The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I didnt know about the roadblock stuff, really neat.

Don't see how this will really help in the midst of battle.. More over showing off at the end of them

Well we dont really need tips on how to improve combat, its pretty easy. I like this video because it shows easier ways of performing cool kill animations

Indeed, just cut out you throwing all of them and label it "assassins creed 2- cool finishers" or something.

I think he's just trying to replace cheap moves with flair... sound familiar? It's not trying to help in the midst of battle, it's showing how to do the rare kill animations easy, although some of it makes it easier (such as the roadblock kills, the drop down combo kills when air assassinations fail, and the fist animations to make eagles bruise fast and easy).

Actually from my experiences, if you do an animation with your fists even if they look alive whether it be a counter or a combo, they always seem to be added to kills on your stats. Im not sure if Eagles Bruise matters in the stats though

Odd, in the final stats of Eagles Bruise I managed to finish with zero kills. Even targets and people I poison punched (props to you for figuring that one out, it was extremely useful in many stealth situations near the end of the game) were registered as knockouts and not kills. I can tell they haven't been killed because they squirm around after you've knocked them out, even after extremely brutal animations such as the neck-breaker. Stats in Eagle's Bruise do matter, and if I decide to get the PC version of Brotherhood I'll make sure to screencap my final stats and post them to the forums. You'll be able to see the ridiculous number of knockouts I've racked up.

Well to be fair I only checked like 4 times lol. Basically I would check my stats, I would have say 5 kills already. I would punch him until his health runs out, he squirms around. I check the stats, still 5.

I get another guard, and this time I somehow pull off a combo move, and he falls to the ground squirming. I check my stats and I have 6 kills. This was a while ago, but if you ever did combo animations and it didnt register im probably wrong and did something else, il check again next time I decide to play.

Eagle Bruise?

Eagle Bruise is when you play the whole game fighting only with your fists (not fair throwing someone to their death or into a collapsible structure).

Eagle's Bruise is the playthrough I do for every console-based Assassin's Creed game. The rules are simple, you can only use hand-to-hand combat, no weapons. You can disarm, but you can't use the weapon you took from the enemy. To be fair, you also can't throw enemies into structures, throw them off of rooftops, or throw them into water. That would make everything far too easy.

Two new factors that may affect the playthrough for ACB are the fireman lift and BAM. The fireman lift is this new move where Ezio throws a guard over his shoulders and slams him on the ground, stunning him there for a few seconds. From what I've seen, the move has essentially a 100% success rate and can't be blocked. BAM also will be useful assuming I can keep the other assassins from using weapons and just gadgets such as smoke bombs. That should make things fun.

I'm also planning a new playthrough called Sharpshooter (probably gonna be renamed to something like Eagle's Eye) where I only use guns, crossbow bolts, poison darts, and maybe a throwing spear/axe (technically, it's a ranged weapon). That playthrough should prove to be very fun, and hopefully your assassins can be rigged to use only guns so I can use BAM to help as well.

Sharpshooter sounds awesome. I went on AC2 today, my kills were 1390. I did a normal counter against an unarmed guard with my fists, and it went to 1391, however he was still moaning in pain on the ground, like he was alive. The poison trick doesnt add a kill, because there is no animation

I then started a fight and threw a smoke bomb. This let me do an easy combo animation with my fists while they were coughing, and it too added as a kill on my stats even though he looked alive.

How did you manage to complete training on Leonardo's practice dummies without them counting as kills?

Well, I mean I subtracted them from the total. It's impossible to finish with a zero kill count, but I'm not going to let Eagle's Bruise be ruined by the fact that the game doesn't recognize a difference between a human and a bag of straw.

Also some parts you have to kill, like the guard harrassing Leonardo. Unless you found a way to get passed that, that would be awesome

Please share the actual number of kills from your stats screen after Eagle's Bruise - before you started mentally subtracting the B.S. kills. It would serve as a nice benchmark for those participating in the Minimal Kill Competition. Also indicate whether your playthrough included Battle of Forli and/or Bonfire of the Vanities.