Considering Assassin’s Creed 2 managed to stab 1.6 million wallets in its opening week alone, 8.5 million units sold by March isn’t that crazy of a forecast. Add star talent and some upcoming DLC to give the game a second wind, and that potential sales figure seems somewhat reasonable — even for a titlle that doesn’t feature machine guns, ‘nades and nukes.

When we saw Stern Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia call that very number over on Industry Gamers, we kinda shrugged and thought, “Sure, it’s possible.” Bhatia says Assassin’s Creed 2 was initially off to a slower-than-expected start (thanks Modern Warfare 2!), but for the December quarter, its sales expectations rose “from [roughly] 5.5 million units to 6.5 million units.” Thus, Stern Agee raised its sales forecast from 7.5 million to 8.5 million units by the end of March. Hey, we told you the game was good!

Analyst: Assassin’s Creed 2 to sell 8.5 million by April originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve been playing a lot of The Saboteur. Despite its immediate flaws — clunky combat, oddly centered cars, and tedious side objectives — I’ve found the fun to be had in its pulp and monochrome-colored universe. Sure, I like it but what does the mighty Twitter-verse think? Spoiler: they’re in the middle.

According to the sentiment aggregator Social Mention*, the majority of tweets about the game have been neutral over the last 30 days. People are flashing Raptr links much more than they are praising or slamming old Pandemic’s last videogame.

A total of 18 “positive” mentions have been made, while a mere five tweets have voiced something that triggered the “negative” label. A whopping 209 “neutral” micro-blasts round out the total of 232 tweets.

I asked my followers what they thought. User @MonstroUK broke the character limit explaining his enjoyment. “I liked it because it had a lot of open-world content,” He said. “Sandbox games are my fav sub genre, and I play them for the mechanics, environment, and progression. Not for the story,” he added. “If those (said) things are solid, I’m hooked.”

How do you think the game stacks up? Tell us and feel free to discuss why you do or why you don’t dig it.

_{*Social Mention is not a place to gather scientific data. In fact, the sentiment gathering in general is fairly broken. We’re using it as a simple gauge (used at 8:30 EST) and no more. Feel free to toss us your opinion about the game, via the comments.}