Coming soon to iTunes, Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer is an online multiplayer game for the iPhone, which uses a Wi-Fi connection to connect you with up to three other players in a game of hide and go die. The goal is simple: kill the other players before they kill you. Players will be able to blend into the crowd in order to avoid detection in three different environments inspired by cities of the Italian Renaissance. You can even use one of six different power-ups, just like real assassins!

Ubisoft is packing the game with features, including a dynamic notoriety ranking system, a built-in friends list, and 24 achievements you can post to Facebook, where the world goes to find out what you’ve been up to.

The initial screens may be a bit small and simplistic, but I’ve always been a big fan of games where you can kill Bob. Man, I hate that guy.

Kids, meet the GameDr Video Game Timer! Sound familiar? Yep, we told you about BOB just last year, which does the exact same thing and even markets itself in the same way – being the “bad guy” for parents too strung out on boxed wine and antidepressants tired to fight about a gaming curfew.

GameDr. is sold by Digital Innovations of Illinois; BOB is sold by Hopscotch Technology of Colorado. But while BOB got airtime on the Today Show last year, GameDr comes recommended to the public with comments such as this, from Digital Innovations’ marketing director:

“There are mums who say they love this, and that they know 10 people who need one. And there are gamers who say it’s terrible and that parents should just monitor their kids.”

OK, so, we just rendered moot about 100 comments on this post. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, in profiling the device reinvented by a 78-year-old guy in Medina, Minn., points out this trick has been tried before, and that the Xbox 360 even has an on-board timer to do the exact same thing. NPD’s David Riley comes in to splash some sanity on the proceedings.

If parents are that concerned about what children are doing on home video-game consoles, the chances are they don’t have a console or have one with only games appropriate for their children’s ages.

No one explains how these devices are different enough that someone hasn’t gotten all sue-happy yet. However, I am hard at work duct-taping an egg timer to a circuit breaker to release my Edge Game Power Cutter Offer by Fall 2009. That should put a stop to all these “bad guys.”

Parents Have Bad-Guy Ally to Turn Off Video Games [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and image, via VE3D]