Video Game Review: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Xbox 360 - Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Review

WARNING SPOILERS!

Once again you take up the role as the assassin, Ezio Auditore da Firenze in this sequel of Assassin’s Creed II. Brotherhood takes place immediately after its predecessor, starting in the vault after the talk with Minerva. After escaping Rome with a little help, the gamer is taken back to Monteriggioni where Ezio tells his family, Mario, Caterina and Machiavelli about what happened. The next morning, the villa is attacked by Rodrigo Borgia’s son, Cesare. He defeats Mario and kidnaps Caterina, but not before one of his soldiers shoots Ezio. In revenge, after getting his mother and sister as well as some villagers out of there, Ezio rides back to Rome where the game takes place. While in the present day, Desmond and the other make it to modern day Monteriggioni to hide from Abstergo.

While the other Assassin’s Creed games have you traveling between cities, this one takes place strictly in large Renaissance city of Rome. You have three modes of travel: on foot, on your trusty steed, or through a fast travel tunnel system. Now everyone knows that on foot consists of running or walking and scaling buildings. That’s fun if you want to screw around with a few of the roof guards or avoid unnecessary circling around the city. The tunnel system can only be used when you find the tunnel entrance in the area and pay to have it renovated. It can be a great help when you are going from one side of the map to the other. But the fastest way to travel that is in between them is riding your horse. Now you can basically steal any horse you want or get them from the stables and whatever horse you were on last will be the horse that is called to you when you whistle. The best thing this time around with the horse, is that you aren’t getting a notoriety raise every time you run someone over. Major plus in my book.

Ubisoft also took the idea of building your finances with the construction of the villa and took it a step further in Brotherhood. In this game, you have to unlock the doctors, merchants, landmarks and aqueducts in order to rebuild Rome from under Borgia’s rule. To do this you must destroy each Borgia tower in the area and its captain. Once that is done you are able to unlock everything, including faction buildings for your allies.

Yes, the factions are back in this sequel. The courtesans in Rome are left without a leader. Claudia, Ezio’s sister, steps up as an Auditore and decides she will help her brother by leading the courtesans in Rome. Along with her, La Volpe is back with his thieves and so is Bartolomeo with his mercenaries. With the help of fellow Assassin allies, Ezio is able to rebuild the Assassin’s brotherhood back to its full strength.

Rebuilding the Brotherhood is one of the most interesting parts of the gameplay. Ezio saves citizens from the Borgia guards, who in turn give their skills over to the Brotherhood. As the guild grows, you are able to send Assassins out on missions in order to gain money and objects needed for shop quests. These shop quests allow you to gain better armor, more room on your belts, and better weapons. Not only that, but when you gain a certain amount of members into the guild, you are able to summon them to assassinate your targets for you. They literally come from nowhere to help you. There is one move called the Arrow Storm. This move brings in a barrage of arrows from the sky killing your target and the surrounding enemies. The best thing about this move, is that when you use it the kill is not linked back to Ezio in anyway. So you can move through the fight without getting anyone suspicious, unless you join in on the slaughter of course. But you must beware when you send your assassins out on missions and against guards. If they are not strong enough, you will lose them permanently.

One thing Ubisoft added that made this a really unique Assassin’s Creed game was the multiplayer aspect. And this multiplayer is not something that was just added on to the game. Ubisoft explained that the multiplayer is the Abstergo operatives training themselves to be able to catch Desmond and his assassin friends. There are three different types of multiplayer games. First you have the normal free-for-all which is labeled Wanted. You get a target, while trying to stay away from people targeting you. The second is called Alliance. This game is three teams of two people. One team hunts the other while being hunted by the third. The last game-type is called Manhunt. In this game there are two teams of four and you take turns hunting each other. Now the multiplayer in this game isn’t just focused on the quantity of your kills, but the quality of them. This is an assassin game and Ubisoft really embodied the game in their multiplayer. The only thing that bothers me is that it takes a bit long to find and start a match.

The Brotherhood is an excellent finish to Ezio’s story and a nice bridging gap to Assassin’s Creed 3. Desmond’s story also continues when he finds out where Ezio’s Piece of Eden is. Not spoiling the end, let’s just say that you will need to play Brotherhood to understand Desmond’s story in AC3. Overall Brotherhood is a game where Ubisoft took into account what the player liked and what they knew they needed to fix and did just that. There might be minor repetitive missions, but you will always have that in almost any game. The gameplay takes a new violent and enjoyable twist. For example countering with your sword is libel to get the guards head blown off with the gun in Ezio’s gauntlet. The added aspect of managing your own Assassin’s guild was unique and enjoyable. While the story gave you side-missions, you could easily bypass them for the main story which really rounded out everything for Ezio and those associated with him. Even if you don’t like Ezio or his story, I definitely recommend this game for the intricate gameplay and guild order.

9.8/10

Video Games | Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood | E3 2010: Trailer

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