Ubisoft had two games to demo at PAX this year, both of them continuing and revitalizing two of their most popular franchises. First and foremost is Splinter Cell: Conviction, the fifth installment of the well-known Tom Clancy stealth action series. Secondly, we have Assassin’s Creed 2, the follow-up to one of the biggest games of 2007.

Beginning with Splinter Cell, Sam Fisher’s latest outing has him on the run after the events of Double Agent and seeking information on the death of his daughter. To this end, the developers introduced a new interrogation mechanic that enables Sam to force information out of the bad guys. The scene in the demo depicted him bashing a guy’s face against a toilet and into a mirror, beating him senseless – and all in-game – until he spilled the beans.

After this, Sam heads outside to sneak his way into another building to find his daughter’s killer. The stealth in this game has been described as using shadows “to hunt, not hide” and the action in the game certainly seems more fast-paced. There is no alert system and bodies don’t need to be dragged and Sam is able to duck into and out of enemy sight with much greater than fluidity than before. One nice touch now is the Last Known Position mechanic that leaves a white silhouette of Sam in the place where the enemies last saw him, so you know where they’ll focus their search and where to focus your ambush. Chaos Theory’s context-sensitive actions seem to have undergone a bit of refinement, as well, as the environment certainly seems much easier to interact with, as Sam has been shown to pull guards over ledges and to shoot giant chandeliers down on top of them.

Direct combat is also designed to be less of a punishment than before, with Sam being able to duck into and out of cover, take human shields in the midst of battle and utilize the new Mark and Execute ability. This system allows you to mark enemies from the shadows and then kill them instantly, not entirely dissimilar to the VATS contrivance from Fallout 3. This allows the player to tag enemies from outside on a window ledge, for example, jump into the room and instantly headshot them before they turn around. The stated purpose behind this is to create a true action movie, John Woo kind of feel to the combat.

 Most of the PAX demo was actually old information, but one thing they did definitively announce was that Sam will be getting his trademark goggles from the previous games. The only vision mode we saw was night-vision and the developers were pretty mum as to the extent of goggle functionality, but it is absolutely certain that they’re in the game.

Assassin’s Creed 2 follows the same story as its predecessor: Desmond is still locked in the Animus and reliving his ancestral path. But now, instead of Altair during the Crusades, we play as Ezio in the Renaissance. And along with the new setting, the demo showed a whole wealth of new potential absent from the first game.

It started with a cutscene of an elaborate Venetian street party and Ezio’s attempted assassination of a nobleman, who seems to know him a bit too well. Apart from being beautiful by its own merits, this scene – and one other encountered through normal gameplay – demonstrate that Assassin’s Creed 2 doesn’t share the first game’s unfortunate aversion to cinematography. But things really get interesting when the developer started playing the game. In this demo, he just opted to roam around the open scale-model of Venice and to show off some of the things you can do. Movement and combat seem to be largely the same, but with a few new touches. Combat, for instance, now has a taunt option and an ability to take human shields. Movement is as fluid as ever, but now the buildings are taller and you can grab hanging flowerpots to turn around corners (this looks really cool). However, while the basic mechanics stay the same, the things you can do with them seem a fair bit more varied.

Firstly, Assassin’s Creed 2 has a currency system. In fact, the crowds that used to get in your way now offer you easy pickpocket opportunities; just walk into them and grab a little bit of cash. Money buys you health power-ups, new weapons and poisons that can drive people bonkers. In showing us an optional sidequest (Oh yeah, we can do sidequests now) where the goal was to kill a specific guy without being seen, the Ubisoft rep laced his blade his poison, walked through a crowd up to the target’s guard, quietly stuck him and watched as the maddened guard killed the target himself. Money can also be used as a diversion. By throwing out change, the rep caused the crowd to swarm the still-frenzied guard to grab the cash, all the while avoiding his swinging sword.

Always a hoot.

Oh, and do you have a room you want to get to, but have too many guards in the way? Just pay off a group of mercenaries to attack the guards for you while you run past.

In addition to the usual Assassin’s Creed type of mission, you also get some Prince of Persia styled acrobatics and apparently a flying vehicle designed by DaVinci and a hidden gun. So far, it looks like Assassin’s Creed 2 is doing everything it can to ramp up the variety. Here’s hoping it works.

I have to say I’m surprised by these two. I was happy to write off Splinter Cell after Double Agent’s thorough evisceration of the formula, but Conviction has promise. Though I am a tad concerned it’s focused too much on action, stealth is still clearly important. The Mark-and-Execute ability is going to need some form of limitation to prevent its becoming an easy button. When a question was raised regarding this during the presentation, the rep was notably evasive, but hopefully Mark-and-Execute is thought of merely as a toy, rather than the hub of the gunplay. Consider VATS again. Sure you don’t have to use it, but if you don’t all you get is a very, VERY bland third- or first-person shooter. Mark-and-Execute could be fun, but if it’s too pervasive or necessary a skill, then it could cripple the game.

So, I’m actually more excited for Assassin’s Creed 2, which is a bit shocking because I hated the first one. I didn’t want to, but I did. Stilted, boring combat, too few objectives, an interface that stays out of the way until I do something and then stops me in my tracks just to tell me I did that thing I just did, boring cutscenes that don’t think they’re cutscenes and a story that believes it’s a lot smarter than it really is pretty much killed my interest in the game. But – barring the story (maybe) and the combat – the sequel seems to be fixing these flaws. Assassin’s Creed 2 is shaping up to be everything Assassin’s Creed 1 was supposed to be and if it keeps it up, it may be worth giving the old animus another whirl.