Assassin's Creed II

It is officially safe to say that I am now falling back into the "hype" of things. Even while knowing that falling for such hype can be a double edged sword, in that there is a chance that the game in question cannot live up to what it was made out to be. I just cannot help myself...

And yet here I go again, drooling over a sequel that promises the world. This time I am falling to the hype that is Assassin's Creed 2.

I will make this fact no secret to the world: I enjoyed the heck out of the first game. Surely it was far from being perfect, but the freedom to move and kill as you pleased was far too alluring for me to ignore.

No, I am not crazed murder freak. I simply appreciated the sheer scale of the world, not to mention the fact that there was a pretty good and mysterious story throughout (the main character in modern times was a little odd though). The only pitfall to the game, at least for me, came in due part because of the lack of variety. My interest eventually fell off because the missions repeat themselves after the first city and really, the only side quest stuff you could do was find a crazy number of flags or hunt down the Templar knights. The latter becomes boring later on, when Altair gets more abilities because the field is more then leveled.

Well, the promise here is major expansion on what made the original so good and I am falling for it, hook, line and sinker.

One interesting change is the addition of a second "hidden" blade. I assume that means you can now assassinate twice as many people. Or maybe there will be some new and unique ways to utilize both? Hmmm...

Along the same subject, now you don't even have to select the blade to assassinate someone. Just find a unsuspecting victim and ta-da! Dead. Easy, no?

What gets my interest more so is the fact that the many nuisances that plagued the first game are being addressed here. More missions, more ways to assassinate, more weapons to choose from and just more of everything really!

Funny note: This time, the assassin can swim (unlike the first game, where you fall into the water and it's game over. Made me wonder why these "bad guys" didn't just jump on a boat and float out to sea...) and at least you have more ways of cutting down your notoriety in the cities rather then just assassinate, run and hide.

Okay, now I may not have made the best sense just then, but believe me when I say that I am already counting down the days until November 17 comes. That is the day when I become an assassin again!

Er, well... sort of.