Just completed Brotherhood and OMGWTFBBQ ect ect. An overall fantastic game and one I wish I played through sooner; it would have no doubt ranked on my top 10 for that year had I played through it then and shared my enthusiasm as much as I do now for the game.

It's weird because I really liked my time with Brotherhood's campaign, a fair amount more than with AC2, and I never really understood why. I've always been a distant appreciator for the AC series, always acknowledging that it's a solid series, but never having any strong devotion towards it. I despised the first AC, but even then I could see its merit. Even with Brotherhood, I still find the platforming to be really finicky sometimes and the stealth is pretty undeveloped. I mean the guards I noticed are complete, fucking nimrods with what appears to be zero peripheral vision. But they kinda have to be, given how little in the way of abilities you have to stealth around as you do. Also chase missions suck, as do missions where you have to tail people.

Even still, Brotherhood, for whatever reason, clicked a lot more so with me than its predecessor; where as for AC2, I kinda just wanted the campaign to end as it was closing, for Brotherhood I just wish there was more. The addition of the Brotherhood is a great new feature, if a shallow one, but that's still not quite what I'd say won me over completely. Maybe now I've just grown a new found fondess for AC just because... AC is the kind of series I'm apparently in the mood for right now, I guess.

But yeah, the reason for the title... well, it speaks for itself. Brotherhood is a brilliant single player game with a simply staggering amount of stuff to do (the Leonardo death-machine missions were probably my favourite parts of the game - that along with the Romulus parkour missions), but once you receive the apple, the final few missions as Ezio seemingly blend together kinda haphazardly. Things move at a surprising haste, which goes against the otherwise methodical pace of knocking down Cesare one peg at a time. I mean when the game just quickly shifts to the middle of some climatic battle right out of nowhere, it definitely felt like the game just wanted to get Ezio out of the way so it could move on to the Desmond and all the mind-fuckery. An otherwise low point on a brilliantly paced story.

Which said mindfuckery, from my assumptions, is meant to lead you to believing that Desmond is the kinda/sorta reincarnation of ''Adam''? Or to essentially take up the role of ''Adam'' anywhoo. And this Juno wants him to reawaken this 6th sense and along with his ''Eve'', they are to start a new race of humans where we all have this 6th sense? Naturally I'm a little late for all the speculation revolving around Brotherhood's ending, what with the sequel here and all, but I wanted to put that there anywhoo so people can throw my speculation back into my face and rebutal with cold hard FACTS! Also please don't, since I actually now really want to play through Revelations, even though I'm aware that the story is meant to be one of the most disappointing aspects because it doesn't really push the overall arc very forward.

Also on the topic of AC, is Ezio possibly one of the most developed characters amongst video-gaming?! I mean holy shit, you don't half spend a deal of time with the man. Playing through those flashback missions in particular opened my eyes to how much Ezio has grown across the years (Roger Craig Smith reverting to his lighter voice for the younger, more brash Ezio was a great touch to illustrate that fact), and how we have actually been there for the majority of it. We were there for when he was born! And now with Revelations, we're going to be at his side for what I assume will be his final moments, if not the moments leading up to it. Watching him mature to the cool and calculated badass that he be is an arc you don't see that many of across a franchise - or at least with this much breadth.

Anywhoo I've rambled on about AC so much now that I might as well turn this into a blog... yeah, I think I'll do that.