Assassin's Creed II Xbox 360
Assassin's Creed II Image
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Metascore
90 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 82 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 712 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Summary: Assassin's Creed II is the product of over two years of intensive development by the original creative team behind the Assassin's Creed brand. In a vast open world environment, the game invites players to incarnate Ezio, a privileged young noble in Renaissance Italy who's been betrayed by the rival ruling families of Italy. Ezio's subsequent quest for vengeance plunges players into an epic story that offers more variety in missions, surprising and engaging new gameplay elements, diverse weapons and a profound character progression that appeal to fans of the original Assassin's Creed as well as entice players new to the brand. [Ubisoft]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 79 out of 82
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 82
  3. Negative: 1 out of 82
  1. GamesRadar
    100
    A huge improvement over the first game, Assassin’s Creed II offers up an enormous, beautiful open world that’s easy to get lost in, an epic storyline and all the fun that comes from creatively killing villains and tearing across 15th-century rooftops at ridiculous speeds.
  2. Absolute Games
    86
    Ubisoft has finally realized its darling dream by creating a world where substance and style go together. Virtual tours of Florence, Venice and Tuscany are as captivating as the main story. For once in a way, “open-ended” doesn’t translate to “boring”, “lifeless” or “empty”. The height takes your breath away every time Ezio scales a tall building; the excellent animation makes up for annoying bugs and quirky gameplay conventions. Yes, the final boss fight is borderline silly, but it’s just a smudged line on a last page of a thrilling novel.
  3. DarkZero
    60
    To say the least, Assassin’s Creed II is a disappointment – not because it’s bad, but because we were promised so much more. Everything Ubisoft claimed they were changing has stayed the same, and what little new touches they’ve included fail to impact in the long run.
  4. Destructoid
    45
    The game's variety and length come across as nothing more than smoke and mirrors, the endless, grinding busywork that contributes nothing to the overall gameplay is inexcusably plentiful and mind-numbingly repetitive, and to top it all off, the game can't even compete in the visuals department and somehow looks worse than the original.

See all 82 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 124 out of 139
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 139
  3. Negative: 8 out of 139
  1. BubbaHito
    10
    Among the 5 greatest games released this decade, easily. This masterpiece sits next to other venerable titles as Zelda: Twilight Princess and the COD: Modern Warfare games. The ambition of the game is off the scale, this title breathes a fresh blast of oxygen into the lungs of a genre that's taken a back seat in recent years - the single player experience. For my part, I received this game as a Christmas gift in 2009 and it pretty much collected dust until Thanksgiving of 2010. When I started playing the game originally last year I was kind of put off by the game play outside of the sneaking and infiltration sequences (like building your new estate). But a good internet FAQ on the location of glyphs and all of the easter eggs very quickly turned this game into a 19 hour marathon when I came back to it a few days ago. I see now what Ubisoft was going for and I commend them for their ambition. I can see the future of this title headed closer into RPG territory (like the Fable series). This game is a must-get. I'm getting Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.… Expand
  2. OnAnarchy
    8
    It's really cool conceptually, and the gameplay is awesome too. But it can feel a tad messy at times, and somewhat repetitive. The good does outweigh the bad, and the result is a maddeningly addictive game with a great story to tell.… Expand
  3. houyi111
    7
    For me, the game improved in every possible way from AC1 (of course ,the first game only includes climbing up and jumping down). what good about this game is the city design, it is a true masterpiece, yeah, i like climbing up and jumping down in Venice, Florzi....… Expand
  4. harrys
    3
    This game is not all that. What amazes me is that the only honest review I've seen of this game was not factored into the metacritic score. Interesting. Very, very interesting. Destructoid gave it a 4.5 but I guess that would have brought down the average too much so it's not here. Destructoid reviews are included on this site a lot, so there is something wrong when metacritic is throwing out lower scoring reviews for profit.… Expand

See all 139 User Reviews

Trailers

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