Assassin's Creed was an ambitious game. A massive city, a free running assassin, blades hidden in wrists... The game had it all. What it lacked, however, was any real mission variety that could keep a player from getting bored after the first 3 hours. The game had a fair few other problems too, though I must say I ultimately enjoyed it quite a lot.
The problem of repetitive missions and very little to do are gone in the second Assassin's Creed outing. For those not following, the series follows one Desmond Miles, bartender extraordinaire, who in the first game is kidnapped by an evil corporation run by Templars who force him to relive the life of an assassin that exists in his genetic memory, in order to learn the location of a "piece of Eden", the items that have allowed them to rule over the world. If you didn't get all that don't be too fussed, as the second game opens with a cinematic explaining (far better than I did), the plot of the first game.
AC2 opens with Desmond leaving the Templar's offices with the help of Lucy, an assassin(who by the way are the sworn enemies of the Templars in this universe). You are then promptly put back in to the life of another ancestor who killed people, this time one Ezio Auditore, an Italian upper-middle class citizen, who (for very good reasons), begins murdering rather a few Templars.
The story I will not go into more than that, but it's suitably well written stuffed with conspiracies. The real reason you should be here is to learn about how un-boring the second Assassin's Creed is; in short, it is in every way superior to it's predecessor.
To begin with, the character of Ezio. This guy is actually a man before he is an Assassin, and unlike Altair, who while incredibly badass was ultimately just a cipher, Ezio really is a character. His job as second son in his family seems to involve a lot of womanizing and fighting, and the development of the young man as a rascal to a hardened killer is noticeable; the game's plot spans a number of years.
Moving on from character, we have all the shit you can do in AC2. The main story still involves assassinations, but no longer are there mandatory eavesdropping missions before hand. All of the side quests really are side quests now, and are completely optional. Not only are they optional, but there are a hell of a lot more of them, including actual assassination missions.
The second big addition comes in the form of an economy, and a village. You can now buy new weapons and armour for Ezio, and pickpocket civilians to earn the money you use. You also earn money from the completion of missions, of course, and as income from your wonderful villa. This is a big addition; about two hours into the game your Italian countryside castle is opened up. You will slowly nurture the aging mansion, and it's included village, back into a popular tourist destination. Essentially, you invest money into it, and you get money back. The system works nicely; you go back every once in a while to do some stuff and collect your rather large bags of money.
The actual gameplay remains much the same as Assassin's Creed the first, with the only real addition to combat being disarming. There are some new toys, such as smokebombs, and additions to the wristblade; you have two of them, they can poison fools, and shoot people in the face.
I'm kind of getting tired of writing, so I'll continue this later; suffice to say, Assassin's Creed 2 is pretty good.
