is renaissance done right in a video game.

Those who've played the first Assassin's Creed will definitely enjoy the huge improvements to AC2. To start with, there is now an economy system where you can use Florins. You earn Florins either by completing memory sequences, looting from chests, looting from dead bodies and pickpocketing people.

There are a wide variety of side missions to do now and the main missions are very unique compared to the first game. You'll be gliding on Da Vinchi's Flying Machine, sneak onto a ship to assassinate someone, explore dungeons and so on.

There's many ways now to create distractions. You can hire courtesians to seduce guards, hire mercenaries if you want them dead or even throw some gold coins to occupy those greedy guards. What's even interesting is that there are shops where you can change your clothing colour, weapons and armour on sale that affect your stats and also buy medicine and poison.

The map is much bigger in AC2. There are a variety of zones you can visit, especially San Ginignamo, where you can explore the countryside. There are also passage ways in which you can travel but there's a fast travel to avoid the lengthy journey.

The game is a huge improvement from the first and has more replayability for those who just want to have fun free roaming. Also, it's a story-driven game, so expect to see love, betrayal, anger, sorrow.

Worth the buy.

I just bought this, love the graphics and crisp sound, but I'm annoyed that the program keeps closing. I'm running a retarded fast computer and card, but it just all of a sudden stops working...

I wish it worked right, because it seems like a top notch experience...

Assassins Creed 2 improves and expands on the concepts from the first game in the series, and gives the impression that the developers had the feedback and nagging from fans of the first game in mind this time around. Examples of this include a fast-travel system, assassination side-quests and a better paced storyline that ties the bigger (and more fun) assassinations together. Building on the strengths of the last game, adding some minor and major tweak and a compelling enough story, works really well.

However, I would like to point out that this is not a particularly difficult game, and when it does up the challenge, you will find that the combat system is not accurate enough to pinpoint one annoying archer from the crowd of baddies looking to put more holes in you. But most of the time you'll just breeze through battles with a combination of easy-to-execute counter-attacks and dodges. In addition to combat being to easy, I also found it way to easy to loose pursuers.

All in all, it's not hard to recommend this game; excluding it's predecessor, Assassins Creed 2 is one of a kind on the PC. If you enjoyed the first one, you'll most likely enjoy this one. If you haven't played the first one, I would just read up on the internet what little story there is to be had, and start off with Assassins Creed 2.

Oh, and it's best played with an Xbox 360 controller. (-:

In Assassins creed 2 the story of Desmond Miles continue, with yet more exploration of your ancestry.

If you have played Assassins creed 1, you will find a world with more depth and scope, combined with the increase in things to do. Combat has also become more diversified, so they no longer feel stale after a short time. On the flip side the "in game" story line is more simple and less interesting, the broad story line is almost non-existent, guards giving chase seems more stupid and useless. The actual assinations seems to be rather easy and quickly gain a repetetive feel.

Perhaps the greatest improvement to this game is the historic database, you can easily look up historic details of all major buildings you come across. The database also contains details about main NPC's and some minor ones. Personally I truly enjoyed this aspect as it allowed me to submerge myself in the fantastic environment they have built.