I started playing Assassin’s Creed II again the other day. I never could get into the first one too much, it had some neat ideas going on, but felt too much like a tech demo (a really well polished and high quality tech demo for sure). The sequel feels much more solid with the main focus on the story and all the leaping about is just there for support.

I really love the paintings from the Italian Renaissance and one of the neat things about this game is the blending of history with fiction. As one explores different parts of a city, such as Florence, notes will be added to your journal about particular characters, buildings or works of art. Reading them is such a treat, because it will have been a building or character that actually existed and then they’ll throw in a bit of fiction to tie it into the game world. Having studied art history from that time, I like to pick out the elements that I’ve seen in books etc.

And so here’s Panda donning the garb of Ezio, the protagonist from ACII.