Assassin’s Creed 2 EP11: The Assassin’s New Cloak

By Shamus Posted Thursday Oct 6, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 103 comments

Mirror match!


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103 thoughts on “Assassin’s Creed 2 EP11: The Assassin’s New Cloak

  1. Scott (Duneyrr) says:

    No blurb?

    1. CTrees says:

      There is no blurb. Only Zuul.

    2. Shamus says:

      Can’t blurb. Just got Yogbox mod for minecraft. Like a whole new Minecraft, only moreso.

      1. noahpocalypse says:

        So can we expect a Let’s Play of Minecraft soon? That would be pretty cool. You should totally do that. Just don’t let Josh play. I don’t think I could bear what he might do to my precious Minecraft. You should play; you seem the most… dare I say ‘logical’ of the SW team.

        1. Mathias says:

          Give Josh a mod for free booze and dynamite, and it would be the best Let’s Play ever.

      2. Cybron says:

        I know exactly what you mean. When I first moved from vanillacraft to Yogbox it was like a whole new game. A whole new highly addictive game.

      3. James says:

        you should try a mix of Better Then Wolves BuildCraft and IndustrialCraft, thers a unoffical, and probably somehow illegal version for 1.7.3 called the Technic pack which has a shit tonne of mods in it, all of which are aswome

        1. Shamus says:

          My son showed my the video for Industrial craft this morning, and I was actually regretting having Yogbox. I mean, MAYBE IC can be added to Yogbox, but Yogbox is ALREADY Frankenstein’s monster amalgamation of ten other mods.

          Still… generators! Batteries! Color-coded electrical cable! Pipe systems! Mining equipment! Aaahhhhh!

          Just don’t ask me how my book is coming.

          1. James says:

            you should look at the GodCraft server, they build everythign bu hand and mine it all by hand. they built Moria, it took somehitng like a year, they even have a badass Roman Colosseum

            1. Aldowyn says:

              Or Middle Earth Minecraft? Where they’re building ALL of middle-earth?

              1. Dovius says:

                It still baffles me when I see that part of the vid where they’re at Rivendell, and that one guy just casually says that they dug out the massive valley they’re standing in, all by hand.
                Moria is just absurd, too.

  2. Simulated Knave says:

    So Rutskarn gives the comment threads no Assassin’s Heed?

    1. Tobias says:

      Probably because listening and reading skills are not something Assassins need.

      1. Scott (Duneyrr) says:

        Who expects assassins to read?

        1. Mthecheddar knight says:

          I really wish these Thread Assassins would bleed.

          1. Scott (Duneyrr) says:

            Would you like me to perform the assassin’s deed?

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Guys,please,the puns are REEEAAALLLY boring.Im not asking you to stop,just to show some originality.Its not hard,just put a little effort into it.Or else,Ill be forced to implement some good ol hashashin bashin’!

              1. Destrustor says:

                we’re starting to sound like assassin dweebs.

                Thats a word right?

              2. Paul Spooner says:

                But boring puns are part of the Assassins Creed! No, wait, curses!

              3. CTrees says:

                Assassin’s Peeved, are we?

            2. CTrees says:

              I just want to see more of the peasant bowling. I loved the Assassin’s Steed!

              1. Hitch says:

                Shamus was concerned about the low blows in that big fight because he wants to make sure Ezio can Assassin’s Breed.

                1. Hush says:

                  Passing on that Assassin’s Seed!

                  1. supflidowg says:

                    I guess balls are some what an assassin need

          2. I’m so trademarking that pun. I made it first! me!

    2. X2-Eliah says:

      Please stop…

      1. Sydney says:

        ^ The assassin pleads.

      2. anaphysik says:

        Don’t you know not to Assassin’s Feed the troll?

        1. Simulated Knave says:

          Blame Rutskarn. He’s the one who planted the Assassin’s Seed of all this.

    3. rayen020 says:

      and thus it continues. Rutskarn we’re going to do this in every episode where you make an assassin’s [insert letter]-eed pun.

      We all got to earn our pun assassin’s cred.

    4. James says:

      Lets do something terrible. its a call back to Mumbles first season.

      I cant BEEleive all these Puns , i need to escape i need to be Assassin’s Freed

      1. Scott (Duneyrr) says:

        No, there’s no need for us to be assassin “bee’d” on top of everything else.

        1. Atarlost says:

          I’m upset that some things aren’t physics objects that should be. I’m terribly disappointed that after that one jump Josh didn’t get his assassin treed.

          1. Syal says:

            Meh; they learn how to avoid that in training.

            Its part of getting assassins degreed.

    5. He was probably too busy listening to some good old Assassin’s Creed

    6. Pete says:

      Im going to go ahead and compile a list of all of the puns used so far and post it on every video from now on until you people either give up or run out. Because lack of originality is a crime.

  3. CTrees says:

    That evil laugh you were commenting on? I have two laughs – my polite chuckle that I use when I don’t actually think something is funny (i.e., my boss making jokes, where I need to laugh), and a villain laugh straight out of central casting, which is my natural laugh, used whenever something actually makes me spontaneously laugh. Of course, people that know me… well…

    Okay, you should be suspicious of the motives of anyone who laughs like that, yes.

  4. Raygereio says:

    Okay, that chase scene? You have one chance to catch that guy and it was that one jump that Josh messed up. If he had the wriststabbies selected instead of his fists, he could have killed him and thus skipped that fight with the guards.

    Annoyance: they don’t allow you to use throwing knives in those segments. I hate it when games randomly take away abilities just so that the player can’t interfere with their awesome scene.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I think he couldve tackled the guy even with his fists,if only he had locked onto him.

      1. Raygereio says:

        Addendum to the stated annoyance: also the ability to tackle someone is taken away.

        You don’t need to have the fists equiped to tackle someone; just be in high profile and press the “hand” key and Ezio will tackle that which is targetted and not currently in combat with you.

        1. The Hokey Pokey says:

          The chase scene is terrible. If you kill everybody in the first room without alerting everyone, you are forced to walk through the door in the open right in front of him. You stand there like an idiot and let him run for a few minutes before you get control back, and then they disable throwing knives. It is a metric ton of bullshit, right up there with getting captured in Fable or the Pitt in Fallout 3.

          1. Simulated Knave says:

            This. Oh so this.

          2. Taellosse says:

            Agreed. When I played this bit, I took, like, 20 minutes to stealthily kill all 3 of those guards. None of them saw me before my blade was in their guts. Then the only way to proceed is to frigging walk through that door and watch while that guy runs away. I even tried to throw a knife at him from outside the door, and it wouldn’t hit him. SUPER annoying.

  5. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Im not an expert in swords,so I may be wrong,but I dont think you can cut people(at least not that deep)with what ezio is using.It always rubbed me the wrong way how he is using a stabbing sword as a cutting weapon.

    As for the ledge grab,well altairs line isnt really pure human,but I think animus is the key there.You have sort of matrix physics while in there.

    EDIT:No,wait,scratch that.Desmond does that later too,so its probably a superhuman thing.

    1. 4th Dimension says:

      And you know what’s worse? Even if he had fingers made of steel, he would than SHATTER that ledge.

    2. krellen says:

      Contrary to popular belief, rapiers had edges.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        I know that,I mean sure,you can cut someone with a rapier,you can shave with one,but cut someone from a shoulder to half of their chest?

        1. Raygereio says:

          cut someone from a shoulder to half of their chest?

          Yeah a repier couldn’t do that. Then again, pretty much no sword could do that.

          1. Rob Maguire says:

            The Aztecs* would like to have a word with you.

            * Though since obsidian is very brittle, that’s more of a one-battle use weapon.

          2. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Im pretty sure a claymore could.And maybe katana.

            1. 4th dimension says:

              Yes, but you are likely to get stuck in the bones.

            2. Raygereio says:

              Well, I didn’t say absolutely no sword. If you have a well sharpened sword that both strong enough and has enough mass you could pull that off. A claymore for example could do a pretty decent attempt at it if you put enough force behind the swing and the target has no protection.

              A katana wouldn’t though. Contrary to popular believe, the thing doesn’t have supernatural properties. At best you’ll break your (unarmored) target’s shoulder, the blade wil get stuck in the bones and you’ve just lost your weapon. The thing is meant for cutting through flesh, not any heavy-duty chopping work.

              1. Wtrmute says:

                While I agree that katanas don’t have supernatural properties, cutting through bone isn’t a supernatural property at all. Look for “tameshigiri” in Youtube and you’ll find plenty of videos of kendo practitioners cutting thick tatami mats rolled around wooden poles — an approximation of an arm or leg — and notice that they’re cut cleanly 100% of the time. A well-executed diagonal cut with a properly sharpened sword could certainly cleave from the shoulder down to the heart, at least.

                And that isn’t a property of the katana — a German Langschwert can cut just about as much; a little less, since it’s not so rigid, but still enough to kill an unarmored man three times over.

  6. Nyctef says:

    I’m glad that Rutskarn is too young to be taking over the world just yet. He would make a good Evil Overlord.

    The levers are meant to be hard to reach — only Assassins can get them and recover the seals! Or that’s probably the theory, anyway. Soon you have churches built on top and nasty Templars wandering around your nice tombs

    Most of the chases you can catch up to the guy early, but you need to know in advance all the traps he’s going to set off and where to run. If you do catch him early then he won’t alert the roomful of guards at the end which gives you a bit of an advantage there.

    Somehow Josh managed to find alcohol in this game, and then Reginald Cuftbert shows up. We probably shouldn’t be suprised.

    And yay for history \o/

    1. Piflik says:

      And Mr. Cuftbert is Bunnyhopping even if Josh isn’t playing him…

    2. droid says:

      Though most people would have difficulty getting to those controls they are within an assassin’s reach.

  7. Hitch says:

    No, Josh, it’s not sad that you like killing people with the hidden blade. It’s sad that you don’t have a flame thrower to troll the other cast members with.

    My question is, why is it so easy to imagine Mumbles finding some way to play a cannibal in Dragon Age?

    1. Sydney says:

      Devour, Death Siphon, and Death Magic all count, kind of.

    2. Hitch says:

      It won’t let me edit.

      I just remembered… multilingual puns. That’s what we get basically every time Terry Pratchett uses Mock-Latin in a Discworld book.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        You mean pune.

        1. Nyctef says:

          (or a play on words)

  8. ? says:

    So Francesco de’ Pazzi, the Renaissance Cuftbert , bunny hops in combat.

    1. rayen020 says:

      his hat was kinda like a bonnet…

      1. ? says:

        Very much like Scottish bonnet if you think about it.

        1. Scott (Duneyrr) says:

          But quite unlike a Scotch Bonnet.

  9. Jakale says:

    I think grabbing small climbable ledges is just a skill that comes with being the one guy who takes on a string of bosses. I just finished a play through of Shadow of the Colossus and that had me falling 6 stories only to grab the hem of a giant stone skirt with no problem.

    1. Nyctef says:

      If I remember right, in the first game the ability to catch ledges while falling was given to you as one of the upgrades, because Al-Mualim gave you your gloves back (which could have been made out of super Apple-inspired materials or whatever). Shame they didn’t do something similar in this game.

      1. Viktor says:

        You ARE wearing an Assassin’s Outfit, though, so maybe that’s it?

        But in all honesty, this game really requires you not think too much about the physics. There’s just so much wrong that fixing one problem would create 2 more. It’s not worth it.

        1. Jakale says:

          Yeah, which is true for roughly all games. I don’t have a ton of ballistics knowledge, but I think I can be safe in saying that all the limb removal and head explosions in the last couple Fallout games is a tad unrealistic, not to mention how well an enemy can fight with a crippled head.

          1. Ringwraith says:

            I thought a crippled head meant you had some form of concussion, so it’s not that terribly implausible.

            1. Raygereio says:

              No that terribly implausible?
              I shot you 5 times in the head. You then have a concussion?
              As for physics: I shoot you a 6th time in the head and you die. No while you body movies violently backwards as if it recieved a punch in the chest, the pieces from your head fly towards me.

              1. Ringwraith says:

                I meant not as terribly implausible as being able to fight still with a literally “crippled” head.
                It’s still safe to say it’s on the unrealistic side.

                1. decius says:

                  It’s just as bad as shooting someone five times in the torso, and them still fighting. Or the leg, for that matter; you might be ambulatory with a torn ACL, but if your femur has been shattered by a sledgehammer, you shouldn’t even be able to drag yourself along with your hands.

                  See also Critical existence failure

                  1. Ringwraith says:

                    Well, at least limb damage is being modelled in some way rather than fighting at completely the same level of competence until hitting 0HP and immediately dying.

  10. Aanok says:

    I completely agree with the cast about Alice: Madness Returns. It gets boring and repetitive way too early but, MAN, is it a gorgeous game.

  11. Mathias says:

    Yes, this was a historical event (at least the Pazzi conspiracy was a real event, although noone is sure what exactly the name of the Pazzis were), and they may have had Papal support (since the Pope was never on particularly good terms with the Medicis), although just as in the game all the conspirators in Florence, as well as the Pazzi family, were killed and hung.

    Incidentally, Lorenzo is a lot nicer in this game than he was in real life. In real life he was more of a colossal hedonist and a pretty ruthless businessman, although it was under his rule (as well as his predecessor, Cosimo de Medici’s) that the Medicis were at the height of their power. Not even when Katarina de Medici became queen of France were the Medicis this influential and wealthy.

    /history geek off.

  12. ps238principal says:

    Rutskarn loses several geek points for not recognizing that Enzio has the Slow Fall feat, which means he’s a multiclassed assassin/monk and can survive a fall of any distance so long as he can touch a wall.

    1. Newbie says:

      We have a winner.

    2. Entropy says:

      You lose several geek points for calling slow fall a feat, when it is clearly a class feature.

  13. Airsoftslayer93 says:

    You can catch him pretty easily if you know where the path gets blocked, although normally you catch him on the last stretch, the other guards arent alerted if you catch him, thus allowing you to do the whole rout ‘undetected’

    edit: It’s really annoying that you can’t use your knives or gun during these chases, the game just stops you from it.

  14. RTBones says:

    Regrading the river – Florence sits on the Arno. Yes, it was navigable. It also has an irregular flow rate, and historically has flooded the city several times. Today, several dams have been built upstream of the city, better regulating the river’s flow.

  15. Irridium says:

    Regarding the chase scene in the catacombs… yes you can catch him. You just need to know the exact layout and exactly where to go when he closes the gates so you can run to the shortcuts before hand in order to get him.

  16. Eärlindor says:

    no Josh, it’s not sad that you use your Hidden Blades in combat rather than the sword. I do it all the time, I luvs it! ^_^

  17. Thomas says:

    The Ezio standing around uselessly in cutscenes thing was made so much worse because Josh refued to go through the crowd like most people do. It mean that Ezio had to actually step back to let the crazy assassins past to kill the person he’d just run across the city to save :D

  18. Destrustor says:

    I’m sad that Rutskarn doesn’t read the comments. At least he would know which puns have already been used to death and he could try more creative ones.
    Ruts’ pun mastery is being challenged! The audience, Shamus and josh are all punning more than him. I hope he picks up the slack.

    1. Moewicus says:

      Rutskarn shouldn’t follow any other assassin’s lead.

  19. Gamer says:

    It’s not sad to love using the hidden blades more than your other weapons, especially when you master their timing for counters because it is always a one hit kill with the exceptions of bosses. Used well, the hidden blades trump every other weapon.

    1. Dovius says:

      This, so much. After I got used to them (2 was my first Assassins Creed game), I didn’t use anything else for the rest of the game, with the occasional exception for my gun.

  20. Moewicus says:

    The story of the Pazzi conspiracy is kind of fascinating. Not only do we have letters from the conspiracy, the story is awesome:

    In 2004, an encrypted letter in the archives of the Ubaldini family was discovered by Marcello Simonetta, a historian then teaching at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and decoded. It revealed that Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, a renowned humanist and condottiere for the Papacy, was deeply embroiled in the conspiracy and had committed himself to position 600 troops outside Florence, waiting for the moment.

    In the aftermath of the “Pazzi” conspiracy, Pope Sixtus IV placed Florence under interdict, forbidding Mass and communion, for the execution of the Salviati archbishop. Sixtus enlisted the traditional Papal military arm, the King of Naples, Ferdinand I, to attack Florence. With no help coming from Florence’s traditional allies in Bologna and Milan, Lorenzo was faced with dire prospects and adopted an unorthodox course of action: he sailed to Naples and put himself in the hands of Don Ferrante (the king), in whose custody he remained for three months. Lorenzo’s courage and charisma convinced Don Ferrante to support Lorenzo’s attempts at brokering a peace and intercede, albeit ineffectually, with Sixtus IV. [to clarify, Don Ferrante = Ferdinand I]

    Lorenzo de Medici was a badass. His response to someone attacking his city is to sail up and talk to the guy.

    1. Mathias says:

      As I said earlier, Lorenzo was the second most powerful Medicis in the history of an insanely powerful and influential family.

      That he was also a hedonist is just icing on the cake.

  21. Velkrin says:

    Everyone knows the Italians are fantastic runners. I mean they have that annual running of the bulls. If you can outrun a bull you can outrun an assassin.

    1. ps238principal says:

      The Running of the Bulls is in Spain.

      The Italians didn’t want to have a similar event because the bulls had a hard time jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and the guys with the hay carts couldn’t keep up with number of mis-jumps and things got really, really messy.

    2. NihilCredo says:

      Dude, the “let’s purposefully confuse a European country with another” trolling competition was last episode. Wayyyy past the deadline.

      1. Velkrin says:

        When you’re an American every day is “let's purposefully confuse a European country with another” day.

        Especially when it involves Canada.

  22. ACman says:

    So drinking game. Add Rules!

    Ezio jumps off a building for no reason; take a drink.
    Cast comes up with an idea for game; take a drink.

    1. Mathias says:

      I also vote for “Josh manages to balls up an assassination by having fisticuffs equipped”, and for every Assassin’s eed joke on the actual show, not counting the comments.

      Yes, I do hate my liver (well, I hate yours, anyway, since I don’t drink.)

      1. Adam says:

        I’d suggest “Every time Ezio manages to survive a fall that would have probably crippled or killed him” but I don’t think we’d have livers LEFT by the end of the series. There’s always the basic Fo3 one to fall back on, though. Every time Josh dies or tries to kill his enemies by swearing at them, take a shot. Every time someone says a variation of “stop [VERB]ing me!” you take a shot. Every time all 4 of them are talking at once, take a shot. The others aren’t so transferable.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Its extremely hard to die from a fall in this game.You have to be 1 hit away from death,meaning have the last square almost drained,before you die.Actually,its extremely hard to die at all.Even if you are surrounded by enemies and let them have their way with you,it still will take some time before you die.

        2. Syal says:

          If they ever reference the original Assassin’s Creed.

          Or the original Fallout.

          1. Jarenth says:

            Or System Shock 2.

  23. StranaMente says:

    I am obliged (not you’re not. Yes, I am, shut up!) to correct Josh, first italy is nowhere near an ocean, closest seas are the Tyrrhenian Sea and Mediterrean sea.
    Second, Medici is spelled with the stress on the “e” exactly like in “medic” so it’s “Mà¨dici” and not “Medà¬ci”.

  24. Thanatos of Crows says:

    Gray Fox! Colonell that old man is Gray Fox!
    That’s impossible! You of all people should know he didn’t live in Reneissance Italy!

  25. Guvnorium says:

    I beat Rutskarn to a pun? That makes me tear up a little. :,)

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