I still haven't forgotten Assassin's Creed 2. I can only picture this meeting taking place in the Ubisoft Doom Fortress of Death[sup]TM[/sup].
"Well, it's time to write the plot of the next AssCreed game. We've decided to utterly destroy the interesting (if imperfectly implemented) ideas of the first one, such as actually utilising our rich historical setting, those neat philosophical principles, and the pleasing parkour-and-murder-simulator gameplay. Instead, we've decided to focus on awful "minigames" (DON'T TELL ME CARNEVAL WASN'T MINIGAMES, BECAUSE IT DEFINITELY WAS), nonsensical plot (*just the sound of my brain crying and swigging from the whiskey bottle*), dreadful, hack writing ("Ezio, you need the Golden Mask because the other masks are numbered and cannot be stolen!" Nobody checks your mask, you're the only one IN a Golden Mask, you STOLE the Mask they said couldn't be stolen, etc. That section was just pure, distilled stupidity.) and terrible tone and pacing ("It's-a-me, Mario!", fist fight with the Pope vs. "I am dark and broody and want vengeance for my murdered family", and on pacing; the "plot" happily grinds to a halt so that you can waste HOURS fixing the awful Thieves' Guild and doing goddamn Carneval.)"
And yet, all my friends preferred AC2 to AC. What an absolute fucking waste of a series.
Incidentally, I never played the later AssCreeds. I hear they did not restore the series to quality.
EDIT: I should point out, it starts OK. Not amazing, but it sets up the initially cool setting and structure pretty well, and the plot is alright for the five minutes it takes before tripping over and tangling itself up in its own nonsense.
