I would love to say that I have been very busy doing important stuff and that my blog has been relegated to the sidelines for good reason but that is a load of bollocks. Not much has been happening over the past month and a bit and whilst I am kicking myself for not writing at least something, particularly with the upcoming 3.3 WoW patch and Assassin's Creed 2 (which I will get onto in a moment) the simple fact is I have been lazy.

Now onto important stuff. I have recently decided to move my base of operations from Australia to the UK. This simply translates into "I am moving overseas people!!" The UK is somewhere I have always wanted to go and now with a degree in my pocket along with cash, a recently acquired British passport and booked flights, I have everything I need to go from the land of sunshine and beaches to the land of cold and drizzle. I leave Feb 3rd at near midnight and in a twist of fate, won't have half my family seeing me off as they will have left for NZ at 8am that morning. So it's going to be interesting seeing myself out of Australia.

Next I have sold a great many of my belongings but in particular my entire computer system has been sold off. Thankfully my externals which have saved my hide on more than one occasion along with my laptop, are serving as my link to the net and World of Warcraft. It's not ideal but with the strong likelihood of a new laptop around Christmas, the set up should serve me well.

Onto Assassin's Creed 2. I won't say too much as I will be writing a full review at some point in the very near future. I should finish the game in the next few days and am eagerly looking forward to writing the review as I really enjoyed the first game despite criticism from "professionals" and so far the sequel is a lovely improvement. 

Finally as part of a measure to save some extra cash, I will be moving back into my parent's place until I leave the country. Unfortunately this means I have no way of avoiding a family Christmas and you may quickly notice future posts turning into drunken slurs thanks to me being half bombed 24 hours a day. 

When the first Creed came out, there was a large amount of criticism surrounding the game. Many people complained that the game was very repetitive and the combat left a lot to be desired. I, despite somewhat agreeing with those points, didn't feel that the game deserved what it got. Yes, it had some rough edges but overall the quality of excellent. Now with the release of Assassin's Creed 2, is the game able to comeback from being so viciously knocked to the ground. 

Put simply...yes. The repetitiveness that plagued the first game has been lessened greatly due to the introduction of a much needed story in order to drive the game along. The first game relied heavily upon a mystery in order to drive the game along, and it did the job fine. But with the a large chunk of the mystery gone at the end of the first game, an actual story was needed to drive the game and this has led to much less repetitive game play.

This time around, the protagonist, Desmond Miles, uses the animus to travel back into the memories of his late 14th century ancestor, Ezio Auditore, a young man who after witnessing the murder of his family, goes on a missions of vengeance, becoming the next Assassin. 

As Ezio is getting his revenge, he is picking up allies on the way however the speed at which this is done is somewhat remarkable. Within 5 minutes of meeting someone, he is already out on missions to kill someone his friends don't like. The end justifies the means is one thing however it seems that Ezio is more serial killer than avenger. The game heavilies features locations and characters around 14th century Italy with Leonardo Da Vinci making a cameo appearance. The end comes with his final vengeance and a cliffhanger ending leaving the player going WTF? Although this is somewhat ruined during the credits which explain the WTF moment and then going on to say.. "insert sequel here".

Whilst the repetitiveness has been minimised its not gone completely. As with many open world games there are side missions surrounding the ideas of assassinations (as if he needed any more) races, mail deliveries and beating up some adulterous husband and whilst you don't actually have to do any of them, it is someone what enjoyable to do them anyway.

Combat has been somewhat improved with a larger array of weapons to use and as the game progresses you are able to get more and more powerful weapons. However the same AI has been ported from the old game so despite how many enemies there are, they will happily attack only to be countered and eventually killed. The disarm method is also somewhat overpowered. Aside from only a few enemies, stealing a baddies weapon is remarkable easily and they will quickly die at your hands without challenge. 

The parkour element remains strong in this game as it did in its predecessor and running and climbing over rooftops is as enjoyable as ever. The cities are all beautifully rendered and whilst some may criticise the view when the camera gets up close and personal, a quick climb to the top of a tower and you'll forget all about it.

An economy feature has also been added with a city being essentially given to you by your uncle. You look after it, polishing off the rough edges and building the city up and in return you're given money back. However I believe a little more time could have been spent on this because very quickly my city was fully upgrade and quickly had more money than I knew what to do with. It is somewhat enjoyable not to have to wait until the very end to fully upgrade my city but some balancing really is needed. 

Overall the game is a remarkable improvement over its predecessor. The creators didn't break what was working fine and they instead listened and fixed what the audience thought was broken. It's took the one step forward without taking the two steps back.