Assassin's Creed II

The original Assassin's Creed (AC), while technically impressive, was prone to long, dull and repetitive sections interspacing the action with enough horse riding to give you saddle sores. Assassin's Creed II (AC2) is a satisfying improvement, proving that developers Ubisoft have listened to feedback, making the game less of the travelogue and adding more of that juicy action you wanted.

This time the plot follows our futuristic protagonist Desmond escape from his "employers" through the help of technician Lucy Stillman; to her teams "underground" establishment. Here you find that rather than the forced work undertaken in the first game, this time you're working for the assassins; the right side at last?

If we ignore the question of why Desmond doesn't kick the crap out of obnoxious historian Shaun (and you're bound to try, I did) you're presented with this teams version of the history chair and this time plugged into the past of Italian nobleman Ezio. Being placed in a more Machiavellian environment, a place of intrigue and often literal politcal backstabbing, helps the game enormously.

For those who never played AC don't worry, AC2 happily takes you through the moves needed to play and allows you to catch up with the plot. Basically Templar's bad; Assassin's good. The moves have also been enhanced to allow for more actions as your character develops. Each of these is useful for subsequent missions and although some are harder to master, the difficulty in pulling them off effectively is well balanced with their usefulness.

Ubisoft have drawn all the game's elements together more tightly this time so "saddle time" is lessened. This makes the game flow from point to point much more smoothly and plot elements for both Raymond and Ezio merge into a more delicate picture. A quest for Leonardo Da Vinci to translate pages of a codex for both your own weaponry as well as more futuristic purpose is one of the game's main goals but there is also the restoration of your Uncle Mario's (Yes the Nintendo joke may be obvious but it's funny) estate and some future symbols on certain buildings provide further puzzles, unlocking a video when all are completed.

Some of these puzzles require simple searching, some use logic, mythical knowledge and pure maths and you may find yourself seeking some web based assistance here. Many of these answers are contained in the pages of the codex though if you take the time to research it.

This game really pushes towards greatness but sadly certain elements are missing. Towards the later levels there seems to be a slight lack of thought as you only get one real shot of the much vaunted flying. OK, the DLC will have more but we're only reviewing what's in the box here. The mercenaries level is about as simple as herding cats too as they run and attack nearly any enemy without provocation.

It's around this point you get the gun too. This weapon is highly unbalanced in some missions, especially the ones where people are running off into the distance and then, BANG!, oh no they're not. One nice touch however is the interactive end titles where you maintain player interaction to the very end of the game, unlike most others that just involve the usual downward scroll.

AC2 is such an improvement on the first game in terms of tight and continuous action that you can forgive its minor flaws. If Ubisoft keep improving the series in the same vein then the third instalment is going to be exceptional and may finally give players the chance to use their tricks wholly in Desmond's own time. We'll wait and see but there's hints of more twists first.