'Assassin’s Creed II' screenshots gallery

Get another history lesson with this killer sequel

By Paul Semel, Special to Metromix

With an open world, some sneaking mechanics and a Crusades timeframe, 2007’s “Assassin’s Creed” was kind of like “Grand Theft Auto” meets “Splinter Cell” if it had been made by the History Channel…with help from Philip K. Dick. Which was all well and good, except that it didn’t give you enough to do. Sure, it had a wonderfully rich world, but you were just limited to picking people’s pockets, climbing buildings like Spider-man, listening to people yammer on, and, of course, assassinating people.

Needless to say, when Ubisoft releases the sequel on November 17, you will have more options with how to spend your time. But giving you a bigger to-do list isn’t the only thing they’re adding or changing for this sequel, as you can see from the following screenshot gallery.