I never played Assassin's Creed 1 nor did I want to. Although it got great reviews, there were a fare amount of complaints regarding its repetitive gameplay. I did however want Assassin's Creed 2, but did not want to have to buy AC1 to get the whole story. If you're like me then there's no worries. You can either watch someone else play the whole game on Youtube (walkthrough) or read the whole plot on [...]. Wikipedia is quicker and easier but you miss various plot points, so Youtube is probably better.

The game is fantastic. I won't go into detail as you can read that from other reviews here or from gaming sites ([...]). I will say that this game is FREAKING HUGE! I actually got a little tired 3/4 way through the game, not in a bad way mind you. I just kept expecting it to end soon and this sucker just kept on going. I am always asking myself if a game is worth the price and this one definitely was.

1 con worth mentioning though is that the gameplay (or rather the movements of the character) is rather slow. Don't expect to be plat-forming with Mario like reflexes or killing hordes of guards in seconds, this ain't no Ninja Gaiden.

The story is great though be warned, it gets a little atheistic... actually its very atheistic. It is however just a game and it is explained via a message at the beginning that the game was "created by people of various religions, faiths, and beliefs". If this isn't a deal breaker for you then I strongly recommend this game.

I'm about 2/3 through the game (a few missions into Venice) and the game is now freezing my PS3! The screen will freeze but sound remains and none of the buttons work (not even the PS button to quit or shutdown). I've tried to manually shutdown which works, but when I start playing the game again it freezes anywhere between 5-15minutes of play. The disk is clean and my PS3 is new. Both the PS3 and game have the latest updates/patches. I've googled the issue and it seems like this is a common occurrence....

The game itself if very good - gameplay, graphics and sound are all great. Normally I'd rate this 4-5 stars if it weren't for the freezing issue. I was enjoying it very much until now as its virtually unplayable..... If you are one of the lucky ones who played the game through without any issues, I'm jealous.

Buyer beware, if you get a screen freeze during play, your game is most likely over.... (unless they develop a patch!)