re: Assassin's Creed 2 just won an award:

It has a couple of weak points:

1. The ability to gain steady income from the villa makes assassination contracts, beat ups, courier assignments, and races obsolete. This may actually be a good thing, but I kept waiting to not be able to afford things without some work and that time never came. Even Altair's Sword was no major setback.

2. It's entirely too easy to lower your notoriety. It may take less than a minute to reduce it all the way by bribing heralds and pulling down posters, especially since both are so ubiquitous.

With that said, both are minor complaints. And at least they aren't frustrating features. The only frustration I've faced in the game is trying to run and jump fluidly through time trial areas while the camera is constantly switching angles and forces you to adapt the joystick for a new perspective on the fly. Really, though, no area should take more than about three tries. This game is really not difficult in any fashion, especially with all of the automatic assistance you receive in the platforming aspect.

I just thought I'd mention those setbacks so that it doesn't seem like I'm being impulsive and hyperbolic when I say that this is one of the top three games of the past two years. The environments are, in a word, stunning. As a huge European History nerd, the prospect of exploring the epicenter of the renaissance never loses its luster for me. The minimalistic ambient music is subtle, impressive, and fitting for each area, just as in the first game. I'm not going to say much more. You've all played it.