I will admit that Assassin’s Creed 2 was my first Assassin’s Creed game I’ve ever played. I am in the process of getting my hands on the first one to give that one a go, but that isn’t the point. I absolutely loved Assassin’s Creed 2, the story was great, I loved the gameplay and I absolutely loved the premise. So with that being said I was very excited about Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, I know most were hoping they would of just scratched the idea and worked on Assassin’s Creed 3, well in the end we found out they were doing both. Now with that in mind am I worried they are going to dilute the game by publishing a new one every year similar to that of Call of Duty? In a way yes, and in a way I’m excited to continue on with Desmond’s story or who ever else they bring in to replace him. But that’s a different rant/story, this post is about Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and my thoughts on it.
Story – 9 out of 10
The story takes place directly where Assassin’s Creed 2 ended. You are playing as Ezio Auditore, and after you have defeated the Templar’s you are back at your uncles mansion when you are suddenly attacked and you are trying to survive and with out spoiling anything to big the city you spent a good chunk of your time rebuilding in Assassin’s Creed 2 is now destroyed again and you must find your way back to Rome where the whole game takes place. You are now trying to work towards taking Rome back from the French so you must rebuild a lot of the shops the monuments and more throughout out your play. This was an interesting concept to me and I rather enjoyed it. I loved building up the mansion in Assassin’s Creed 2 and thought it was a nice touch and this time I got to rebuild a whole city pretty cool.
The overall base story is a lot like Assassin’s Creed 2 where you are seeking revenge on the people that hurt you, while also trying to get back the Apple of Eden. Along the way you learn more and more about the Apple and the power it holds. Ultimately having to make a sacrifice with it. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood really leaving you hanging and wanting Assassin’s Creed 3 to hurry up and be released which is annoying and a great ploy all at the same time. I will say that I didn’t feel as involved in this story as I was in Assassin’s Creed 2 and I felt that the actual story mode was a bit more laid out for me and easier to do. Assassin’s Creed 2 story was very deep while Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s story left me more confused than before, I hope Assassin’s Creed 3 will explain a lot of this for us.
Gameplay – 9 out of 10
I love the free roam/free run type settings. I don’t like being confined to one specific path. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood similar to Assassin’s Creed 2 allows you to venture all over Rome the sad thins is that this is the only place you will really get to venture around. This goes back to my previous point that the story to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood wasn’t nearly as deep as it was in Assassin’s Creed 2. They did introduce a few new things to the gameplay as well such as the ability to do execution strings. Where when you kill someone you can immediately kill another person and keep going. This was a nice little touch but at the same time I found myself getting frustrated with it as well.
One of my favorite additions to this game was being able to recruit and use assassin’s. This was not just helpful but absolutely awesome to do. You could see 3-4 guards standing there and you use to think to yourself hmm how am I going to kill all these guys quick and easy. Well they gave you the ability to call in some help from assassin’s that you recruited. They would help eliminate the guards with out you even being seen. There was nothing more satisfying then looking at 4 guards and calling in a “Arrowstorm” and all the guards drop right in front of me. If I had to pick one thing that I would love to see in the next installment this would be it.
Length – 6 out of 10
My biggest hangup probably with this game is that it wasn’t as long as Assassin’s Creed 2. Granted it was longer than most games out there on the market today it still wasn’t nearly long enough in my honest opinion. I would of loved to see it have a few more sequences. Right after you finish sequence 8 the game is pretty much done sequence 9 is almost all just cinematics and you really don’t play much of it. After sequence 9 you are back outside the Animus playing as Desmond and to me it just felt mundane and forced. While it did add another puzzle to the mix it just didn’t seem needed and I found myself frustrated with some of the jumps I had to make.
Replayability – 9 out of 10
Just like Assassin’s Creed 2 after you complete the main storyline you are thrown back into the world to finish up any side quests or anything else you feel like doing. This is a nice touch for anyone trying to get 100% in the game. To go back and play the actual storyline again though may not happen. While the story was good I don’t think many will go back and do that. There are tons of side quests though that I know I missed and I do plan on going back through those and playing them as well as working on some of the guild challenges that I passed up to finish the storyline.
Difficulty – 7 out of 10
While I found myself frustrated somewhat in this game with some of the wall jumps and getting away from guards, overall it really wasn’t bad. Even in the main storyline there wasn’t very many times where it would require you to be completely stealthy and not be seen at all. Where as in Assassin’s Creed 2 there were quite a few that took you more time to complete because you had to really avoid guards. This one was ok with you being seen as long as you got your man. The wall jumps seemed to be the most difficult at times but nothing that would make you bang your head against a wall type of thing. While I find being stealthy 100% of the time to be a bit frustrating I think it helps the difficulty of the game and I’d like to see it a bit more in the future.
Overall – 8 out of 10
If you were a fan of Assassins Creed 2 you’ll enjoy this game. While it may have been short it was worth the buy in my opinion. The game will still have some lasting replay for you if you want to go out and do some of the side quests. If you just want to play the storyline then you probably could get away with just renting the game and have it beat within a week or so. I haven’t really jumped into multiplayer yet and I’m not to sure if I really plan to, I might if I feel like going after the platinum but as it stands right now the multiplayer just doesn’t seem to call out to me very much. The ending to this one will either frustrate you or make you wish that Assassins Creed 3 came out tomorrow. I find myself to be the latter.
Final Score: 8
