Sorry about missing last week's update, it couldn't be helped. But hey, you did get an extra entry to balance all that out. I guess I'm really, really late on getting onto the train, but here are my thoughts on Assassin's Creed II.
Well, let's start by saying that it's definitely a good game. It's vastly superior to its predecessor but still has some great flaws. The first Assassin's Creed was much criticized for being too repetitive and Creed II mixed things up nice and proper. There's a great deal of variety to the game and, quite simply, it's a wonderful game to play.
While Creed II rises above the first game for the most part, where it fails is by being in many ways simply too easy. There are several mechanics to make the game more difficult. No more can you blend in with the crowd with the press of a button, should you accrue enough infamy. New types of enemies present new challenges. This is all very nice and grand, but where the game is too easy is the combat. Instead of going in, I'll just give a single example. So I'm conducting an assassination and I have a grandiose plan. It, being a little more grandiose than necessary, fails and I end up shot at by archers, falling down a considerable distance and generally coming within inches of death. In terms of gameplay, I am two successful attacks away from death. I don't have the opportunity to slink away and try again, but just as I get up I am surrounded by several armed and armoured guards. I figure that instead of putting up a real fight I'll just get killed so I can reattempt my grandiose plan. I don't draw my sword. It's time for fisticuffs.
So, for dramatic effect, I repeat: there I am, two hits away from death, surrounded by six guards with weapons and heavy armour where as I only hold up my fists in defiance. I plan to die, so I don't even fight with strategy. I just hit the attack button at slow, steady intervals. One... Two... Three... Four... So forth. Five minutes later, what do you know? One man standing. Me. Armed still with only my fists. I killed six guards without being hit twice in succession by only attacking steadily, slowly. There. Is. No. Challenge. Here. At all. I said Fable II had easy combat but Creed II takes that to a whole new level.
Beyond that the game works like a charm. The conclusion of the game comes as a surprise and some might find it off-putting but I'm perfectly fine with it. It's terribly interesting. Also, there's a lot of mechanics to the game that are very nice in itself but they seem to be there to help the player survive the challenges of the game. By now I've pointed out that there are no challenges*, making them seem superficial despite best intentions.
Seeing as the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is such a direct sequel I hope they'll focus on trying to fix the combat above all else. As I pointed out when discussing E3, one big point of Brotherhood is the Brotherhood. In theory it's a cool idea, but when I imagine it translating into practice it's making easy combat easier. Thus I hope all the more that they make the combat more challenging in that game.
But back to Creed II. Actually I'm reluctant to get in depth here since the game has been out for so terribly long. It's a terrific game with a few flaws. Hopefully they'll be rectified in future releases. If Assassin's Creed had you on the fence then I'm pretty sure that Creed II will tip you over to the side.
I also want to talk a bit about the recent Prince of Persia movie. I know that this is not a movie blog, but Prince of Persia is based on a game, so I feel inclined to comment. Okay, let's look at this from a moviegoer's point of view. What do I look for when I go to see a movie? Entertainment. Was I entertained by this movie? Definitely. It's a very enjoyable movie. That said, it's nothing special. There is nothing transcendental about this movie, but then if I only appreciated movies of earth-shaking achievements, I'd end up with a very small collection of movies. And those earth-shaking movies are not something you can watch too often without them losing their significance. This kind of silly-but-fun (silly in the sense of not serious) movies are ones you can enjoy casually.
Now to look at this from the point of view of a fan of the video games. I got what I wanted. Despite carrying the moniker of the first game of the Sands trilogy the movie is its own creation. We lack the Sand monsters, true, but the Sands trilogy, what I consider to be the real Prince of Persia, has always been about the Prince and the Sands. That we get and in ample amounts. This praise given, I do have to point out one massive inconsistency between the movie and the source material.
For some reason in this movie the Prince is not of royal blood, but a street orphan, adopted at young age by the Persian king when he saw the boy's bravery. I would be willing to let this slide if it served some purpose for the movie, but they don't do anything with this new dimension to the character. There are a few throwaway lines of dialogue about the Prince having something to prove, etc. but those could've been perfectly well made to work based on the Prince being the youngest of his brothers which would fit into canon perfectly. But as the movie stands the whole orphan thing is pretty much completely pointless.
This is a big shot in the dark, a wild theory, but I figure that it's because of Disney. I feel the movie would've been a lot better if it had stayed the hell away from Disney. Anyway, this kind of rising from rags to riches stuff and how the Prince is of noble spirit even if he isn't of noble blood is right up Disney's alley and the movie suffers from it. Also, the love story between the Prince and the princess was one of the best things about the Sands of Time game but here we get the typical Disney (well, also typical Hollywood, but I'm blaming Disney here)" We Fall In Love Because We're the Male and the Female Leads" kind of love story. Annoying.
But hey, it's the best video game movie I've ever seen and I have seen Spirits Within. Go Prince of Persia.
Whoo.
*P.S.: I actually take that back. There is one kind of challenge that presents itself a few times, and that is an imposed time limit. I don't recall this showing up during the main quests of the game, but if you decide to delve into the numerous and certainly entertaining Assassination side quests you'll run into it a few times. You're told to take care of X number of people, and you're given a time limit in which to do so. This time limit is usually between five to three minutes, and my main issue here is how it's pretty much arbitrary and pointless every time. Sure, every now and then you get an explanation like "kill them quickly so they don't have time to be alerted" but when those people are spread across the city and you get five minutes that explanation makes sense the more you think about it. But as I said, there's none of this during the main quest. Big relief.
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