This game is nearly unplayable without a dual-stick controller. With one, it becomes an awesome deluge of gunfire and explosions. Worried about crashing in to a building? No worries! Just drive through it. Mind the cliffs though. The leveling system is paced well enough to not be a detriment to the experience, and it gives you cool upgrades like shorter cooldowns and extra weapon effects. You can play the game cooperatively on the same machine too, but you will need a second game pad for that.

A servicable first-person shooter for a low price. Interesting wrinkles such as jet packs, ammunition types, and customizable armor attirbutes make it different from other person shooting games set in a sci-fi setting. The inclusion of bots for all modes is a welcome addition leading to a rare case of robust offline options.

This is everything a sequel to a promising but flawed game needs to be. Assassin's Creed 2 improves on the free running strengths of the original while fixing the weaknesses of repetition. The change from the Crudsades time period to Renaissance Italy brings a fresh look that is rarely seen in video games. It's not quite a rigorous stealth game, a presicion platformer, or a stylish beat'em up but something inbetween that works well. Sadly, there is a very obtrusive digital rights management solution that requires a constant internet connection from the user and an online Ubi Soft server.