When the Duke of Milan is brutally murdered, the Assassin Giovanni Auditore is dispatched to investigate. The answers he uncovers implicate Italy’s most powerful families reaching all the way back to the Vatican itself. As Giovanni draws closer to the truth, he becomes hunted himself. He must expose the conspirators before he joins their ever growing list of victims. Lineage is the prequel to the Assassin’s Creed II story, revealing the machinations of 15th century Italy through the actions of Ezio’s father, Giovanni.

Prologue:
The game continues some time after the events of Assassin’s Creed, where Desmond is observing the cryptic messages written in blood, on his bedroom wall. Desmond’s prolonged exposure to the Animus has resulted in a “bleeding effect”, causing Desmond to take on his ancestor’s traits and abilities. Altaïr’s eagle vision allows Desmond to see the writing that has been washed away.

Story:

The game takes place several hours after Desmond views the cryptic message written in blood on his bedroom wall wall. [Start Spoiler Warning] Lucy Stillman suddenly arrives at Desmond’s cell, and quickly ushers him into the Animus. Desmond briefly experiences the birth of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, while Lucy makes a copy of the Animus’ memory. The two then proceed to escape Abstergo, to one of the Assassins’ hideouts. After being introduced to fellow modern Assassins Shaun and Rebecca.

Lucy explains that it’s just a matter of time before Abstergo finds them, and with their numbers dwindling, they require Desmond to assist them by becoming an Assassin. In order to do so, Lucy intends to train Desmond by exploiting the Animus’ bleeding effect, by absorbing years of experience within days. The Assassins have copied and created their own version of the Animus, labeled the Animus 2.0, and Desmond proceeds to enter Ezio’s life. [End Spoiler Warning]

Gameplay:
Assassin’s Creed’s gameplay is non linear meaning it takes place in an open world allowing you to freely roam within several regions throughout 15th century Italy. Some of the areas you can explore includes: Venice, Florence, and the Tuscan countryside. But some areas are still locked, until you have completed certain missions in the game before you can explore these places. Ubisoft also added a day and night cycle to the world of Assassin’s Creed 2, giving the game and events a sense of time. This also includes setting certain missions and events at certain times of the day, for a more realistic effect.

Ubisoft also made some improvements to the gameplay aspect, which included the eagle vision ability. This makes it easier for you, to identify specific people and landmarks in third-person view. There is also now a lot of new ways of hiding or blending into the city which includes: Diving underwater to break the line of sigh when being chased by enemies and hiding inside certain objects. The game also now features a notoriety system, with Ezio becoming more recognizable depending on your behavior, his location, and the current mission.

You can also reduce your amount of infamy by bribing people, removing wanted posters of yourself or assassinating corrupt officials. You also have a choice of now hiring some NPCs, to serve as a distraction, or to fight alongside you. You can also throw money to the ground to attract crowds, making it easier for you to throw off enemies following you. There are also several types of enemies, some more agile or stronger than others who will actually climb after you and follow you on the rooftops. So no more evading enemies just by quickly climbing up the side of a building.

The health system has been made more dynamic, with “memory synchronisation” only recovering a small amount of your health. More serious injuries require you visiting a street-side doctor for healing. The cities you visit also contain hidden locations such as catacombs and caves, and exploring these areas ventually rewards you with money and items. The Auditore family’s countryside villa acts as Ezio’s home space, and the surrounding area can be upgraded, which give you more money so spend on upgrading your equipment.

You also now have the option of doing side quests for friends, family members and government officials. There are roughly 200 missions in this game; one hundred are part of the main story of Assassins Creed II, while the other hundred are side quests. Doing these side quests provides you with extra items and income and also breaks up the game nicely when you get bored of doing the main quests in the game. It also gives you sometime to explore the massive world of Assassins Creed II.

Graphics:
The amount of graphical detail that has gone into this game is just jaw dropping; the cities are the stars, modeled with such much attention to detail that you could lose hours inside the game just jumping from roof to roof seeing all of the sights. But having said the character design is also nothing to sneeze at. Ezio and the other key characters are equally impressively brought to life, if there’s a slight issue it comes from the occasional odd-looking animation, and a bit of screen tearing every now and then. But I did not encounter it enough for it to become an annoyance or a distraction.

Sound:
Voice acting in Assassins Creed II is of the highest quality, too, with the different cast members all putting in believable performances that run from being emotional to downright funny. The game world feels alive and it adds an immeasurable amount to the experience as a whole, the same can be said about the music which gives you the distinct impression that you are finding yourself in 14th century Italy. This also adds immensely to the overall atmosphere of Assasins Creed II.

Overall:
This was my first encounter with the Assassins Creed franchise as I avoided the first game due to a lot of people telling me that it was rather repetitive in nature and bug ridden. But I am glad to report that I did not encounter any of those issues that people spoke about in the first game. I did encounter a well polished game that is worth every cent that I spent on it, and comes highly recommended to people new and old to the Assasins Creed franchise.

So I managed to pickup the Assasin`s Creed II CE (White Edition) for Xbox 360 this afternoon. So in the interest of anyone who was thinking of purchasing the CE here is some pictures of me Un-boxing it and some pictures of the figurine that comes along with it. I must say I am pretty impressed with the quality of the actual figurine that comes along with it, solidly build and good craftsmanship and loads of attention to the small details. And this is coming from someone who has been collecting for a couple of years.

The new screen shots shown on Microsoft’s Japanese page for No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise, shows that the Wii game has received a very noticeable upgrade in the visual department when it got ported to the Xbox 306 and PS3. Not that I am complaining I was getting nightmares about a badly ported game PC style, but considering I played and finished the game on the Nintendo Wii I can say the graphics is definitely a step up and simply looks amazing. The textures and lighting seem to have been improved quite a lot and I cant wait to see and play the final product, I am just wondering how the gameplay would translate without the Wii remote?

I had some Microsoft Points left after buying the expansions and dashboard theme for Dragon Age: Origins, so while browsing the “My Community” section of Xbox Live I came across the Assassins Creed Avatar items “Dress to Kill.” The t-shirts and hoodies are pretty much predictably bland, but for 400MSP a pop you can buy yourself two nice outfits Enzo outfits so I decided why not. Below is the two different outfits:

And here is a full body shot of my avatar wearing it.