Da Boyz in da Brotherhood are Always Hard
Lets get one thing out of the way if you do not like the Assassin’s Creed series you will not like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and no matter what I say in this review it will not make a difference so you can move along to the next article. OK, now that is taken care of let me start the review. I have always liked the Assassin's Creed series but it has not grabbed me in the way it has other people. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood almost turned me into a believer. The mission design is the best in the series, the story ramps up to even crazier heights, the new assassin management system is great, and the brand new multiplayer modes are so much fun; but game-breaking glitches cripple what should have been a game of the year contender.
The story of Brotherhood picks up literally seconds after the end of the Assassin’s Creed 2 as Enzio has just accomplished his mission of securing The Apple and heads back to the villa to live the rest of his life in peace. Since the game would get pretty boring if it was all Enzio sun-tanning with beautiful women, things quickly go wrong when the villa is destroyed by the evil Borgia family and The Apple you worked so hard for in the last game gets taken away. Enzio now must head to Rome to take down the Borgia family and retrieve The Apple. Meanwhile in the real world, Nathan Draaa- I mean Desmond Miles (as played by Nolan North) must replay through all of Enzio’s memories to find out where Enzio hid The Apple so the Assassins can retrieve it in order to save the world. The story is very well told and is definitely one of the best aspects of the game. All the real world outside of the Animus stuff plays a bigger role in Brotherhood than in previous installments, so depending on how much you like all the 2012 end of the world you will either be ecstatic or disappointed.
The gameplay is relatively similar to Assassin’s Creed 2 but streamlined to be better and faster. The combat has been sped up with the addition execution streaks where after you kill one guy you can jump over to another guy and waste him instantly. This makes the combat feels more like Arkham Asylum with you trying to keep a huge combo while countering everyone that comes near you. The business owning system has also been expanded. Now all the shops are now located in Rome instead of another area and can only be bought after you take out the Borgia’s Towers so they no longer have influence the area. The Borgia’s Tower make the game a little more dynamic since it can make story missions harder if you choose not to take them out and they are the only way to let you buy shops, plus they are fun little diversions. The best new system is the assassin’s guild management. About 6 hours in you get the ability to recruit citizens to your cause allowing you to call them from literally out of nowhere to start fights and assassinate targets. You can also send the recruits all around the world to do missions and level them up to be better assassins. This is a lot of fun to play around with even if the game is easy enough to get through without touching it but nothing is more satisfying than whistling and having a assassin come flying out of the air and onto your target and then running the hell out of their. Unfortunately I experienced a game breaking glitch about 6 hours in that left me unable to re-enter The Animus so I was stuck in Nolan North world forcing me to restart my game. At least 3 or 4 of these type glitches that have been reported and I can not wholeheartedly recommend a game where these type of glitches exist.
The brand new multiplayer that has been introduced in Brotherhood is completely unique and loads of fun. There are only 3 modes and 1 mode variation so the it is a little limited but their is still plenty of fun to be had. The default mode and easily the best is Wanted, which is a free-for-all style mode that task you with hunting down a target while trying to avoid being hunted yourself. The 8 players character models populate the map as you follow a vague compass that put you in the general vicinity of your target. You then have to look at the surroundings and determine who is AI and who is the person you need to shank. Players are rewarded with much more points for stealthy and creative kills which is probably the multiplayers greatest strength since it keeps it from being everyone running around like an idiot and encourages you to change up how you mess guys up. This cat and mouse style of gameplay leads to lots of amazing moments where you will nearly be killed by your hunter only to have him taken out by someone standing in the crowd. The 2 team based modes Manhunt, where one team of 4 are hunters and the other team is prey, and Alliance, 6 player mode that splits player up into 3 teams of 2 and has teams competing in a sorta triangle of hunting one team while being hunted by another team, are not nearly as fun as Wanted, because they do not really highlight the “team” and just feel like a more limiting version of Wanted. Brotherhood takes a page out of the Call of Duty playbook with perks, killstreaks, and challenges that allow player to use Disguises and Hidden Guns that significantly change strategies and constantly have you thinking on your toes and add a “carrot on a stick” that multiplayer games require these days. As of the writing of this review matchmaking is kinda broken sometimes taking up to 5 minutes to get into a game, but hopefully these issues will be addressed soon.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood does a lot of things right with a robust single player and an excellent multiplayer mode that is different from anything on the market. Unfortunately the egregious glitches made a terrible impression on me and I can not give 5 stars to a game that contains those sorts of glitches.
4 out of 5
+Expands all the great things from the previous game in the series
+Unique and ridiculously fun Multiplayer
-Several Game-Breaking Glitches that require to restart your game if encountered
