Okay Geek Farm
PS3 Review - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Alex TretropStory: Picking up at the exact moment Assassin’s Creed 2 left off, we’re put right back into the shoes Desmond and his assassin ancestor, Ezio once again. After a brief recap, along with replaying the last few moments of AC2, Ezio returns home for some well deserved rest and relaxation, when suddenly his villa is blown to pieces by the Borgia, a new family that has quickly and suddenly come to power in Italy.
The mind blowing power of the Borgia destroys the Villa in mere moments, the same city that Ezio spent years of his life and money to restore. And after certain other events make it personal to our protagonist, Ezio travels to Rome where he dedicates himself to freeing it from the Borgia’s control. Not after long, Ezio soon begins to gain control of his own guild of assassin’s in which he uses to further his mission.
Gameplay: Speaking strictly about the single player; it’s a ton more of the same. You’re still stabbing evil doers with your hidden blades, as well as with the use of some cool gadgets like throwing knives, the hidden gun, and poison which all return to help set up your sneaky kills. But it’s the new stuff that’ll makes this half-sequel so much fun to play.
You can call your recruited Assassins at the push of a button to attack unsuspecting guards, help you out of a fight, or distract opponents from a distance. It’s such a small addition, but it changes up the gameplay so dramatically. You’d have never expected that added just one more Assassin to your ranks could make your journey that much easier.
Although they can fight alongside you, you can also send your followers on Assassin contracts around the world to level them up, earn additional armor and weapons, or you can have them busy themselves with certain side contracts in Rome for you. Each one of these has a certain percentage of success dependent on how many people you send on a mission and what level they are. The catch is that once they leave you can’t call on them when you get into a sticky situation, or they could die with no way of reviving them.
Moving on to the new multiplayer portion; right off the bat I think this is some of the most exhilarating multiplayer I’ve ever played - but most importantly, it’s original. And for a Triple-A game developer trying something so different, it’s a risk that needs to be applauded. That being said, I don’t think there’s enough here to justify players coming back to it after a long while. The simple premise is that you choose a preset Assassin and are given another player as a target, all the while you’re being hunted by another player who’s been given you as the target. The game then populates the map with NPC copies of all the chosen characters, making it easy to hide and act natural to avoid your pursuers. You get a metric ton more points for a discreet kill than a louder or more noticeable one, forcing players to play at a much more slower pace than what they might typically be used to in a multiplayer focused First Person Shooter.
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Visuals / Audio: Just like Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood still looks fantastic by today’s standards. There is the occasional texture pop-in here and there, but for the most part you’ll be seeing sprawling buildings like the Pantheon and the Coliseum while climbing or battling your way through them. The facial expressions on Desmond and his group could use a little more improvement but that’s a small complaint to be optimistic.
Sound is also fantastic with the game being noticeably dialogue heavy. You’ll always hear some very lively market criers and stalls both in English and Italian, along with the voice actors for the main characters, who all reprise their roles and deliver standout performances across the board. Even the side missions have some excellent dialogue and exposition, making it one of increasingly fewer titles that have a good context to these non-necessary missions.
And as for the soundtrack, it’s more of the same orchestrated pieces that’ve made Assassin’s Creed such a beauty to listen to.
Listen to tracks from the game’s soundtrack here: “Roman Underworld” and “Echoes of the Roman Ruins”
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Difficulty: Even though the combat is easier thanks to the new Assassins guild, as well as just how quickly you can kill, the game often puts you into situations that force you to improvise or do something a little out of the ordinary, which in the long run spices up the combat. The overall game and its missions are well balanced, so the game doesn’t feel out of wack or overly difficult in some areas than others.
Hour to complete: 20 hours at the very minimum. It’s fantastic that it’s so lengthy, and you’ll be coming back for the absolutely ridiculous amount of extra content in the single player, along with knowledge that you can jump into the multiplayer at any time for some short bursts of outright fun.
Opinion: Everything in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is fantastic; from the excellent and varied missions, great storyline and original multiplayer, to the way you can just stab someone in the face you want to, this is absolutely great game that continues to push the franchise forward.
My sole “problem” with the gameplay is that it feels even easier than it was before. Counters are still one hit kills, and now if you button mash on a guard for a little while it will always bypass their defenses and kill them instantly. It’s a great thing that the executions always look fantastic or else this would have gotten bland really fast.
The multiplayer has everything it needs to succeed: a nice assortment of levels, an original premise, and a perk based level-up system. Despite all that though, there are a lot of things that may put players off from playing this long-term. Some examples are that as you level-up it feels as if you’re getting a bit of a large advantage as opposed to a game like Call of Duty in which you’re just gaining new equipment. The real kicker though, is that other than some team based variations, there’s basically only one mode you’ll be doing for your entire online career, and because of that it starts to ware on you a little faster than other online games typically do. Combine that with some sporadic servers and, at least in my eyes, you’ll find a multiplayer experience that is nothing more but novelty, albeit a very cool and original one at first.
Play or Pass: The good far outweighs the bad in a well deserving sequel that, up until this point, I thought would only have a tacked on single player experience. Ubisoft definitely proved me wrong! It was a fantastic and lengthy ride throughout this game and I absolutely encourage players to pick it up.
