QJ.NET Special Report: Impressions from the Assassin’s Creed II live demo at PAX 09
PAX 2009 will play host to demonstrations of quite a few big-name titles coming out. Among them is Ubisoft‘s Assassin’s Creed II (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), the follow-up to last year’s Jade Raymond-advertised original. This time, Altair’s out of the picture and stepping out of the shadows is another of Desmond Miles’ uniquely skilled ancestors, Ezio.
On the scene at PAX 09 were the merry band of men called Left4Friends, and they’ve let us in on the goings-on that happened in the Assassin’s Creed II live demo. Read on for their thoughts on it.
PAX 2009 will play host to demonstrations of quite a few big-name titles coming out. Among them is Ubisoft‘s Assassin’s Creed II (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), the follow-up to last year’s Jade Raymond-advertised original. This time, Altair’s out of the picture and stepping out of the shadows is another of Desmond Miles’ uniquely skilled ancestors, Ezio.
On the scene at PAX 09 were the merry band of men called Left4Friends, and they’ve let us in on the goings-on that happened in the Assassin’s Creed II live demo. Read on for their thoughts on it.
The trailer for Assassin’s Creed II came shortly after the Conviction demo. The live demo was supposed to follow shortly afterwards. Due to restrictions in the area, we could not record any footage of the trailer, so we’ll describe it to you.
We start off with a king of some sort; a very important man with 4 guards around him at a party in the town. This takes place in the 1400s in Venice, Italy. It moves on to everyone in masks dancing around, and some mysterious girl comes in and dances with him, and in a heartbeat our nameless hero comes in for the kill and stabs him right in the neck.
Now you may be wondering: was this the demo? No, that was just the trailer we saw before the demo that was just epic as hell. The real demo starts out with our hero hanging above a tower, on a pole getting ready to jump. Viewing the city the man controlling the demo talks about how there is full exploration in the city, and that every building is climbable.
We were shown as our hero fell from the top and landed in, yes, the old school haystack in the middle of nowhere. After landing, there was a guard right next to the haystack. He grabbed him from behind and killed him in the haystack. Somehow it seems he also took some clothing. It’s hard to remember, he was white then he had brown clothes on.
We were then shown a side mission where our hero was to assassinate a certain somebody without getting caught. The demo showed us as he walked through crowds, pickpocketing every person he touched, and buying two vials of poison. Apparently, the guy he has to kill had a buddy with him so by poisoning him, he got confused and went in a berserk rage. He ended up killing the target. Problem solved!
As an added bonus, the guy from Ubisoft Montreal decided to have fun and threw money on the floor. Tons of people dove to get it and with the poisoned guy still berserk, the poor innocent people risked their life for 10 gold as the guy attacked them.
We were then shown another side mission where our hero was to obtain an artifact or rare item of some sort (I have no clue what’s it called. I barely played the first game) by going into a church and using a secret entrance. Halfway into that hidden pathway, he runs into a few guards which he took out with an aerial strike from above — do I dare say… DEATH FROM ABOVE! — then using a smoke bomb to escape the remaining guard nearby.
When faced with an important person from the church, he splits out of there and you end up pursuing the man until you can kill him. Again, the Ubisoft guy playing the demo decided to play around a bit and chase him for how long. When he kills him near the end, he gets the treasure and ends the demo. Much epicness to be truthful.
Oh, and here’s a bit more of Assassin’s Creed II from before Ubisoft showed off Conviction. First starting off, walking into the giant room with the screens hanging from above, we saw 6 girls on both our right and left handing books. Quoting, “The first one is always the hardest.” Upon opening that book, you hear a rip. The page shows a head on the left, a decapitated body on the right. Following that, “Congratulations on your first kill.”
Stick around for more updates from PAX 09, brought to you by QJ.NET and Left4Friends. Don’t forget to check out their YouTube channel by clicking here.
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