Thanks for reading.

From the text it hardly sounds like the worst game of all time, because the text doesn’t ever say that it’s the worst game of all time. If you look at the note to Charles above, I gave it zero out of five because I tried to model this piece after the hyperbolic work of sites such as action button. That said, there are plenty of other games I’d rate a zero.

I’ll stop being passive aggressive and answer your questions now. The thing about the dodgy parkour is interesting to me, because while I can see how that would happen a lot during AC2 I actually had the *opposite* experience: namely, Ezio would never fall off the sides of shit when I wanted him to. I played this back-to-back with Uncharted 2, and I can say that after AC2 the climbing in UC2 felt remarkably stiff. It was UC2 where I had the biggest problem with falling off the sides of things—basically, whenever they coded a little outcropping to be jumped off of, it was also really easy to just walk off the side. That was annoying to me. So, yeah, the parkour was annoying but not nearly as much as everything else I mentioned.

As for the atmosphere, I *can* clarify a bit and say that I vastly preferred the Tuscany and Forli areas to the larger cities. In general I prefer expressive ideals of cities to “realistic” cities in games. For instance, I loved GTA: San Andreas much more than GTAIV. I like the context that countrysides and other external environments bring to an urban space. I like Tuscany and Forli because they’re comprehensible (you can look at them from afar and understand their logic) and unique. Venice and Florence in AC2 look like the same three buildings repeated over and over, punctuated by landmarks. So this adds another complaint: I’m really peeved that you just kind of run through Forli and complete one mission there (“save” a woman stranded on an island) before moving on. It made me even more angry when I found out why this was—they cut out two segments of the game that take place in Forli and turned them into DLC. That’s just ridiculous.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, I enjoyed sifting through the articles on your gaming site!

Sod you both – I’m giving it NEGATIVE FIFTY BILLION out of ten. Oh yeah, the readers’ll flock to me now.

Seriously, from your text it hardly sounds like the worst game of all time, even if the flaws – and I agree there were flaws – did annoy you. I’m surprised you were more annoyed by the (optional) QTEs than the still-frustrating parkour controls that have Ezio regularly commit suicide by jumping sideways off tall buildings.

Did the atmosphere of Renaissance Italy really do nothing for you at all?

Now I remember the cutscenes from AC1. Those *were* totally stupid. But this reminds me of something that I did like about AC1′s “allowing you to do nothing while this crap rolls out”: in the loading scenes you could throw knives and swing your sword around. For some reason it made the wait a little more enjoyable for me… but I’m probably crazy.

On the carriage… although I liked it, I *did* premise the entire discussion with: “shit like this is a waste of labor.”

The knives thing… I guess I spent more time on the rooftops in AC1, so I was never lacking for knives. By the time I played this, I totally forgot that I could loot them, so I just stayed off the rooftops. I will concede this point completely, though I still think there were too many archers and not enough rooftop level design variety.

I still don’t think it’s a great game, but I may be swayed to bump the zero stars up to one star if your post on the assassinations is compelling. I look forward to it, and thanks for the lengthy reply!

I shall now proceed to take apart your post in the nitpicking way that I’m sure you hoped would occur. :p

“The first is a carriage chase through the Appenines, which I have to admit was the most fun I had with the game.”

Okay, this is the first point of disagreement. I really thought that the carriage chase was one of the weakest points of the game. Difficult to control, finicky, and a complete break from the rest of the gameplay – a bad ‘palate cleanser’ that devs seem to insist on throwing into their games even if they feel incredibly clunky. For the record, I agree with your thoughts on the flying sequence too. It was also terrible and a pointless inclusion. Like the carriage chase.

“I can’t remember whether or not Assassin’s Creed was cutscene-heavy.”

It was. But in a much worse way than AC2. The cutscenes in the original game were supposedly interactive, trying to go all third-person Half-Life. Instead, all that happened was that the incredibly bored player would end up getting Altair to perform pirouettes for minutes on end until the dull sequence was over. Essentially they locked the player to one camera angle for a cutscene but insisted it was still ‘interactive’. Pointless. I’m glad they changed to regular cutscenes for the sequel.

“Now I’ve a limited amount of knives on hand…”

The original limited the maximum amount of knives to 15, while the sequel eventually allows for 25. To rearm in the original, you had to pickpocket theme or return to the Bureau. In the sequel, you can gain them from bodies, or purchase them from any blacksmith. An improvement, wouldn’t you say?

I agree with all of your complaints about the tomb sequences – they were terrible, and with a shockingly bad fixed camera which at times reminded me of videogaming in 2001. But I’m almost willing to forgive them entirely for the Duomo tomb. The interior of such a grand church was made for platforming. Entering such a magnificent space in real life, I have always been tempted to imagine what the view would be like from high on a particular rampart, or exactly how vertigo-inducing the building or cleaning process of the building must be. Thanks to the Duomo sequence, I can at least digitally live out this desire. Buggy camera and all, I really enjoyed this sequence and will probably play it over a few more times if I can.

“You never need to use the gun unless you’re bored, and the poison can only be used in situations where your hidden blade would accomplish the same thing”

I don’t think this is strictly true. The admittedly silly sequence where you have to kill the random prostitute murderer is best achieved by using the gun, as is the assassination of the new Doge at festival time. And the poison can be used on an indirect target, getting him to kill your target for you, or at least cause distraction enough that your target becomes free.

“I actually enjoyed the change of pace the Desmond and Lucy story provided in the first game…”

You were the only one. :p

“Here we just get an annoying, mean British guy and some inane rambling about how every major catastrophe in human history was caused by the Templars and the pieces of Eden.”

Yes. The mean British guy was really a pathetic cliche, and I really wished he’d just go away. The “truth” puzzles, though, I found really engaging, as occasionally you had to pick out a theme from connected paintings – you know, actually think – rather than just using guesswork or brute force. As a change of pace, I liked these much more than the modern day sequences.

If I haven’t responded to a comment, you can probably assume I agree with it, more or less. The game has problems. But, like Jorge, I loved it nonetheless. I think Jorge has something with this ambience argument. There’s just something *right* about the game. When I wasn’t playing it, I couldn’t wait to get back in. Not for the story. Not for parkour. But for the cities. For the flow. For the set-pieces (something I very much disagree with you on, actually. I felt like the core assassinations were really, really well done and allowed the player the freedom to make them as dramatic as possible. This idea I might turn into a full post at some point).

So, thanks for the excellent read, but none of your points, right as many of them are, are able to even sway me slightly from my real enthusiasm for Assassin’s Creed 2. It’s a great game. You know I’m right. :p

Again, hilarious post. (Sorry for the link spam. But my response was getting too long.)