Assassin's Creed. You either loved it or you hated it.

Released in 2007 on various platforms, the game was advertised as aesthetically pleasing and full of stealthy action; as a new mile-stone in gaming controls with a vague undertone of existentialism. But did it really live up to the hype? Some folks think yes, others could reel off an endless list of pitfalls.

Set in the Middle East during the Third Crusade (that's 1189–1192 to you and me) you play Altair, a member of the Hashshashin - a group of trained killers responsible for politically motivated assassinations back in ye olden days of the 11th & 12th centuries. Having been ostracised from the Hashashins, Altair must re-earn his rank, carrying out various tasks and killings.

The game itself is amazingly accurate when it comes to the history and environment surrounding the story; great detail has been given to the cities it portrays - Damascus, Acre, Masyaf and Jerusalem - and the people Altair must despatch are all historical figures that either died or went missing around the time the game is set.

On the other hand, the gameplay can quickly become somewhat tedious. Tasks vary little from two or three objectives for every mission; save a couple of citizens from being harassed by town guards, pickpocket some things, eavesdrop on some other things and carry out your assassination; and that's about it. The same objectives over and over with little variation. Possibly the only thing that kept people playing was the parkour (urban-running) type abilities of our protagonist - the ability to use buildings and structures to move around the city or climb to the tallest tower and then jump off from dizzying heights.

Assassin's Creed was visually sweet but that doesn't really mean much if the player gets easily bored by the lack of things to do in gameplay. However, in saying all that, I definitely recommend you play it - it does have its moments, and look, it's so purdy!

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Obisoft (the creators of Assassin's Creed) seem to have taken on board all that their fans have said about the first Creed game and are about ready to release the second one.

As always, with games like this, information is being released slowly. However, bit by bit fans have been able to piece together some of the details;

Set in 15th century Venice, our protagonist is Ezio Auditore de Firenze. The Order of Assassin's still exist, only this time they seem to have the great mind of Leonardo de Vinci on their side and as IGN.com put it - "Having listened to the cries of needless repetition besmirching what was an otherwise rather impressive debut for a new IP (it's apparently the fastest-growing new gaming franchise in history), Ubisoft is adding quite a bit more depth to the Renaissance Italy-based sequel."

Again, the amount of time and research that has gone into making this game historically accurate seems impressive. The city (apparently) looks as it did during the renaissance period and characters involved were actual people alive during the time.

By throwing in Da Vinci and his inventions, they're almost guaranteeing an interesting and entertaining aspect to gameplay - weapons were given by the great man to the Hashshashin to aid in their noble cause and there are rumours of his famous gliding machine being brought into play.

Due to the many cries of frustration over the instant lethality of water in AC1, our protagonist can now swim which makes sense....remember where the second game is being set?

The AI is more formidable and less bumbly (there’s no more “duh…where did he go?” as you step round the corner) – they can give one hell of a good chase and even mimic your parkour-esque moves, making a quick get away a lot harder. Best to be sneaky.

Ezio does not carry a sword on him most of the time but can take them from guards. Obisoft suggest using your smarts instead of charging head on into a fight.

With around 200 missions in all, (and get this: they're not repetitive!) - almost everywhere you go in the game is guaranteed to give you something to do – there’s no more boring countryside to gallop through; you’re going to be tempted to stop instead and have a look around.

And despite being able to blend into just about any crowd he finds, our protagonist can also lower his ‘wanted level’ by tearing down wanted posters, paying witnesses to keep their mouths shut, or by just killing said witnesses.

Click here for the mysterious teaser trailer for Assassin's Creed 2

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Assassin's Creed 2 will be released on Xbox 360, PC, Playstation 3 and the Wii during a holiday 2009. (Nobody knows which holiday though!)

Also, I'm suprised I managed to write this whole 'byte with no spoilers!