Assassins Creed:
Brotherhood
Overview
In the direct aftermath of Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood begins with Ezio escaping the vault where he spared Rodrigo Borgias life. He takes the Apple of Eden, and returns to the Auditore Villa. A few days later, the Villa is attacked by Cesare Borgias army, and Cesare manages to retrieve the Apple of Eden, and, the Borgias plan to use it to conquer all of Italy. As a result, Ezio travels to Rome, to assassinate the leading members of the Borgia, to end the threat and recover the Apple of Eden.
Information
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Engine: Anvil, Havok
Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Microsoft Windows
Release Date: November 16, 2010 (X360, PS3) - March 17, 2011 (Microsoft Windows)
Genre: Action-Adventure, Open-World, Stealth.
REVIEW
Assassins Creed: Brotherhood begins directly where AC2 ended, with Ezio leaving the vault that the previous game ended in. The main focus of the story is on Ezio, the city militia, and the theives guild working within Rome itself to bring down the opressive Borgia family, with Rodrigo Borgias son, Chesare Borgia leading this oppressive government rule.
A large amount of characters from AC2 return for Brotherhood. Like La Volpe, Maria Auditore, Bartolomeo D'Alviano, Caterina Sforza and many more. The return of these characters is a great addition to Brotherhood.
The story is not as developed as in AC2, but it is still gripping, and there are a lot of intense moments in the game, but there is no shortage of stealth moments, as it is the basis of how the assassins operate.
Oh, and if you loved the ending cliffhanger of Assassin's Creed II, then just wait until you see the ending of Brotherhood, its a real shocker.
The graphics have made small improvements over AC2, the undetailed textures are gone for the most part, although the framerate does drop on occasion. But it is only a minor problem.
Rome is the largest city in Assassins Creed yet. It is about 3 times the size of Florence in AC2, which makes it huge. Now, horses can be used in the city, even in the most urban parts of the city.
Combat has improved big time, as Counter kills are no longer the main combat move. Now, offensive attacks are most affective and efficient combat move. Combat is now faster paced than before, it is the best combat in an Assassins Creed game yet.
The renovating buildings first introduced in AC2, is back but on a much larger scale. Now, renovating shops counts toward rebuilding Rome, and expanding it's economy.
The newest addition to Brotherhood is the Assassin Recruiting. Through the course of the game, you will have multiple opportunities in the story missions or as side quests to recruit rebellious civilians to the assassins cause. Then, you can manage your assassins through your Assassins guild. And, as they get kills or succeed on Assassination contracts out of country, they move up in rank. You can call on them in combat to assist you. There is a major downside. AS you rank up your assassins, you might think that it would all pay off with this big confrontation that you were preparing for. Well, it does not happen. So, by the end of the game, it all ends up being kind of pointless.
You can still earn (Or steal) money and spend it on renovating or buying items, like weapons, medicine, paintings and outfit colors.
One of Brotherhoods BEST parts is the huge amount of side missions:
Assassination Contracts return
Thief missions are a new side mission batch, along with Courtesan Missions
There are also Leonardos war machine quests, which are the only missions (Aside from sequence one of story mode) that take you out of Rome.
The Assassin Tombs from AC2 are back, accept they are now calls "Romulus Lairs". Completing them all, gets you the Armor and Dagger of Brutus.
Brotherhood has multiplayer too, which is new to the series.
In Multiplayer, the players are Templars in training at Abstergo industries who are using the Animi (Plural for Animus) to access memories of past templars in order to gain their skills with the "Bleeding Affect". As you rank up, you move up in your templar rank.
The game modes are:
Wanted
Alliance
Manhunt
Chest Capture
Advanced Wanted
Advanced Alliance
Escort
Assassinate
The Multiplayer is a bit different..... but is fun if you give it a chance. But there is a lot of work that needs to be done to it.
The Verdict
Assassins Creed: Brotherhood is a small improvement over AC2, the graphics are mostly the same, the combat is much better, the story is still great, and the music is as good as in AC2.
The Good:
- Good story continuation
- Fun Combat
- Great Musical Score
- Rome is huge
- Graphical improvement from AC2
- Shockingly Amazing Ending
The Bad:
- Framerate Issues
- Assassin Recruiting feels a bit pointless
Score: 9/10
