Assassin's Creed 2 Review

Roof hopping wop stabs his way around Renaissance Italy. That’s all you need to know about the plot. The finer details of the storyline simply distract from the fun. If you want to ponder the existential implications of prolonged exposure to virtual worlds then go watch The Matrix.

Assassin’s Creed 2, stripped of its confusing narrative, is simply a big old climbing frame. The whole of Italy is your parkour-friendly playground upon which you are encouraged to free-run until the soles of your feet bleed. Every last square inch of concrete can be clambered up, swung from, and jumped off. You see that eagle soaring above that impossibly high cathedral tower? You can go and stroke him if you fancy it.

And while you’re up there why not take in the view. The town stretches out for miles in all directions, a boxy maze of rooftops and sky. The hectic hustle and bustle of the streets below are muted by the whooshing of the wind in your ears. You can spend hours without your feet ever touching the ground, simply watching the world go by. It’s intoxicating stuff. But it's the violence where Assassin's Creed 2 really shines.

Bloody murder is woven into every thread of the game. From the brutal intimacy of a hidden-blade gut-stab to the epic frenzy of warring factions, Assassin’s Creed 2 spills claret by the gallon. Murdered parents, horribly botched assassination attempts, religious genocide – it’s all here. Nothing censored, nothing hidden. And I can’t recall any other video game in history that shows the public execution of a young boy. The last video game taboo – the killing of children – has now been broken. How the Daily Mail missed that one I’ll never know.

It’s ambitious then, in both scale and subject matter. Possibly the most ambitious game of its generation. And it rarely places a foot wrong. The transition from balletic urban athlete to deadly assassin is seamless. You’re never impeded by poor level design or muddled controls. Canny visual cues - pigeons indicate jump off points for those stunning leaps of faith, while anything draped in a white sheet signifies the starting spot for a free-run – mean you never have to stop and think about which button to push next. It’s natural, free flowing and awesomely empowering.

For all its intuitive brilliance though, Assassins Creed 2 does have its faults. Missions where you shadow a specific target can be extremely slow-paced and tedious. Towards the end of the game you’ll have accumulated a huge mountain of cash. Having already purchased everything you'll ever need a fair while back, your accrued wealth is now entirely useless. It just keeps on piling up - a grotesque parody of our bank accounts in the real world. And it’s just a tad on the easy side too. Yes, it’ll take you a good solid week to complete, triple that time if you decide to collect all the feathers, treasure chests and hieroglyphs, but you’ll rarely find yourself suffering a fatal blow from a guard’s sword. But, again, maybe that’s just down to the solid controls.

The biggest bugbear for many however will be the game’s lethargic start. Indeed AC2 takes its own sweet time to get going. You can blame the devs for the slow pacing. In their desire for the player to spend more time with Ezio as a carefree adolescent, they’ve created an intro devoid of incident. The action hungry gamer is left champing at the bit in frustration – 'JUST GET ON WITH IT FOR FUCK’S SAKE!'

Not me though. Some of our best loved games have been slow burners. Take Ocarina Of Time. It took a fair old while for our hero Link to leave Kokiri Village and face the epic splendour of Hyrule Field. In many ways AC2 is the spiritual successor to the Ocarina Of Time: Galloping over vast green fields on a tireless stallion; locking onto enemies before clashing swords; plundering loot from beautifully designed dungeons, or simply watching the rising sun burn the morning mist away – AC2 ticks many of the boxes that made Miyamoto’s offering an instant classic.

So then, game of the year? For me, yes. In fact I’d go so far as to say Assassin’s Creed 2 is the best single player experience of this generation. Go buy. Now.

And, yes, that sarky English twat is indeed Danny Wallace.