I'm not sure at which point we turned as a society to get to the point where playing a game about assassinating people was cool. When you think about it, that's actually pretty dark. Oh well, glad it did at any rate, the sequel's finally here and ready for the little Ninjas to take a ganders at the colour of it's giblets.

Excellent.

Assassin's Creed 2 is the sequel to the mostly acclaimed Assassin's Creed, which promised it's audience a beautiful experience of Free Running death-dealing. For the most part it delivered admirably and was fun to play – unfortunately it was somewhat let down by the repetitive nature of how the side quests and assassinations were presented. Luckily the sequel rectified a lot of the issues which had previously aggravated the fan base.

While AC2 largely revolves around the animus once more, rather than revisiting Altaïr, the sequel sees you don the roll of an Italian noble named Ezio Auditore da Firenze (if you want to pontificate his full title). Ezio turns assassin, like his father, after his family is framed and murdered at the hands of what turns out to be a political plot involving the Templars once more.

We're plunged straight back into the Assassin's Creed world with Ezio and it's not long before he's walking the walk; ready to kick some. While the environments are of a similar ilk to it's predecessor, there's certainly more variety to be seen – and they're just as pretty. Of course, added to that is what made Assassin's Creed famous in the first place (other than Jade... sigh) by introducing us to probably one of the best Free Running animation systems at that point. I say “animation system” as ultimately it's not as interactive as it could be with simply holding down a button. Nevertheless it's still impressive to see in action, even when the likes of Infamous use a very similar system in their game.

Assassin's Creed 2 is based around Venice and other parts of Italy, which I'm sure made for a very beautiful city to visit and base the level design on – it certainly did to play through. It seemed to give them quite a nice variance between one location and another; from the almost marsh infected Forcì to the warm, romantic Venice – not to mention AC2 introducing a night and day system. Of course DaVinci turns up to be your buddy with his famous knowledge of gadgets and gizmo's he becomes Q to your Bond. It does open them up quite nicely for creating a few missions that aren't just about stabbing the next victim on the list. At one point ol' Leo needs rescuing which sees you steering a wagon precariously through the mountains. Then of course there's a well known set piece with his “Flying Machine”. Breaking up the monotony of it's predecessor was a good way to go.

Wandering around the rooftops, listening to a diverse and beautiful score and the sound of my feet traipsing over the tiles, I had to admit the immersion was top notch so far. Due to the sheer amount of water involved with a city like Venice they've allowed for travelling around on boat, and even swimming this time... although you're the only one who can swim, strangely, so it usually becomes either a great way to escape a situation or get your fellow colleagues killed. Still, I make the point about escaping a situation using water, which comes across as desperate, particularly when you have so many other ways to either kill your aggressor or get the hell out of there.

The city life in each city varies to some degree, but generally keeps them well populated enough to be hazardous if being chased by the guards. Still, you can turn this to your advantage in Assassin's Creed 2 with new gameplay dynamics they've introduced. You could throw some coins down (particularly useful when dealing with the bloody muses that run up to you and start going off on one about your escapades) causing the crowd to rush out, hopefully getting in the way of the guards. You could meld with a crowd by simply standing with them or hire a group to help you deal with them (courtesans, thieves, fighters etc).

Hiring groups to distract or attack the guards is certainly useful useful in tricky situations, but hanging around in a group has the added bonus of making you anonymous to guards looking out for dodgy looking characters. Failing that, you've got knifes, swords, throwing knifes, poison, smoke bombs, armour and more at your disposal. Not only that but 2 wrist-blades – because 1 just wasn't fast enough. So yes, multiple take-downs this time around and not just from behind them: from beneath ledges, hiding in carts and jumping off walls to boot.

Walking around like the archaic equivalent of Rambo makes for an easier game, certainly. I think I only actually died once and that was from falling off a building (one of those leap-of-faith-gone-wrong moments). He can, at the end of the day, take a real beating from the guards and can fall from a height that would have most in a decent length coma. What's more, with all the armour upgrades and health potions you can buy (you can end up carrying up to 15 that restore roughly half your full amount of hit-points each), there's very little you can do wrong that a quick fix won't sort out. Even if you get to the point of being surrounded by guards and find yourself out of smoke bombs, it's extremely likely that you'll kill everything that moves through the simple dynamic of dodging and countering (something overly used in the first Assassin's Creed). If anything, the only penalty you suffer other that failing and restarting a mission is having to repair your armour from one of the many, readily available shops dotted around the city.

If you decide that killing everything in your way is how you want to play the game, there's no penalty other than becoming more infamous. The more infamy you have, the quicker guards will be alerted to your presence, although that's probably what you wanted in the first place. It's a good little system to at least try and steer a player in the right gameplay direction – assassin's are supposed to be stealthy. If infamy starts to get a little tiresome you can lower it by ripping down posters (located in some rather random locations), killing officials or bribing town criers. It's almost a side mission in it's own right. Regardless of whether you let infamy slow you down or not it rarely stops you feeling like a force to be reckoned with.

Like the first, Assassin's Creed 2 makes you feel like a right badass. Except the sequel wants to hit it's younger brother on the arm and make it cry. This is perhaps what makes some of the side missions seem so tame in comparison. After a hard day's work Ezio liked to race horses around the city, explore cathedrals and invest his hard earned money in his uncles villa... doesn't exactly sound like the man who just killed 20 men in an effortless display of gruesome violence.

Not to say that I'm not glad they've done these side missions I must confess. It was a particular gripe of mine that these missions were dull and repetitive in the first game, so giving them a spring clean for the sequel is a real bonus. Investing money in the villa brings a steady income back to your own personal stash which you can collect (one of the main sources of income next to completing missions, searching bodies and pick-pocketing). It also means that your base of operations, as it were, has all the facilities you'll need on a regular basis and provide you with a discount for investing in them. There's also a bunch of assassination, courier and beat-em-up side missions to fill your time. “Searching cathedrals” was a reference to the Assassin's Tombs, of which there are 6, containing seals that unlock a special set of armour back at your villa. While for the most part these tombs are an interesting side gig, they also contain some of the most frustrating bits of the game – the equation of which is surmised as Free Running + Camera Angle = 360 Controller Thrown in Random Direction x Pi.

At least finding the cathedrals, or anything of importance for that matter, is as easy as it was last time with a map that is 90% efficient and 10% lacking... I say 10% lacking as the ability to zoom into other areas you've visited would've been an absolute gem when doing a particular collection quest towards the end of the game – which is mandatory. Still, while Codex Pages might be a bit of a pain, it's nothing in comparison to the usual collection quest. This time, should you wish, 100 feathers are dotted around the world for you to find that'll open up a couple of rewards (1 at 50 feathers and the other at 100). Apart from these, there is one of interest. Around each city are a few glyphs to find, which in turn reveal short movie sequences. Once you have decoded all glyphs you can watch the entire sequence, which reveals quite a dramatic shift in storyline – something you'll end up discovering by the end of the game anyway (the only major plot twist), but it's still quite an innovative way of approaching and unlock.

Yes, there's a plot twist at the end of the game. You know it's bound to happen, but I doubt you'll be expecting what they throw at you. I had to sit around for 5 minutes afterwards thinking... well, thinking “buh?” mostly as they'd given very little indication up to this point that it was the direction they were going in. I think I decided in the end that I approve, but this is mainly down to the fact that it's quite the controversially religious twist and I reckon we should do anything to give those stuffy religious types a nudge in the right philosophical direction.

Hey, this opens it up for a sequel... as we'd also expect. I'm still well up for it, baring in mind that while really enjoying the first title it wasn't without flaws. The downsides of the first Assassin's Creed have certainly been addressed in it's sequel and while it's hard to completely polish a game of this scope, Ubi have done an admiral job of keeping me a fan of the series.