Assassin’s Creed 2

(Warning: Review contains story spoilers.)
Trying to explain the story in Assassin’s Creed 2 is a little like trying to explain the movie The Matrix to someone who has never seen it. It might sound a bit confusing, but once you are able to wrap your head around it you actually have a very interesting story. To give a full understanding of the story I will need to give you a little background information from the first game.

In the first Assassin’s Creed, a man by the name of Desmond Miles is being held against his will by Abstergo Industries. Abstergo Industries is an organization actually run by the Knights Templar who are looking for an ancient artifact called the “Piece of Eden.” Supposedly this artifact is what has caused many great historical feats to take place including giving a simple carpenter the ability to turn water into wine. Now it turns out that Desmond actually comes from a long line of assassins and by hooking Desmond up to a machine called the Animus, Desmond can re-live the memories of his ancestors (The Animus reads a person’s DNA which contains a person’s ancestor’s memories.) Thus the first Assassin’s Creed game consists of the majority of the game playing as Desmond’s ancestor, Altair, in the year 1191 in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.

Moving forward to Assassin’s Creed 2, the game opens with Desmond escaping Abstergo Industries with the help of another modern day assassin named Lucy who was working undercover at Abstergo. She takes Desmond back to an assassin hideout where Desmond once again plugs into an Animus this time to re-live the memories of his ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze who lived in Italy during the Renaissance Age. The purpose of this is to do two things for Desmond. First is to train him to be an Assassin himself and second is to find more information on the artifact known as the Apple of Eden.

What Parents Need to Know

Violence

As an assassin, the player will be required to assassinate many targets to progress through the game. All of these targets, however, are corrupt or evil in some way. If the player tries to assassinate an innocent person, a warning comes up saying that Ezio did not kill innocents and the memory will be disrupted if this behavior continues.

There is a medium amount of blood that occurs when someone is killed, but there is also the option to turn the blood off.

There is one scene where Ezio witnesses his father and two brothers hung at the gallows. One of his brothers is a small boy.

Language

There is a good amount of bad language used in the game. The F-word is used a handful of times as well as words like s**t, bas***d, hell and damn.

Sexual Content

Some of the puzzles involve actual historical artwork. Some of this artwork is paintings of naked women.

One of the characters in the game is a nun who is also a prostitute. She claims that she has become disillusioned with church people and so she uses her form of work to teach men how to love in order to lead them to salvation.

Ezio can hire prostitutes to distract guards. Their blouses are low cut showing off their cleavage. All they do is flirt with the guards.

A couple of times it is insinuated that Ezio had sex, but nothing is ever shown.

Spiritual Content

Some missions require assassinating some corrupted priests, including the last mission which involves assassinating a corrupted pope.

One puzzle involves a quote of Satan talking to Cain.

There are codex pages that can be collected. One codex page suggests that Jesus and many other religious figures were the same person who just learned the secret of immortality through the Eden artifact.

One of the main villains in the story becomes pope and tells Ezio that the Bible is full of lies and superstition.

Ezio encounters a holographic image towards the end of the game who claims that she is part of a more advanced society that created man in their image. Her species eventually became known by the names that the Roman gods are referred to as.

Reviewer’s Thoughts

In terms of fun, I would probably rate Assassin’s Creed 2 in my top 3 fun games of 2009. The game played well and the story of Ezio and the war between the Assassins and the Templar Knights is very interesting and entertaining. Even though this story is fictional, however, I am not a big fan of the subtle inclusions denying the deity of Jesus. In conclusion, although it is very evident in the story that the assassins are the good guys, because of the nature of an assassin, and because of the confusion that some parts of the story might cause, I would not recommend Assassin’s Creed 2 for young children.