Use new fighting skills and deploy your deadly brotherhood in your ongoing quest for justice in this familiar experience
Contains: Strong Bloody Violence, Language and Assassination Theme
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Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a historic, open world, stealth-action adventure sequel that continues directly where Assassin's Creed 2 ended and is the second game of Ezio's trilogy.
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STORY - 2/5
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No one expects to wake up in the morning to find themselves caught in a war between two secret organisations, yet Desmond Miles in the present day is trapped indefinitely in the struggle between these organisations, and unfortunately for him, the entire plot revolves around him. On one side of this on-going war is the Templar's who are better known in the present day setting as Abstergo Industries. They're in the business of control - Politics, Economics, Technology - and they won't stop, won't give up until everyone serves them. Fighting against them are the assassins - a group dedicated to safeguarding humanities freewill. Desmond was born unknowingly into the brotherhood, and a couple of weeks ago the templar's found him, took him prisoner, and strapped him into a machine they built (called the Animus) to put him to work, where he inevitably spent most of his captive time exploring the memories of his ancestors, discovering entire lives locked deep inside his DNA. First he revisited the life of Altair, an assassin from the crusades. The Templars wanted the location of something known as a 'Piece of Eden' - an ancient artefact capable of bending people to their will. Once the Templars had what they were looking for, they decided Desmond's usefulness had come to an end. But Lucy Stillman, a spy for the assassins within Abstergo, saved him. When things hit the fan, she revealed herself as an assassin to help him escape, and Desmond hoped that would be the end of his misadventures. But things were just getting started, and back into another Animus he went (a slightly modified version of the original) to relive the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, his ancestor from the renaissance period, searching for a path forward. Through the bleeding effect, Desmond gradually acquired the skills of his ancestor, becoming an assassin in more than just name. After a lengthy time of gaining new abilities and discovering the potential hidden within his own DNA, the Templars eventually found them, forcing him and the other modern-day assassins to flee to Monteriggioni, establishing a new hideout in the ruins of the Villa Auditore. After restoring the electricity in the old tunnels under the villa, you once again take control of Ezio through the genetic memory of Desmond in the hope of uncovering the hidden location of the Piece of Eden in the present before it's too late.
Ezio's story takes grand stage for most of the game, and involves family conflicts against arch enemies when his Uncle is murdered in front of him. The revenge-themed storyline strongly ties in with the desperate search for the Piece of Eden, but apart from a couple of emotionally powerful scenes, little mystery or suspense is generated as the story progresses, ultimately proving disappointing and largely uninteresting as events unravel and clues formulate as a whole.
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CHARACTERS - 4/5
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"I will journey to the black heart of a corrupt Empire to root out my foes. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be conquered by a lone assassin. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. This is my Brotherhood." Ezio once again proves a strong protagonist to play as, with a solid personality for you to feel for his emotions and feel intact with his actions as he strives for answers just as he does for revenge. Other characters that come into Ezio's life throughout the space of many years are just as great, with many new characters making convincing introductions into the plot, as well as memorable performances from the recurring characters you'll recognise from the previous game. And while not every character is exactly likeable, every character makes a strong impact on story proceedings one way or another which is a positive point in its own right.
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GAMEPLAY - 4/5
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Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, released a year later from the well-received Assassin's Creed 2, might seem like it should have been kept in development a little longer purely because a year doesn't appear to be enough time to make a solid game requiring vast improvements to surpass it's predecessor. However, this historic action adventure is lengthy and enjoyable, and nothing major will strike you that this direct sequel was rushed in any way despite suffering from familiarity in gameplay structure, similarity in visuals and an unfortunate addition of annoyance that accompanies various stealth-related missions. Like the previous installments, the gameplay's core mechanics are based on parkour movements, crowd-blending stealth, assassinations and melee fighting system within a massive open world that has treasures tucked away all over the place, a wide range of fun activities and side missions to engage in when you aren't busy progressing the main narrative and an economy system that is more meaningful than ever.
After an early story-related event, you are stripped of your weapons, armour, money and abilities that you concluded with in Assassin's Creed 2, and follow a similar pattern in order to re-attain them. To be fair, most of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is similar to it's predecessor, but for some improvements and expansion in variety. You'll be spending some extended gameplay sequences and time as Desmond in intermittent stages of the game, including platforming and climbing segments, can ride horses through the streets or across vast countryside at any time for quick travel, and more importantly, have magnificent sword fights with the guards of Rome at your optional leisure whenever you want and with a range of medieval weapons and equipment. The combat has been significantly advanced from Brotherhood's predecessors, while at the same time feeling familiar thanks to a great camera that captures every angle of your attacks and the whereabouts of your attackers without hindering enjoyment or causing confusion over a sense of direction. A new implementation within sword duels is the execution kill streak which allows you to continue killing enemies at a tap of a button, showing off some new killing animations and making the combat feel more entertaining. In theory, it's an addition that could make the combat too easy because of the simplicity to counter-kill and continue to chain bloody kills moves in a row. However, enemies don't necessarily attack in turn like before, and so whilst you commit yourself to performing another gruesome sword stab to your opponents throat, another foe may attempt to strike you mid-animation which actually forces you to be more aware of your surroundings instead of grinning at the delight of a spurt of blood during your current kill. So in practice, this addition adds a whole new layer to the combat design, improving your reaction and awareness to enemy positioning while still maintaining a glorifying edge to ending their lives in swift and exciting counter-kill streaks that vary depending on where they're attacking from and which weapon you have equipped.
When you aren't slaying multiple enemies in grouped fights around the city, or participating in various activities that involves assassination contracts and other related, optional assignments, you'll be looking to use your money wisely. The economy system is more meaningful than ever, and is greatly improved over it's predecessor which did a fantastic job of contributing the shop system to the historic atmosphere and overall impact in gameplay. In AC: Brotherhood there is just so much more to take in to account. Firstly, Borgia Towers split up the districts, have more enemies within the area of influence and lock off various shops that are in Borgia territory. Your objective would be to climb the enemy controlled structure and burn it before performing a leap of faith into the closest bale of straw, but first of all you must kill the Borgia captain who is surrounded by enemies in a fortified, restricted area. A difficulty is placed on the challenge to kill the captain, and stealth plays a prominent role in getting within assassination distance. Once you have eliminated him, the vast amount of enemies that are in that area disperse, leaving you with the simple task of climbing to the top and igniting it for all of Rome to see. Borgia Towers also are a target to be destroyed for lowering the difficulty of any primary memories/missions that take place within the area of influence, possibly giving you an advantage to getting 100% full synchronisation for that specific quest. Borgia Towers hold an influence over a certain area, and so places of interest or value cannot be renovated until the tower is burned and the captain killed. Upon the destruction of the once enemy-occupied landmark, you can enjoy the improvement of the economy system. Whilst in the last game every shop was immediately unlocked and displayed on your map once you synchronised a viewpoint, in AC: Brotherhood you have to use your earned money and renovate the places. It may seem that renovating multiple shops (that are the same) using your hard-earned money quite unnecessary when you already have others scattered around, however, investing your money into a shop increases your income within Rome, therefore increasing the amount of profit you'll earn over a specific time period which can then be received at a bank and spent on much-needed things of interest from any of the shops in the city. There is so much to keep you occupied within the economy system which has grown so much with such a massive influence to the gameplay. There are banks to collect your earnings over a period of time and to view your record of renovations; Art merchants to purchase paintings for your hideout aswell as treasure and flag maps that get added to your map to show the locations of each; Tailor shops that give you the opportunity to dye your clothes and your cape; Blacksmiths that repair your armour aswell as letting you purchase new weapons and ammunition as it becomes available; Medical shops for medicine and poison purchases, healing benefits and stealthy killing potential respectively. Obviously there is much more things that accompany each shop, and over the course of the game new items are unlocked and variety vastly improved in terms of your weaponry and your gear. Shop quests are also optional to undertake in order to unlock specific armour or augmented abilities, making you search treasure locations on your map for the various items required to unlock it, something special which money in this case cannot buy. Alternatively you can sell random items you collect (either from looted bodies, treasure chests or stolen back from thieves and Borgia messengers) to any shop of your choice once renovated.
Later in the story, you'll realise a new management system: Ezio can recruit new members by destroying any of twelve Borgia towers around Rome where papal troops are stationed, then rescuing disgruntled citizens in their districts from harassing guards. You can then send them to assignments around Europe (with varying difficulties for the associated ranks of the recruits) or call them for support during missions (if they are not already occupied). Tasking the novice Assassins makes them gain experience, more for the harder challenges which is split depending on how many you place to complete that task, and you are able to customize their appearance, skills and weapon training to some degree by spending the skill points they have earned. It's an interesting implementation that can pre-occupy you quite well from the addicting exploration and mission undertaking in the open world, and lets you achieve something of high greatness within the assassin order, while also adding some relief to a troubling mission when the odds are looking pretty unlikely on success.
Other optional things included in AC: Brotherhood that were also a big part of the second game are lairs: underground levels which focus on the search for Scrolls of Romulus (which collectively will unlock a unique attire to wear) through varied platforming and stealth sections which are nice distractions from the beautiful world above, and solving puzzles of Subject 16 which are hidden to the naked eye on certain landmarks and require eagle vision to be visible and interactable. Subject 16 puzzles are even weirder and challenging than last time though. In fact to be honest, they don't make any sense, are tedious, and never capitalise on the promising premise of variety to solve thought provoking puzzles that include random extracts from various history. They become unnecessarily difficult because of how confusing the actual puzzles are, and the poor hints that do their best to give nothing helpful away only augment the madness you'll feel boil up inside as you get stuck and search internet sources for a guide to progressing.
Some of the missions are also more frustrating than fun, usually the ones that are intent on keeping you from being detected and using stealth, which rarely goes according to plan, while giving you very little hints apart from the obvious being "Do not be detected" which you'll undoubtedly and frustratingly realise sooner or later. It's a shame the difficulty is amped up during various missions and side missions alike, since failing never causes you to be more aware next time around, but instead infuriates you for something so petty when a guard sees you after minutes or hard work or trying to remain undetected, and so doing the same all over again in methodical movements and varying stealth techniques only makes you more liable to fail again because of the anger that makes a presence in your character control and endurance of such punishment.
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GRAPHICS - 4/5
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Despite the moderate array of visual quirks that mar your overall point of view on the graphics, AC: Brotherhood is still a very beautifully detailed game within a large historic city with lots of factual references from notable buildings in that time period. Rome is very large, and is stuffed with incredible amounts of detail from the material and colour of structures to the actual size and authentic look of famous landmarks such as the Coliseum. The environments are really good in variety to ensure you won't be just traversing through familiar streets or across rooftops throughout the game, and so you'll enjoy the mix up of landscape when you get to ride horseback across plains of grass in the countryside. And yet despite its beauty, you won't be able to push the blemishes out of your mind. The visuals are layered with minor issues that distract and most notably are still prone to screen tearing and object pop-in for it's draw distance, especially when travelling at speed in colourful fields of green in the wide open countryside areas. There are some glitches in both gameplay and graphics that have potential to force a restart from the closest checkpoint due to the oddness of what can happen (falling through a building into water under the city and unable to get back up is certainly strange) and so sadly more polish is required to perfect something that definitely is capable of being visually perfect in every way, if only the problem can be addressed in future games of the series.
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SOUND - 4/5
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Sword slashing, blood spurting and abdomen stabbing will resonate in the thick of your deepest bloodthirsty desires with a measure of satisfaction where combat is concerned, while convincing voice acting and emotional pleading will echo marvellously and with a ring of believability where a well constructed narrative is appertain to. The beautiful soundtrack compliments the historic period further, fusing dramatic audio with calming and stirring music that reflects what's occurring in-game. If it wasn't for some minor but noticeable sound effect issues, then the audio department would be faultless, yet the uncommon times when sword strikes are misplaced or completely absent for several seconds are distracting enough to be mentioned here.
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CONTROLS - 4/5
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A brilliant and helpful feature in the Assassin's Creed series is the controls HUD at the top right of the screen. It is a map of the face buttons on your controller with the displayed functions updated as they change based on Ezio's current position, proximity to points of interactivity, and when you activate high profile mode opposed to low profile. For example, it will let you know when you can use a light push to navigate crowds of civilians, or alert you when you are sufficiently close to a target to perform a stealth kill with the hidden blade. It's a very useful feature and is always worth glancing at if you are unsure about the relevant act you want to do next, maybe to dissuade you from committing an atrocious act if you don't have your fists equipped when negotiating with a feisty civilian who caught you thieving, mistiming an assassination attempt which could have fatal consequences to your mission, or when climbing around.
Scaling tall buildings is easy, but getting back down without leaping into a cart of straw, or falling to your death can be a little harder, and when chasing a target the controls can unintentionally feel clumsy as you interact with objects or people that you don't intend to. This likely issue to occur doesn't happen often, but the rare occasions in which it does prove a nuisance will often cause failure to your objective and, no doubt, some frustrations.
The controls during the intense combat are tight and responsive, and negotiating with medieval weaponry amongst groups of soldiers never proves a problem when you are confident of the control scheme and the tricks you soon gain up your sleeve as you progress to become a feared assassin and notable killer throughout the historic land.
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ATMOSPHERE - 5/5
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The crowd play a massive part in the whole of the Rome setting. During scenes of sword fighting amongst enemies they won't just stand there in awe this time, but make themselves present and audible above the bloodshed by projecting their voices in correspondence to being the audience, showing fear and anxiety as you brutally eliminate opponents from the staggering odds stacked against you. Civilians stand and watch in awe, anticipation and excitement while the sword duelling lasts, but run away in a crowd filled with fear and panic once you've slayed all your foes and head in their direction. I suppose you could say they react intelligently when faced in close proximity to a notorious assassin.
There are plenty of small, yet highly credible, contributions to the atmosphere in gameplay, most of which will go unseen unless you actually admire the achievement set amongst the backdrop. Little things like what people are doing for instance; A couple may be getting intimately close (just in conversation and kissing I assure you) in a secluded spot out of the crowded streets; Groups of civilians may engage in friendly chatter amidst the commotion; Street performers can be seen doing acrobatic moves to impress the floods of crowds; And people can be seen either sweeping outside their home or even preparing the crops in their field. Basically everyday activities shown in remarkable detail for those who care for the atmosphere of the historic setting. The economy system is probably the most impressive aspect of the city atmosphere however, and the shops are just so inviting with the way they are presented, such as, in the weapons shops a blacksmith is working hard crafting medieval equipment behind the owner who is attending customers, and it's such a great aspect that is fantastically presented and exhibited in authentic detail to represent a part of history you've never seen but feel like you are now a part of.
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ENEMY AI - 4/5
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Enemies are much more aggressive in AC: Brotherhood due to the modified combat, and so whereas in previous games counterattacks were more efficient as you awaited your for any of your opponents to strike first, offensive attacks prove the equivalent efficiency in Brotherhood, making the combat more fierce as opposed to the slow-paced wait-and-strike tactic seen previously. Guards can attack simultaneously, keeping you on your toes to counter kill and try and chain together devastating, brutal finishers before your opponents can react first to your intentions. Taunting your enemies makes them attack impulsively, which in turn causes their defence to turn unstable, thus making them vulnerable to a counter kill or a disarm. The AI is fairly impressive, though their attempts to be intelligent usually provoke frustration, especially when you are fighting amidst a group of guards and one of them decides to hijack a horse from a civilian for a new means of attack. There are new enemy archetypes in addition to those seen in Assassin's Creed II such as horsemen, arquebusiers, papal guards and others, and they make for some challenging, but not always frustrating, action set pieces where escape is improbable due to the speed of some of your agile foes. If fighting a large amount of guards is discouraging, then fleeing a battle is never a cowardly act as long as you succeed. If you manage to evade the enemies line of sight you need to find a hiding place to become anonymous, and some guards do search the last seen vicinity you were at, making for tense moments as a guard nears your hiding spot ready to search it with a sharp spear.
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LENGTH - 5/5
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Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a long game that can take anywhere between 20 - 30 hours to complete depending on how much spare time you are willing to spend free roaming and exploring. There is so many side missions and optional activities to partake in that can take up much of your gameplay time, and the sheer variety of what there is to offer outside of primary story memories makes it worthwhile to explore the open world for treasures and randomly engage in sword fights with the local guards, and even call upon your trustworthy assassin recruits if necessary.
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REPLAY VALUE - 4/5
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Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood offers much lasting value once the single player story concludes. One of the biggest sources of replay value comes in the mission design, for both primary memories and side missions, in which there is an optional objective to aim to get 100% synchronisation for that quest. Varying from completing the mission under a set target time or for killing your target from a hiding spot, these offer challenges during the mission aswell as after, since you can replay a memory at any time once it's been completed by selecting it in the DNA strand menu when you pause the game. You are also offered virtual training (something else that can be selected via the pause menu), a mini-game where the player may test their free-running, stealth techniques or combat skills to acquire medals based on your performance. It's good competition against friends as you strive to perhaps get a longer kill streak than them in the arena, or stealthily kill all targets in a quicker time than they achieved, and what's better is that it has no relation to the game whatsoever, and simply poses as an added extra once you are content with your story progression after concluding the plot.
Overall, this historic action adventure is an impressive achievement given the time in which it was made, including some much welcome variety to both combat and missions, aswell as providing some neat additions and improvements. Unfortunately, not only is there some recurring visual issues that haven't been fixed since their appearance way back in the first game, but the stealth sections, most infamously, are full of potentially frustrating moments that severely hinder your enjoyment when it doesn't go smoothly or you become aggravatingly stuck with no aid to turn to. But despite not surpassing Assassin's Creed 2, AC: Brotherhood is still an excellent game that is long, action-packed and authentic in representing a historic atmosphere that truly feels alive with believable activity amongst the beautiful landscape. The story doesn't fulfil the interesting premise, but the characters make most cutscenes watchable due to the voice acting that brings the personalities of even the unlikable villains to life, and in conclusion, this third-person action adventure is a worthy sequel to a series of games that have bought a well thought up assassination concept to gaming consoles, giving you true freedom in the shoes of, and with the hidden blade of, a notorious assassin.
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 8.5/10
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Good Points: Execution kill streak is an exciting implementation to the already-awesome swordplay, Delightfully authentic atmosphere and beautiful sound design, Improved economy system that has a greater influence to the gameplay, Large historic city stuffed with detail and things to do, Excellent voice acting, Assassin recruitment is an interesting idea.
Bad Points: Distracting visual blemishes and glitches, Subject 16 puzzles are tediously difficult, Full of potentially frustrating moments, Weak story that never gets going.