Introduction

Overview –
The Plot
In the year 2012, Desmond Miles is being held prisoner by the Knights Templar (who operate in society under the name of Abstergo Industries) and is forced to use a device known as the Animus, which can tap in to a subject's "genetic memories". Essentially, it can be used to create some pseudo-VR replaying of an ancestor's life. Desmond is forced to relive the genetic memories of his ancestor, Altaïr (who was an Assassin – a member of the order that opposes the Templars), in order to find out more about some seemingly magical artifacts known as "Pieces of Eden". These artifacts have been largely missing for years, but, in the end, the Templars get what they want: a map showing exactly where the Pieces of Eden were resting in 1191AD. Desmond has outlived his usefulness, but, for the moment, he is left alone.

After this development, Desmond finds that he is suffering a side-effect from extended Animus use: the "bleeding effect". It can essentially be seen as Desmond's psyche merging with his ancestor's, through the genetic memory experiences. There are benefits to this, but long-term exposure eventually leads to mental scarring and insanity. As a result of this effect, Desmond finds he is able use a power of Altaïr's known as "eagle vision", which gives him enhanced eyesight. This allows him to see a number of hidden messages within his cell, which were indicated to have been left by the room's former occupant, "Subject 16". The game begins almost immediately after the first one ended, as Desmond tries to make sense of this.

Miscellaneous
Prior to the game's release, Ubisoft did all sorts of semi-gimmicky stuff to hype it up or draw people in. Bloodlines (PSP), which bridged the stories of AC1 and AC2, was released around the same time, and it had unlockable stuff for the PS3 version of AC2 if the PSP was sync'd to the system itself. If the cell phone game was purchased, you could navigate on the main menu to some code, which could be used in-game to unlock a special outfit dye (which looks pretty cool). Unfortunately, neither of these will be in the LP since I am on the 360, and this code is evidently not being circulated nowadays. Weird stuff.

Another thing in particular was a teaser live action movie which sets the stage for the game. Watching it isn't really mandatory, nor is it loaded with spoilers; it just gets you more on-board with how things start up in the plot once we start playing as our protagonist

It was released leading up to AC2 hitting the market, so it's pretty safe if you've got time to kill.

The LP's Structure –
In General
In AC1, I made pretty frequent use of jump-cuts. Given how AC2 actually spoon-feeds you zones to some extent, I won't be doing this quite as much. Once traversing a certain route gets repetitive, however, I'll definitely edit it out. I'll try my best to keep you guys from experiencing the irritating stuff! On the topic of unlockables and such, I'll be gunning for 100% (except for looting all chests in-game. They don't count toward this). Also, we'll be going through the DLC expansions later on.

The Commentary
I like the history in these games, so I'll be sperging out regular-like

A few episodes will have a history segment of varying lengths accompanying it. Also, if I misspeak on something, feel free to correct me. Nobody is perfect, and I'm sure as heck not an exception to that rule! As evidenced by the second episode, my pronunciation of Italian is probably horrendous. My condolences to any Italian-speaking goons.

"Whoa, what the heck was that? A QTE?"

Cutscenes occasionally have a QTE-like event. They don't have any meaningful impact on the game or story, but some of them are worth a chuckle (or soul-crushing in one instance). With that in mind, I'll be showing failed and successful versions of each case, back-to-back. The failed versions will always be the first shown, and they'll be indicated by a red Abstergo icon in the corner (which will disappear after a few moments). Once the results of the botched scene have been shown, the video will transition back to just before the QTE gimmick, which will be done successfully. These instances will be marked with a silver Assassin icon in the corner. We will see a number of these scenes early on, but they get really spread out not too far in. Ubisoft got spotty on this front, I guess.

The Let's Play Archive

Assassin's Creed II

by Geop

Introduction

Table of Contents