Games of the Generation #7 - Assassin's Creed II

Fly like an eagle

If there's one thing that Assassin's Creed II can teach us, it's that games need character to become great. The first game in the series was a fascinating tech demo that was hollow at its core. It underused its compelling setting and what ultimately resulted was a fascinating advanced world that was drab, dry and possessed little real reason to become invested.

Given that, the opening of Assassin's Creed II feel like a defiant statement. After spending the entirety of the first game trapped in a sterile white laboratory, you're broken out in rapid order and introduced to a crew of actual, genuine characters who are funny, arrogant and, most importantly, recognisably human. And that's just in the real world. Once you plunge back into the digital reality of the Animus, you're reincarnated (via a fantastically daft 'birthing' sequence) as the Italian nobleman Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and now it's time for the party to start.

What Assassin's Creed II remembers that it's predecessor (and some of its successors) forgot was that even if you've got the biggest, most technologically advanced world ever, it's nothing without some semblance of life. So instead of the bleached greens and greys of medieval Acre, we're dropped instead into the vivid blast of the Italian Renaissance, perhaps the most fascinating period in all of history, and weaved into a tale of revenge, discovery, comedy, family and, most importantly, effortless adventure. Assassin's Creed II dances between the raindrops of history while only occasionally getting wet, twisting its mad premise into actual events with barely surpassed glee. It's an unabashedly Hollywood version of history and all the better for it, sweeping da Vinci, Machiavelli, Borgia and Medici alike into the same stew as ancient aliens and Adam and Eve, and climaxing in one of the most memorably jaw-dropping endings in all of gaming. Seriously, it was great.

But it's also a world that's alive in other ways, one filled with glorious scenery and fun, diverting missions. Whether you're scaling Il Duomo and watching the birds soar, or jumping post to post down the torchlit canals of Venice hunting feathers, it's a world which feels at once both a place in time and history, and a playground of near limitless potential This is a game which is equally at home as a breezy history tour or a rollicking chase scene, as a complex platformer or a sneaky stealth sim. It tries to be all things to all people, and gets a damn sight closer than you'd think. Above all it's a game supremely confident in its ability to dazzle and entertain. A game which gives you not only your sandbox, not only all the toys you'll need, but does so with a winning smile and an elegant flourish. Just like Ezio, it's got style and substance.