Most of my reviews will probably be considerably shorter, but I like to be as informative as possible and keep even the casual gamer in the loop. For a high-profile sequel such as Assassin’s Creed II, that means quickly going over the original, the special editions and the downloadable content, so the run-time piles up.

Still, some bits are edited out, believe it or not. For example, I really wanted to debate whether “Assassins” is an accurate name for our hero’s group. They are vigilantes, sure, they take the law into their own hands, but assassins?

When I think of an assassin, pop culture makes me picture someone you’d hire to sneakily & efficiently terminate an enemy.

In Assassin’s Creed the self-proclaimed Assassins usually kill out of their own volition, to protect their beliefs, and they go about it using the most extravagant methods possible. There is no poisoned food or drinks, there are no “accidents” or staged suicides.

You might argue that you can play it very sneaky if you want, but the gameplay clearly regards complete stealth as a secondary matter. Besides, even in the short movie, Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, Giovanni reveals himself early in order to have time to make his little speech first. The bad guys of the AC universe actually prove much more assassin-like in their ways.

Now, I’m fine with fiction breaking stereotypes, but I’d like some acknowledgment that the writers do realize that if an average person met an assassin, they wouldn’t curiously look at their ring finger and assume they’re looking for Templars to kill.

That would be like having something as strikingly unconventional as vampires that sparkle in the sunlight or werewolves that are unaffected by the moon, yet every supposedly normal person in your universe acts all nonchalant about it. That would drive me crazy.

Even though I did like the original and had high hopes for this one, Ubisoft still managed to surprise me positively with Assassin’s Creed II. More insight when the video review goes live, hopefully by the end of the week!

The above player should play all of them in order and you can change between them using the guide. Direct links for mixing and matching at your leisure:

I’ve been wanting to do a video review since before my text review of MGS4 was published and Metal Gear seemed like the perfect foil. I’ve been planning out the scenes as I was writing the review and, as time passed without biting the bullet and going ahead with production, I kept story-boarding again and again.

This is probably why I originally envisioned the video as a normal fifteen-minutes-tops review and ended up with this personal epic. There were so many ideas I just couldn’t bear to cut, which inflated the project to five different parts, one for each of MGS’ acts.

Even when shooting started however, I thought I’d wrap the shoot, edit and publish the thing in less than a week.

Ha!

Anyway, there is a bit of drama surrounding my inaugural video review (that is actually a playthrough) but, long story short, we ended up with this gargantuan critique, that has a combined runtime of one hour, twenty minutes. I love it.

It’s still shorter than MGS4′s ending cutscene.

Trailer:

Behind the Scenes:

Pivotal not because it features anything new itself, rather because, behind the scenes, I was solidly thinking “video-version” as I was writing it. There were so many sketches I wanted to do, so many things that would be easier to explain with footage! I couldn’t stop thinking about filming this project and sure enough, bam! One year later we have the video review/playthrough.

We’re talking lightning-fast response times here.

Anyway, between the hour+ of video and the 3500+ words of this text version, I probably don’t need to add any more insight on this one.

Assassin’s Creed was a very divisive game that you could love as easily as you could hate and it was apparent which way the experience would go for you within the first hour of gameplay. I belonged to the former group and quite liked it… even though I vividly remember the ending making me furious.