Venice, Italy, the 15th century. In reality this seemingly picturesque town is an overcrowded, plague-ridden pit. A hairy miasma-hole perched on the rudest bit of long-legged Italy's suggestive coastline. You wouldn't go there if you could help it, you'd probably go to the far prettier Florence to do your wine shopping. Sure, there was a Renaissance happening and Senora Vespucci down the way says that hot young thing Da Vinci is zipping about the city streets in a hello-copter - but the place smelled like poo. No amount of culture can waft away a poo smell.

Thankfully Ubisoft are downplaying the reality slightly, if only to give the new Altair the ability to dive into crystal-clear Venetian canals instead of plodding between bloated corpses and turdy sandbanks. In fact, Ubisoft's vision of a Renaissance-era Italy is a beautiful one, from the shimmering waterways of Venice to the chapels and architecture of Florence. Where the original went some ways towards highlighting the sparse beauty of the ramshackle Middle Eastern cities of the Third Crusade, Assassin's Creed II's art direction collides head-on with the most creative period in human history, resulting in some visually astounding scenes.

This isn't Altair either. The wacky futuristic subplot to Assassin's Creed tells the story of an unwitting descendent of an assassin's guild forced to relive the memories of his ancestors in a magical genetic memory machine. No doubt that for the sequel the machine's been recalibrated, and the memories you're now re-enacting are those of a different ancestor, one called Ezio Auditore di Firenze. As he's part of the same legion of assassins, and of the same blood as Altair, he'll look vaguely similar and sport that all-important white hood.

Read the entire article at CVG.