Review: Assassins Creed 2: Battle of Forli

Written by Jim Thomas Sunday, 31 January 2010 15:26

Assassins Creed 2 was one of my favorite games of 2009.  The 20 plus hours I put into it whoring through all 50 achievements is testament to that.  So when Ubisoft announced that new memories would be available via DLC, I was excited.  I couldn't wait to get back into Ezio's shoes and go stab crazy in renaissance Italy. 

Battle of Forli occurs between the time Ezio joins the order of Assassins and the games finale.  Originally cut from the game due to time constraints, the memory sequence takes place in Forli, where Caterina Sforza (the custodian and current leader of Forli) is under attack.  You remember Caterina, the woman who served as a glorified gondola tutorial earlier in the game.  Well turns out she's a relatively influential and powerful woman in the 1400's.  Caterina turns to Ezio for help, and he's happy to oblique.

The "battle" of Forli is really little less than a small skirmish.  To be honest, I've been in bar fights that were larger in scale and never had the nerve to call them battles.  The whole sequence is rather underwhelming and seems like little post production work was actually added after it was cut.  For instance, after you help Forli's guards slay the invading troops, they wander around looking at the dead bodies yelling "what happened here, who has done this?".  Are you kidding me?  Apparently short term memory loss was common in 13th century Italy. 

The memory spans for 4 missions, the most memorable of which involves the kidnapping of Caterina's children and the subsequent assassination.  In total, Battle of Forli will take you less than an hour to complete.  Since you are unable to replay missions in AC2, you probably won't ever play this mission again.  That being said, it will only set you back 320 MS points, which equates to $4.00.  While the DLC does not include any extra achievements, it does add a mission which lets Ezio fly Leonardo's flying machine at will.  That means if you missed the "fly swatter" achievement the first time around, you won't have to play through the entire game again to get it.

If you enjoyed Assassins Creed 2, and you want to gain 100% sync with Ezio then have probably already downloaded Battle of Forli.  However if your not a die hard fan, this excursion won't convert you to one.  It would have been nice if Battle of Forli and Bonfire of the Vanities (the games second DLC available late February) were released together.  Battle of Forli left me unfulfilled and wanting closure, which unfortunately I won't get for a couple more weeks.

7.5 / 10