Assassin's Creed 2

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/digital ... eo?size=hd

Nom nom nom!

Finally got to Venice and even though its been great so far, then its kinda what I've been waiting for all along, and its pretty fucking sweet. Finding myself pissing off soldiers just to get some intense chases going . Plus I have maaad respect for the pathfinder in this game, the AI's might fuck up once in a while, but overall its amazing to see them find their way to you.

Oh and I'm really digging the soundtrack, Jesper Kyd FTW

Started playing it a few days ago and just can't put it down. Fantastic improvement over the first game in just about every way. Some of the free running movements and controls seem a bit wiggy at times, but nothing to write home about, and, at first, the texture/shadow pop-in on the PS3 was mighty annoying, but I barely notice it anymore (first one had the same problem on 360) Other than that, I really have no complaints at all.

Now dammit, Furyo! You and your Ubi crew stop celebrating and get crackin' on the third one already!

The fuck man?! ah ah

Haha, reminds me of an area of Tomb Raider Underworld, with a giant squid blocking some path, also some crypt looking area

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I reached Rome yesterday, I figure I'm pretty much done now and I had hoped that Rome would actually be the entire city, but my gamer sense (aka common sense

) said that given how the story was winding down then it'd probably be some linear level and not an explorable one, and looking at the map it certainly looks like that. But that's totally understandable, pretty grand scale the game has either way. Stopped playing there tho as it was getting kinda late.

Definitely one of the best games of the year in my opinion, good job Furyo

I've been playing this for a while now and I gotta say it's so much better than AC1, I love it so far!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/17/you-maniacs/

Update on the DRM they're using for the PC launch of AC2. Requires you to be connected to ubisoft server at all times during gameplay.

wow thats lame... I was excited :{ now i am not because my internet likes to cut off alot.

That is going to be the lamest thing to happen to a pc game in a long while.

Didn't Ubi learn their lesson from the StarForce fiasco a few years back? I'm sorry, but I'm really starting to think that they're purposefully crippling their PC games to enrage PC gamers into boycotting them resulting in lower sales so that way they can stop developing PC games, claiming it's "not profitable enough".

In short: fuck you, Ubi. Fuck. You.

I'll still buy it when it comes out, but Furyo with all the respect, I will crack that DRM. No way I'm staying 100% connected to ubi's servers through my gameplay.

I thought publishers had already realized that DRM's work the OTHER way around it's supposed to?

Why is everyone trying to fuck with the PC gamers?! why?

wow... don't want to sound like a smart ass, but that's exactly the discussion we had in frankfurt. even the most appreciating players will turn the back on buying that game now because it's easier accesable if you go to a torrent page. Why the fuck would a company do that? 90% of your customer base are steam-registered users. IF you really want to do some kind of Day-0-Protection and Online-Check, then use that (it's free after all). An own Ubisoft Spyware is even more annoying than the additional Games for Windows Live...

That is madness. With wireless networks used so often nowadays which cut out quite a bit, huge problems are inevitable.

Why is Valve the only company that seems to understand the way to get people to embrace DRM and buy games is to offer them stuff they like rather than shoving in shit they hate?

heh I held a presentation about digital distribution at uni recently, which sums up my view on this. Even without the talk, you get the idea from the slides: http://prezi.com/qfit53elhrsv/

I've been talking to some friends who've pirated the game and checked up on the torrent sites to see what what and it seems the game is indeed NOT cracked. A person who's downloaded it can get in-game, but once they first get into the Animus, they get a white screen forever. The only way to get past this is finding a save that's already beaten the game and put it in your save folder, but at that point, it's pointless playing cause everything is unlocked, can't play the story missions, etc. You can just run around and kill people. So, sure it is getting pirated, but they certainly can't play it right. Has to be one of the first games in a long while that hasn't been cracked already a week after release. Though the "always have to be connected to the Internet" is annoying to paying customers, it seems to be working to detract pirates from playing, not pirating. Ubisoft might be on to something here. They only need to find a way to not have to be always connected to play an SP game and should be good, though that'll be probably hard since it's probably one of the key points of the DRM for SP games at least.

Personally, I'll probably be purchasing it at some point when a slight price drop comes to the game, but the being always connected to the internet doesn't bother me so much. People were complaining about the Ubi servers going down and such (which was cause of DDoS attacks of pirates and whiners :roll:), but they seem to forget Steam was exactly the same back with HL2's launch and such. It took it a while for to get where it's at. Also, when you think about it. Steam as a DRM is not that different from Ubi's solution. I mean, yeah, people defend Steam by saying there's offline mode, but honestly when has that ever worked? It worked 1 out of 3 times and only just recently they fixed it to work 100% (haven't checked though). Before even playing a game on Steam it has to be authenticated on the internet and when newer games get released, it happens that you can't even access your SP games because it says "This game is unavailable right now. Please try again later." or not to mention that for non Valve games, you sometimes get the patch much later than the rest of the internet. Steam isn't perfect, but we've come to live with it and love it since it's been here so long, it's grown on us and is pretty convenient despite it's few hiccups. In the end, I'd say give Ubisoft's DRM solution time to grow. It can't get everything right, right off the bat.

(Sorry for bumping, but got into an argument about this with a couple of friends at school and it got me thinking about it and I was thinking we could further discuss it here. They were pretty adamant about Steam being a godsend and weren't listening at all to what I was saying :/)

Personally I see it as a waste of time for Ubisoft to make the uplay system when Steam does everything (and more) that uplay was intended to achieve... Steam functions as DRM (and it's not invasive or annoying), Steam Cloud can sync saved games and game settings, can handle achievements, DLC, it automatically patches games... not to mention the community backing, and the fact they were distributing it via Steam anyway.

Don't see the need for every publisher to have a propriety antipiracy/achievements/sync system when there's a big one sitting there waiting to be used.

On the topic of the game itself, after waiting months and months for the PC release, was slightly disappointed. Same great gameplay, but it lacked the spirit of the first game. I think the creed itself was mentioned once near the end of the game, and it was just a loose reference. Ezio isn't likable as a character, freaking clueless about everything yet somehow knowledgeable of assassin skills. Altair was egotistical, but his journey to regain himself made him personable. Ezio just goes and decides to kill people out of revenge. And then

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THE SUN IS GOING TO KILL US ALL? WHAT?

. I liked the AC1 story a lot. It had meaning. AC2 not so much.

In the end, seemed like the formula for the sequel was AC1 combat + boobies + boobies + RPG elements + boobies = sales. Which is probably true, but disappointing nonetheless.

However, the environments were spectacular. Just with Carnival took up a larger portion of the storyline. Was great.

I'm currently paying for my internet access by the minute via a city Wi-Fi hotspot (in my home, phone line isn't connected yet), so I'd personally say go fuck yourself to any game that needs a constant connection.

Quote from Nineaxis

On the topic of the game itself, after waiting months and months for the PC release, was slightly disappointed. Same great gameplay, but it lacked the spirit of the first game. I think the creed itself was mentioned once near the end of the game, and it was just a loose reference. Ezio isn't likable as a character, freaking clueless about everything yet somehow knowledgeable of assassin skills. Altair was egotistical, but his journey to regain himself made him personable. Ezio just goes and decides to kill people out of revenge. And then

. I liked the AC1 story a lot. It had meaning. AC2 not so much.

Yeah, the story really took a turn for the WTF at the end. AC1 kind of did, but then AC2 saw the line of believability and broke out into wind sprints when it hit the line, and just kept going.