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[IMG News]

Inside Mac Games has posted a new review of Ubisoft's Assassin’s Creed 2: Deluxe Edition. The game introduces an epic story of vengeance in Renaissance Italy which places gamers in the role of legendary assassin Ezio, a man on a mission to eliminate the Borgia menace.

Here's an excerpt from the review:

Eventually you will be able to recruit oppressed civilians into your cause as novice assassins. The more Borgia towers you remove, the more recruits you can have, for a total of 10. Each assassin can be leveled up by helping you in fights, or being sent off on missions to gain experience and gold. You can add to their weapons and armor, and eventually they can reach the full rank of Assassin. It's a fun, but light RPG mechanic. After you get 2 recruits or more, you gain assassin tokens, which you can use to target and call in your men to attack guards or anything in the way. With 6 recruits or more, you gain an Arrow storm ability, which can rain death upon any enemies in the area. The tokens have to recharge after every use, and arrow storm drains them all at once. The weapon and armor upgrades reflect in combat, you can even choose the color of their clothing. It's thrilling the first time you see other assassins join the fray, and it remains a useful mechanic throughout the game.

Check out the full review at the link below.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[prichardson]

I bought this game.  It crashed on launch every time.

[Wumpus]

What computer do you have?

I've been playing the game awhile, no crashes yet except once in multiplayer.

[Sargiel]

I've started playing this after picking it up on sale and it is a fun game. I wonder at the difficulty though as I've not been challanged to date (except by my own clumsiness in falling off some of the frustrating climbs!). But I like the assassin recruits feature and the environment is nice. Not sure it would be one I'd play through again but then I've still got AC2 which I haven't played yet

[Wumpus]

You should really play AC2 first. One for the story (since ACB picks up exactly where it ends) and also I think it would be hard (at least for me) to go back to AC2 after getting used to ACB's improved mechanics. Just my thoughts.

I realized there's a few things I failed to cover in the review. (I did write it at 2 AM, not the most awake) such as performance, more details on the upgrades and customizations for Ezio, and more on multiplayer modes. I've played a lot more MP after submitting the review and I still hold to what i say. Its incredibly fun and incredibly frustrating by turns. There's more game modes than I thought, such as Escort, Manhunt, Assassination, Alliance and Chest Capture. I only mentioned the main mode, Wanted, which is a free for all hunt and kill.

Escort is what it sounds like, basically you have to protect VIP  AI characters that walk around to checkpoints. Manhunt is a lot of fun, with 2 teams, one of hunters, one of prey. The prey can't kill the hunters, just stun them or escape so it makes it thrilling. Chest capture is like Manhunt, except the hunted team has to capture chests while staying hidden, as once again you can't kill the hunters. Alliance is interesting, with 3 teams total, its kind of like Escort, except one team is the VIP's, one the hunters, one the protectors. Hunters can kill VIP's but not protectors. Its an interesting mode that requires a lot of teamwork. Lastly Assassination is a very cool, but very difficult mode. Its like Wanted except you aren't assigned marks, you have to find and mark the other players yourself while avoiding getting marked. Its a much slower, tenser game as you have to spot the players between the AI look-a-likes. And as the game mechanics goes, you can't kill your attacker, only stun or escape. I found this mode difficult, perhaps because I'm not good at it, or perhaps because I was playing with a bunch of level 50 players who were obviously way way better than me.

My only real complaint with MP is the lack of any kind of lobby, or map selection, or game mode selection. It just randomly joins you to any available match or map, and the server seems to switch maps on its own accord. Once your in a game type, you're locked in it unless you quit and join the queue again to find a game type. It would be so much better if someone could change game-types or at least the map at will because you find a good group and you want to stay with them, but if you want to change gametypes/map you lose the group. There is a friend feature, which would help with that, but its still clunky. You can search for specific gametypes in Ranked matches, but there never seems to be anyone playing those.

That being said performance wise its runs great on iMacs, probably scales well on older one's I would think. I can max everything on mine without any lag, so can't say. As ever Ubisoft games are terrible on laptops, so probably best to avoid it if your not on a desktop. I know AC2 and SC: Conviction do not run well at all on laptops, even good one's. Probably safe to assume ACB is along the same lines.

[Sargiel]

Hmm I might nip back to AC2 then before I get too far into the story. Thanks for the additional review comments - very interesting as I haven't played with any of the multiplayer features yet.