Let me get this straight: You hate sidequests a repetitive bullshit, yet you like Assassin's Creed 1 over Assassin's Creed 2?zelda2fanboy said:(Rant incoming)
From the reviews I've read, people seem to be of the belief that Assassin's Creed 1 was more of a flawed experiment, whereas Assassin's Creed 2 is the fully thought out game. I was even going to skip the first one, but since both were on sale on PSN, I downloaded both just so I didn't miss out on the story. I could see a lot of the technical complaints in the first title, especially the screen tearing and the framerate problems. I also didn't like the ending, when suddenly you can't hit certain characters and the only way you could beat them was by countering over and over again. The final boss was especially cheap since you had to do something like five counters in a row, and if you messed up, you had to do it all over again. Then the game just ended with him looking through glyphs in the lab. It was very lame. Overall, I liked the game a lot, though. The idea of sneaking into a city, gaining the trust of the citizens, investigating the targets, forming a plan, and utilizing resources. There was more than one way to execute a mission, like Hitman 2, only less cryptic.
So I hurried up and decided to check out the second game, since I liked the first one so much. The first problem was that they kept introducing more and more collectibles, sidequests, items, and minigames. Then I didn't like Ezio. Before we had a conflicted complicated character, but in this game we have a typical Disney male protagonist. He's handsome, he's out for revenge, and he'll do anything anyone tells him to do. I also didn't like the way they changed Kristen Bell's character from a stern and mysterious lab assistant to sexy badass killer, and gave her two stereotypes for assistants. Oh, a caustic Englishman. Oh, a butch Joan Jett wannabe who loves technobabble. Never seen one of those on the CSIs and NCISs before. The story missions were incredibly straight forward. There's no room for experimentation or planning. You pretty much have to do exactly what the designers intended you to do. The graphics don't have the screen tearing like the first one, but it has ridiculous amounts of pop in and textures flicker constantly. It's distracting, especially when this is supposed to be the superior title.
Considering the title of the game is Assassin's Creed, it's frustrating that it's been two hours since I've done anything relating to assassination. I just got through a part where I had to play capture the flag and time trials to win a golden mask. Just kill the guy and take it! There was also a problem in the first game of Altair not always cooperating with me when he was climbing. I thought they'd fix this in the second game, but instead they added way more ledges and platforms, making it worse. There are even timed platforming sections of the game that are maddening because he won't do what you tell him to do. Then you have to do the whole thing over again. I home alone right now, so you can imagine the obscenities that are flying at the TV.
I started playing these games because I wanted to catch up by the time Revelations came out, but it seems like there were too many cooks in the kitchen (to borrow a Yahtzee sentiment), all randomly throwing vegetables and ingredients into the pot, so it doesn't taste like anything resembling what it should be. Does Brotherhood fix this in any capacity? Or is it more sidequests and pointless repetitive bullshit?
Am I missing something or is this opposite day?
Need I remind you that 90% of every mission in AC1 was one of three or more repetitive side-quests in order to actually get to the assassinations?
In terms of gameplay AC2 bushwhacks AC1, mostly because assassination is something that occurs quite often. I remember one stage early on where you had to kill something like 5 separate guys in just one city, each in their own unique way. You try and do just one assassination in AC1 you have to do one whole hour of pick-pocketing someone, beating someone up, or running around in order to "prove yourself" to someone else to get to it.
Not to mention the combat. In AC1 all you can really do in terms of moves in cqc is the counter, which becomes a necessity later on where it's the only way to kill people. In AC 2 you physically can't just do that because there are enemies who will completely ignore that ability (heavies and spear wielders) so for once you have to use strategy to beat large crowds rather than just a good reaction time for that RT + X (or RT + [] if you're playing the PS3)
As for Ezio, yes he's brash and disneyesque, but then again, he's a kid who has spent his whole life doing nothing but having fun. His reaction to what happened to him is totally normal considering the circumstances, especially in that day and age.
However, as the game progresses further on, he cares less about simply revenge, and more about the greater cause of the Assassins due to the events that unfurl in the game (not mentioning them so as to not ruin it for you). It's actually some very nice character evolution. Seriously he starts out headstrong and idealistic, but ends up a calm and cool professional, very much like Altair. All that time that takes for Ezio to first do an assassination is simply laying down the foundations.
So don't buck the games until you've played thought the whole thing.