Assassin's Creed II

[Guynemer]

I know there's a major controversy about AC2's copy protection, needing to be connected to the Net all the time while playing, etc.

My question--is the game itself good? I know the reviews were great, they all said it was better than the original. I want some honest Polytubbie opinion. The price has come down to $40 on Steam, and I want to know if it is worth that much, or if I should want the extra 12-24 months or so it'll take to come down to below $20.

[Al B. Sure!]

Have you played the original?

It's fairly short and I was kind of disappointed because when it was done, I was like, that's it? A bit of a downer considering there's no multiplayer or anything that would lengthen the life of the game. Once you beat it, I suppose you could go back and do all the side missions but it's not really worth it. The side missions are way better than in AC1 but still amount to your typical missions you see in all open-world games like GTA or Just Cause... go somewhere, do something (usual kill someone), there's a time element involved, and when you fail, you just do try again.

Now, you might get a kick out of just wandering around and the locales are pretty varied and look great (Venice during Carnival is cool). I liked wandering around in AC better than in GTA and there's these rune things that are scattered about that are optional to find but it encourages exploration.

Overall though, as someone who paid full price (with the xbox 360 premium $10 on games), I was kind of disappointed; the game is good and I enjoyed it but there isn't much replay value (compared to other non-story-based and/or multiplayer games like Civ, Starcraft, Madden, Call of Duty, etc. which have virtually unlimited hours of entertainment for the price).

If you're the type that values a single play-through as worth $40, then go ahead. But you'd get more bang for your buck with other types of games.

[Princess Peach]

I really liked the game personally. I got it when I was sick so I beat it in like 2 days but I enjoyed the story line and the way it tied up with the first one.

[DrSpike]

It's a solid game. Not my GOTY even for SP but I can see why it was so successful in awards as it's a decent blend of prince of persia type antics and some combat, with a few puzzles.

It is much too easy though. I didn't die during the game, except once when I fell off a very high church.

[Guynemer]

Think I'll wait for it to come into the $20 range.