Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is effectively a sequel to Assassin's Creed 2. You play as Ezio again in the animus parts and Desmond in the present day scenario, and the game picks off directly from where Assassin's Creed 2 leaves off. The story begins with Ezio returning to his villa, but events quickly conspire to drag him back into his battle with the powerful Borgia family while in the present day Desmond and Lucy attempt to foil the modern day templars. After the initial events of the game, we go to Rome where the whole game effectively takes place. This may sound limiting but Rome is a stunningly recreated sandbox for players to enjoy, and is easily the largest city in the AC series till this point. The strong cast of AC2 return in the main, and some new characters are introduced. Ezio, Catherina, Lucrezia and Machiavelli are the high points of the cast. The story in Brotherhood is a well told tale but is a far smaller scope than Assassin's Creed 2's tale. It happens over a shorter period of time and unlike AC2 Ezio doesn't really change during the events of this game, he is already a matured character and his arch is effectively done. The villain does a good job being a villain and the events which Desmond and co go through in the present link back to Ezio's time but overall the story lacks the emotional impact that Assassin's Creed 2 had. However an amazing story mechanic that this game uses is the flash backs that you unlock to see what happened between Ezio and the love of his life, Cristina. These flashbacks are extremely rewarding to unlock and really help to flesh out the missing years from AC2. They are brilliantly integrated into the structure of Brotherhood and are my favourite part of the game. 

Brotherhood is a graphically fantastic game, continuing the series typically beautiful environments. Rome is possibly the best city created in any video game. Like other cities in the series, Rome has been recreated faithfully to its historical make up in the time the game is set. The buildings, historic sites and surroundings are all stunning and it all really helps to immerse the player in the games atmosphere. The character models are all animated naturally and they move and interact with each other and the player in a realistic way physically. The details on the environments and characters all looks great, especially on the main characters and the major buildings. The lighting is crisp and the graphics are some of the best on the consoles.  


The sound maintains the quality of AC2. The music is beautiful, consisting primarily of period suitable music, and there are some great tracks towards the end of the game. The character voicing is fantastic, with suitable accents and actors for all the characters. The sound continuous to enhance and reinforce other aspects of the game without intruding into game play or taking over scenes. The environmental sounds are also great and help create the games ambiance. Inhabitants of Rome will chat with each other and the conversations are often amusing to listen to. 


Game play in Brotherhood is the same as Assassin's Creed 2. You climb a lot of buildings, and combat is based on the use of multiple melee weapons and a parry system. There are also some fun projectile weapons. The side missions this time include the use of some fun machines like Leonardo's design for a tank. These missions help to change up the structure of the game and are a fun escape. The games main quest missions are again quite varied, continuing AC2's escape from the repetition of AC1. The game is again a sand box for you to mess around in, and you have the freedom to explore the city at will outside of the main quest. A major change this time is that you gain the use of other assassins during the game. You can call them with the push of a button, resulting in up to 3 AI assassins jumping in to your aid. Its a really fun mechanic which makes the player more powerful and allows you to take on large groups of enemies on more equitable terms. Brotherhood also has a multiplayer mode, a first for the Assassin's Creed series. I was expecting the multiplayer to be a weak aspect of the game, but its actually unique and really well implemented. There are different modes, and many involve you having a target to hunt down while simultaneously avoiding your own hunter. Its a fun mode and really uses the mechanics of the series in a great and fun way to create a genuinely fun to play multiplayer. I ran into some matchmaking issues but once a game gets going its a blast.

I have some serious issues with the structure of mission parameters in Brotherhood. De-synchronisation, I hope you like that word, because you will be seeing it a lot in this game. Many of the missions have arbitrary conditions which if not met result in the mission being forcibly restarted. This seriously pissed me off at points. One mission called the banker was particularly bad. The mission's premise is brilliant: stalk a corrupt cardinal through the crowds of a lavish party, hunting down and slowly planning out your kill. The problem is the target does not move and if a guard spots you its mission over. The game actually failed me AFTER I had killed the target because a guard had seen me stabbing him. THE MAN WAS ALREADY DEAD!! Immediately after successfully doing the mission you have to fight all the guards anyway, making these ridiculous conditions completely pointless. I felt that this really took away from the game as it added frustration and made some poor design decisions painfully obvious. The game also has some bugs and glitches. When I reached the last boss fight in the game I reduced him to half health and got a cutscene. After the scene I was unable to hurt him at all, and was forced to restart the section from the last check point. These bugs are not a huge issue but AC2 was near technical perfection so it was odd to see it in this game. I will put it down to shorter development time, but I hope that Ubisoft take their time with the next instalment of the series. 


Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is a great game with a fun campaign and great environments. The multiplayer is excellent and tastefully implemented. The characters are great and the sound perfectly suits the game. However, Brotherhood falls short of Assassin's Creed 2 due to a lesser story which lacks the emotionally involving story of AC2. The game has some odd glitches and the mission parameters that result in de-synchronisation are infuriating and should be removed from this series AT ONCE. 

Pros:

• Great graphics and lighting
• Rome is fantastically recreated
• Immersive atmosphere
• Beautiful music score which enhances the game experience
• Desmond and the modern cast have been made more likeable
• The mythos of the series gets deeper and advances in a meaningful way
• The flash backs to Ezio's relationship with Cristina are brilliant
• Catherina Sforza and Niccolo Machiavelli are great
• Multiplayer is well integrated into the game

Cons:

• Stupid mission parameters which cause instant de-synchronisation if failed, often for arbitrary reasons
• Some control issues remain
• The game has some bad glitches at rare points
• Some pacing issues
• The scope of the story is greatly reduced from the last game

Wtf:

• Being seen as you are in the physical process of killing the target and de-synchronised as a result, when you end up having to fight you way out of the area after killing the target anyway.....

Score: 

• 7/10

Needs less restrictive mission parameters and to polish out some glitches.