Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Single-player review.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is a direct sequel to 2009’s Assassin’s Creed II. The game literally takes place moments after the ending of Assassin’s Creed II. Players familiar with the Assassin’s Creed franchise will notice immediately that the core mechanics of the game are largely the same but with the addition of more abilities and features. Players will still use R1+X to scale walls or R1+square to initiate counter-attacks and so on. This game is pretty much the Assassin’s Creed II players remember. Of course this is not necessarily a bad thing since Assassin’s Creed II was such a fun game to play.

AC: B has the player resume their roles as assassins Desmond Miles (when in the present day of 2012) and Ezio Auditore Da Firenze (when in the Animus). The plot of AC: B focuses around Ezio who is attempting to rebuild and reclaim Rome from its Borgia rulers. The story does a good job of fleshing out details about characters you have already been introduced to in ACII while introducing some new characters along the way without having the player feel swamped with information in any way. The plot of the game is- in true Assassin’s Creed fashion- full of twists and surprises that will keep you entertained from start to finish and it is easily one of the game’s strong points.

The first thing players will notice when they resume Ezio’s story is that the combat in AC: B has been sped up significantly: enemies are now more aggressive, taking shots at you more often and at the same time players have the ability to perform an execution move (which basically reduces the number of hits it takes to kill an enemy with each subsequent kill a player can get without being interrupted by an enemy attack) which further speeds up the pace. Also worth noting is the pairing of certain weapons which can be used simultaneously such as the sword and gun combo or the dagger and throwing knife combo which gives an extra layer of depth to the combat. Complementing these new tweaks is an expanded arsenal which includes weapons such as crossbows and heavy weapons. Though the faster pace and new abilities may take some time to get accustomed to, the combat is able to remain just as satisfying and fun to watch as it was in the previous instalments without feeling repetitive.

One of the biggest additions in AC: B is the fact that this time round Ezio can recruit other Assassins and utilize them to help him on his missions or just straight up help in engaging enemies. These Assassin recruits can level up and gain points which the player can then spend on improving the quality of gear the recruits work with. While certainly a great addition and a fun mechanic to play with, its full potential is not realized as most story sequences disables the ability to call in Assassins often making you wonder why this ability was even implemented in the first place if not to be used in missions. This is especially disappointing towards the end game where players are thrown into multiple large-scale battles without the ability to call in the recruits.

Another departure from traditional Assassin’s Creed setting is the fact that players will spend majority of the game in the large, well-realized city of Rome instead of having several smaller locations to visit. As a consequence players will now have to conquer territories from the Borgia and renovate these liberated parts of Rome instead of having their own personal town to renovate. Strangely the routine task of destroying a Borgia tower to take over a piece of land and renovating the shops in said piece of land is really satisfying and the incentive of more money from more buildings renovated adds to the already rewarding experience. Besides increasing your income, the buildings and shops you renovate can also be used to purchase various items from basic items like medicine to more permanent items like armour and so on.

AC: B is far from perfect and contains many of the flaws the original game had such as clunky platforming controls in tighter areas or pairing these clunky controls with sequences which are timed; all which can lead to a great deal of frustration. Of course if you are familiar with the franchise then chances are that you have already learnt to forgive these minor annoyances. However the new large scale map of Rome does introduce some new problems which are not as easy to forgive. Firstly the overview map does a very poor job of telling you where you can and can’t go. Often exploring players will find that they ran/rode all the way towards a location just to have a white wall restricting the said location’s access - the game’s way of telling you that you should not be in that area just yet. This would not have been such a problem if players had some way to see the areas they cannot enter but unfortunately the ability is not included and travelling all the way to a location just to be blocked by a white wall is just a horrible waste of time. Another result of having larger and richer areas in the game is that the camera angles can easily get obscured. This is especially true when engaged in combat where the combat camera can get blocked by trees or buildings. While not exactly game breaking, this minor annoyance can stack up with the game’s other problems causing even more frustration. Overall the game’s problems boils down to one fundamental issue: the game controls do not work well for timed sequences. There are just simply too much mistakes that can occur in the platforming when faced with the pressure of time limits. Fortunately for AC: B there are only small traces of where time is a factor and an even smaller part within this group of missions which are compulsory in order to progress the game’s plot which is enough to allow players to enjoy the game rather than be frustrated.

All in all if you are an existing fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise or are just looking for a good and fun action game with an excellent story then this is a game you should play. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is basically a really fine-tuned and improved version of Assassin’s Creed II that continues the Assassin’s Creed plot in interesting new ways.