Assassin's Creed 2 'Bonfire of the Vanities' DLC Trailer

As reported earlier today, Assassin's Creed 2 is getting another installment of downloadable single-player content tomorrow. Fresh on the heels of the announcement from Ubisoft, we've got a new tra

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As reported earlier today, Assassin's Creed 2 is getting another installment of downloadable single-player content tomorrow. Fresh on the heels of the announcement from Ubisoft, we've got a new trailer showing some of Ezio's latest exploits in Renaissance Italy.

As mentioned, the 'Bonfire of the Vanities' DLC comes in two flavors. The "vanilla" variety will cost 320 Microsoft Points ($4), and includes the main story expansion set in a new district of Florence, wherein protagonist Ezio joins forces with Machiavelli to take down the mad monk Savonarola.

Another, slightly more expensive version of the DLC includes the aforementioned story expansion, plus three new explorable locations. The "enhanced" version of the DLC will cost 520 Microsoft Points ($6.50), and the extra locations are detailed below:

Palazzo Medici - Located in Florence, the player gets to explore the house of the Medici family. It is located in the San Marco district of Florence.

Santa Maria dei Frari - Located in Venice, in the San Polo district, the player gets to explore this renowned church built in the XIIIth [sic] century.

Arsenal Shipyard - Venice was known for its Arsenal, a shipyard that was settled in the eastern part of the city. The last Templars' Lair is located there, and lets the player explore the Drydocks.
From The Chatty
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    February 17, 2010 7:13 PM

    I'm totally cool w/ DLC, but fictionally these are weird to me. They are telling me the story I completed isn't quite correct. That other events really happened. it's kinda strange to me.

    Or am I completely misreading this?

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      February 17, 2010 7:23 PM

      You are not misreading it and you surely noticed the oddity when playing the game. The part where the game goes "OH NO CORRUPTED, we have to skip 20 years now". The DLC is filling those gaps

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        February 17, 2010 8:28 PM

        ^ This man is correct. TBotV and Forli both occur before you go to Rome.

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          February 17, 2010 8:57 PM

          Interesting, thanks for clarifying you two.

          Seems odd. I don't watch Lost, but a friend told me how at some point they tried to introduce these two characters into old stories and the community just went nuts with anger. So, they killed the new characters off.

          this reminds me of that -- re-writing the past.

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            February 17, 2010 9:39 PM

            Sounds like you're referring to Nikki and Paulo, which weren't really added into any flashbacks, but were unforgivably lame additions anyway.

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        February 17, 2010 10:42 PM

        A clear cut case of actuall game content beeing cut just so they could nickel and dime you later.

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          February 18, 2010 12:31 AM

          First of all, my playthrough clocked at 23 hours and I didn't even try for 100% completion (didn't do any race or assassination missions, didn't collect feathers, didn't look for glyphs of Truth) so I don't feel nickel and dimed. Although the "corrupt sequences" felt a bit abrupt, the game itself is still plenty long.

          They had 450 people barnburning in 3 different studios to get Assassin's Creed 2 out the door on time. The amount of time that goes into playtesting each level must be phenomenal, considering all the possible geometry and scripting bugs based on what the player does and where the player goes. I am perfectly happy to believe that these two sequences, which occur late in the game, were cut from production in order to get the game finished on time. The game does not suffer for the cut and this is perfectly reasonable.

          In the past, this happened all the time, but the content just stayed dead and the script was smoothed out to eliminate any mention of the cut. Now, instead, I have the opportunity to play a finished version of this content, months later, at a perfectly reasonable price. This is exactly how DLC should be done.

          It's like buying the theatrical release and then getting a chance to upgrade to the Director's Cut for $5. The "original cut" is already a Game-of-the-Year caliber title. There is simply no reasonable grounds for complaint here.

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            February 18, 2010 5:12 AM

            I disagree with your claim to "no reasonable grounds for complaint." There's always room to complain about the price, especially in a recession.

            My concern is the $10 premium on the PC game, plus the optional $5, plus tax here, would make this a $70 DLC. That's a lot for one game, sans "Special Edition". No, thank you.

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              February 18, 2010 9:35 AM

              There are always reasonable complaints and unreasonable complaints.

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            February 18, 2010 9:39 AM

            KOTOR 2 was a case of that, right? I remember reading how the community took everything they could find that was cut and tried to piece it all back together. If DLC were more common back then, maybe we would have had 2-3 explansion packs, but a finished game.

            I do agree with you that the game feels complete regardless of what Fpsnut said. And I'm barely into it, but just exploring and doing missions, I've got like 7-8 hours into it and I'm only on memory 6 or 7, I forget which.

            I can't wait to run into this "memory corrupt" part. It could be a wonderful plot device, and it might make sense in the story for those "corrupt memories" to be found after completing the story of the game. We won't know until we play them, but at this point, even if it doesn't make sense as a plot device, and even if I never buy them, I don't feel shortchanged.

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          February 18, 2010 9:30 AM

          I disagree with this 100%. Assassin's Creed 2 is full of content and I loved every second I played. I easily put in well over 20 hours with is far more than I put into most games I play (and finish).

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      February 18, 2010 12:40 AM

      It doesn't rewrite anything, there is no "retconning" or anything like that. There is just a point in the game where a narrator (essentially) fast-forwards past a bunch of years by giving a brief voice-over summary of world events. Getting to experience those events first-hand, and see the minor twists that come along the way, is sort of like watching the Peter Jackson Special Extended Edition.

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        February 18, 2010 3:47 AM

        Of what movie? Bad Taste?

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          February 18, 2010 9:41 AM

          "bad taste" is based solely on opinion. Its obvious that some people enjoy the game, some people don't. Trying to argue it as a definite truth is kinda pointless, isn't it?

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