Hey all I’m back with a true classic game from the last generation of consoles for this week’s Retro Game Friday! It’s Assassin’s Creed 2!

Plot Synopsis: After the events of Assassin’s Creed, test subject Desmond Miles is rescued from confinement by undercover Assassin Lucy Stillman and taken to a remote safe house, where he meets her team, consisting of historian and analyst Shaun Hastings and technician Rebecca Crane. Using design plans stolen by Lucy, they have constructed their own version of the Animus, dubbed “Baby”, which they intend to use to train Desmond as an Assassin through the so-called “Bleeding Effect”. Desmond is assigned to investigate the memories of his ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze, starting with his birth to a wealthy Florentine family in the late 15th century.

Plot: The plot of this entry was excellent, and really brought the series around to the mainstream audience more than it’s predecessor. I enjoyed the hell out of all the mysteries and intrigue that goes on in this game, it’s a shame that it’s not as prevalent in more recent games.

Characters: Desmond is still around, and he’s not as much of a tool as he was in the last game. Ezio was quite fun to play as, but my favorite character was DaVinci hands down. I loved his humor.

Gameplay: This game is probably one of the best entries in the entire series, it’s got an excellent combat system that allows players to infinitely chain counter attacks if they are skilled enough to do so. This was easily abusable, but it was really quite a bit of fun. Everything else was much better than the first game, with the missions being less frustrating, although there are some that still really frustrating.

Art: It’s aged poorly, but they did just release an updated port to the latest generation of consoles along with Brotherhood and Revelations.

Music: Excellent, not much else I can say.

Overall: This is probably one of the best games Ubisoft has ever made, it’s the bar by which almost everything is measured for them.