Batman’s Creed
A little while after Batman: Arkham Asylum came out, there was a tidbit from the developers about how the original incarnation of the combat engine worked like a rhythm game. Most of the articles, blogs and comments I read about that throw away line were full of scoff and ASCII inspired eye rolls. Eventually someone would make a “Punching Hero” joke, and everyone moved on with their days.
I had a different reaction to that piece of information. Because I had always considered the combat in Arkham Asylum to be a rhythm game. The absence of digital frets or huge plastic acccessories be damned – it’s a rhythm game. Your default strum is the X key. It’s your basic attack. You press this at an even, steady interval to build your combo. Variations include blocks, grabs, throws, dodges, batarangs, cape swipes, and target shifts. In each of these examples, extra buttons are pressed either in combination with or as a substitution for the basic attack (or strum), but if you’re keeping up your combo, you’re keeping up the rhythm.
The entire combat system in Arkham, which allows the player to be completely overpowering against a given opponent while still maintaining a sense of vulnerability and danger when faced with multiple opponents, is absolutely brilliant. And whether you played it like a rhythm game or like a button masher (in which case you probably never really racked up any serious combos), the combat system that Rocksteady created managed to simultaneously work as a gameplay mechanic and stay absolutely true to its source material. It plays the way Batman would behave.
I’ve been thinking about Akrham Asylum quite a bit lately as I played through Assassin’s Creed II. This is partially the fault of one of my good friends, long ago, referring to the first Assassin’s Creed as “Medieval Batman”. And while there are obvious differences (such as the obvious violation of Batman’s one rule), there is also a lot of validity to that comparison. Both Altair and Batman are methodical and calculating. They are planners and investigators, studying and researching their foes to formulate the best possible plan of attack. They use gadgets and technology to gain the upper hand despite overwhelming odds. The comparison could roll for paragraphs, but you get the general idea.
And Batman not withstanding, Assassin’s Creed II is a very good game. It is an improvement on its predecessor in virtually every way. In fact, it almost feels like Ubisoft sat down, watched Yahtzee tear their original game to shreds a few thousand times, and used that review as a blueprint for how to improve the sequel.
Gone is the tedious need to crawl at a snail’s pace whenever you are within ten square blocks of a city guard. Gone also are the annoying beggar ladies and lepers that are free to shove you around into said guards, who will then attempt to stab you. Gone also are the obnoxious and pointless riding sequences between towns. Ditto on the ten minute conversations with people you’ve recently stabbed in the neck (those sequences still exist, are simply much shorter, and are more enjoyable to watch). Gone also are the constant interruptions where you warp out of your DNA flashback and are forced to wander around as Desmond for a few minutes a pop.
Instead, Ubisoft has added a much more fluid story progression, which makes the game feel a lot less like just a series of missions and actually ties the in-game events together nicely. They’ve also included some very interesting back story puzzles – and make no mistake, they are actual puzzles whose difficulty range from “Obviously Solvable” to “Tricky” and occasionally launch right into “There are seven thousand combinations, I’ll just try them all!” They also added a very interesting “dungeon” concept to the game. Set, closed off areas with strategically placed guards and obstacles that must be navigated and exist outside the world proper – almost like an MMO instance. I found these to be quite a bit of fun, and wanted more of that kind of content. I have no doubt that Ubisoft will endeavor to sell me more of these dungeons later on via DLC, and I’ll consider buying them depending on the price point.
The combat is better than it was in Assassin’s Creed, though I still feel like this is one of the roughest areas of the game. You’re afforded a whole arsenal of weapons, as well as the ability to steal weapons from your opponents. And yet I handled 95% of the combat either by sword-hacking my opponents down or walking up behind them while they were busy and wrist-blading them in the chest. Just about the only time I used any other technique was when I was faced with an enemy with a spear, at which point I would steal his weapon, spear him in the chest, and then continue to sword-hack my way through the angry mob.
There are also some things that they added that really don’t strike a chord with me at all. There’s an economic system in the game – just barely. If you can skate through the low difficulty of the first mission or two just investing your cash back into your villa, you’ll be so flush with gold for the rest of the game that the biggest financial problem you’ll have is having to constantly go back to town to pick up all your extra cash. I understand what they thought they were doing, I just don’t think they struck the proper balance. There’s also a side quest to collect 100 MacGuffins spread out across four or five cities which don’t appear on the map, are small enough to hide anywhere, and offer almost no reward. So screw that. And finally there is the main character – who I never really connected with. Despite him having more development, more story, more supporting characters and more motivation, I really couldn’t be bothered to care about Ezio in the same way that I grew fond of Altair.
In a vacuum, with only Assassin’s Creed to compare its sequel to, AC2 is a direct improvement in every possible way. The repetitive nature of the investigations is either gone or very well hidden by the story, the towns are designed in much more interesting ways (Venice’s waterways do very interesting things to the map, although deep in my heart I feel that the setting and period of AC1 is more appropriate for the story being told) and your exploration of them isn’t quite as gated. The game contains more characters, more motivation, and some pretty well done voice acting even if it does feel like a crash course in Tourist Italian.
But the title doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And when I mentioned the post-Arkham world of gaming a little while ago, I meant it. Arkham Asylum set an insanely high bar because it took just about every gaming trope we’ve come to expect over the past fifteen-odd years and not only handled them all brilliantly, but managed to weave that brilliance into the fabric of a pre-existing world and cast of characters in a way that felt effortless. Even the stealth “predator” sequences in Arkham leave me feeling more like an assassin than the very best sequences in AC2.
Assassin’s Creed II is a very capable game, and if you were willing to play AC1 to its conclusion, you’ll find plenty to enjoy in its sequel. But I didn’t get that same “Renaissance Batman” rush from AC2. It surpasses its predecessor, but it fails to surpass its competition. Is it worth $60? Yes, absolutely. But only if you haven’t already dropped $60 on Arkham.
Enough with the 3rd person games, it’s time to get into some Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Even as somebody who was getting very tired of the FPS, both games are friggin’ awesome.