The Best Assassins Creed : Brotherhood

The online multiplayer for assassin's creed brotherhood is one of the best multiplayer games I've played in a long time. Before playing the multiplayer I was curious to how it would work. Ubisoft have put a lot of thought into the multiplayer and offer game types such as Wanted, Alliance and Manhunt.

This game type is a free-for-all kind of game, where the player finds themselves with a target and a pursuer at the same time. I personally think this game type is quite tricky as you have to stay stealthy to get the most points for an incognito kill but have to be alert and ready to escape from your pursuer.

If you were to enter an Alliance game I would recommend you do so with a friend or someone you know that has a headset because communication is key. Alliance consists of three teams of two, each team being a hunter and being pursued. Before the game starts it will let you know who is your pursuer and who is you target.

A manhunt game lasts 10 minutes, it's separated into two halves. The first half your team will either be the hunters or the hunted, if you're on the hunted team your objective is to stay hidden and survive whilst if you're on the hunter's side your objective is to kill. In the second half of the game the roles switch over. In my opinion this is the best game type as it's easy to lever up because you can gain a lot of experience from having 3-4 to kill.

The newest game type is quite an interesting game, here you will find yourself in a game with two teams of three or four players defending or capturing the chest. The protector's compass leads them to the hunters but not the chests. The hunters compasses lead them to all three of the chests. To capture a chest the hunter must stand within a circle that's around the chest, the more hunters within the circle the faster they capture the chest. When a protector is around the chest their compass de-synchronises therefore you'll be forced to use you observation skill to work out who are the hunters and who are the AI.

As far as the story mode goes for this game I think it's truly awesome! I've personally only completed the first Assassin's Creed, I gave the second one a chance but I become easily annoyed as I tried to chase Ezio's brother I kept auto sitting on a bench and continued to lose the race so therefore gave up on that one. I've yet to finish the story mode but so far so good! I'm not quite sure what's going on in the game as I've missed a huge chapter by not completing the second game but I will update this once I've completed it.

Comments about Assassins Creed: Brotherhood

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the third game in the AC canon despite the fact that Ubisoft is reserving the actual numeral 3 for the next iteration of the franchise. The game picks up where Assassin's Creed II leaves off, so if you haven't played the previous titles, you may be better off starting there. Just in case though, here's the breakdown. Desmond has been recently liberated from the Abstergo Company who, by using a device called the animus, forced him to relive his ancestors' memories in the search of information on the whereabouts of a long hidden artifact that is itself the key to world domination. Desmond and his rescuers find a secluded place to set up their own animus to further probe his ancestors' memories- in this instance, one particular ancestor: Enzio Auditore da Firenze. Yeah, I know. It's complicated.

When we last saw Enzio at the end of the 15th century, all kinds of crazy stuff went down, and the end result is a Rome run by the Borgias. The previous game's villain, the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia, has secured the artifact, the Apple of Eden, and has become Pope. The Templars, now backed by the Papacy, launch an attack against the Assassins and Enzio, and his few surviving allies are forced into hiding out in the city of Rome to bide their time and rebuild.

Much of AC: Brotherhood's single-player experience remains faithful to AC2, but a few new dynamics are thrown in that prove to be a positive addition to the already tried and true Assassin's Creed gameplay. For one, Enzio can recruit new assassins into the order. Once you have liberated a district from Borgia rule, you can rescue citizens fighting the guards and train them to become assassins. You can then send them out on contracts in exchange for cash and occasional items. If not out on a contract, the assassin can be called out to assist in battle, to silently take out a guard in Enzio's path, or if Enzio has been busy recruiting, have them rain arrows down on a patrol or guard station.

In addition to the rebuilding effort, you'll also be tasked with assisting the other guilds allied with the assassin order (namely, the consorts, thieves and mercenaries) on several missions, and an old friend will call on you to recover some stolen schematics. All the while Enzio will be making his play to recover the stolen apple from the Spaniard. Throw in the usual flags, feathers and various treasure chests to hunt down, and the single-player campaign will easily last you a good 35+ hours if you're a completionist.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Is It Worth My Time?

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is the next main installment in Ubisoft's popular Assassin's Creed franchise. It once again continues the intertwined story of Desmond and his Italian ancestor, Ezio Auditore de Firenze and their fight against the evil Templar Order. It only took around a year to hit stores after Assassin's Creed 2, which can be incredibly fast development for an entire online game but the question is, has it truly developed on what it's predecessors did right? Or is it just more of the same?

Gameplay

If you've played AC2 then Brotherhood will feel pretty familiar to you. The smooth free running and fighting mechanics are a winning formula so it really is no surprise that Ubisoft decided to re-use them in this sequel. Although this game feels fairly comparable to the last one, a few changes and developments have been made to arguably improve game play in both areas. The free running in this game is superior to ever with the inclusion of wooden construction lifts, which launch the character to the top of a building in a split second. There exists also a parachute that can be unlocked later on in the game which allows Ezio to jump from insane heights, back to ground level with safety. The climbing and jumping hasn't changed since your second one and all in all it really is a delight to hop skip and jump around the Roman playground.

In AC2 it was common to be caught in a fight with several guards at a time but the frustrating thing about this was that you needed to wait for them to attack and it became a tedious exercise. To solve this problem, the developers moved to the other end of the spectrum, allowing the player to initiate the attacks with a swift kick to the groin, leaving guards vulnerable to spectacular finishing moves. While this is visually impressive and empowers the player, in my eye it chokes out all aspects of stealth that the two previous games built on.

To add to this, the player can now swiftly move from victim to victim with the press of the button, meaning that once you land a kill move you just keep pressing attack and he finishes off another guard straightaway. This keeps going from guard to guard until you're left surrounded by a pile of dead guys who never had a fighting chance. It does make the fighting smoother and more 'bad ass' but for me it was just overkill.

The fighting mechanics would be fine if the missions were a bit more challenging but aside from the odd climbing mission I often found that instead of stealthily strolling through the crowd to get to my target I could just pull out the newly added crossbow and fire at will. After the novelty of the killing streak feature wears off and you've seen everything it has to offer, in my opinion all it really does it remove any hope at making the game challenging to beat. Those guards don't stand a chance.

Graphics and Sound

The Assassin's Creed franchise is known for its stunning visuals and this time around it lives up to its name. While in the 1st two games there are a variety of different cities you can travel to, each with its distinct style, there may be only 1 city in Brotherhood: none other than Rome. Looking out across the large urban expanse from the top of the Castello's flag left me gob smacked at Ubisoft's efforts and is one of the most impressive renditions of a city I have ever seen. Although it could be impressive from a distance, common visual glitches such as texture pop ins and occasional frame tearing sadly take the graphics down a few notches. If you take too lightly these small annoyances and focus on the greater work at hand, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood has some spectacular aesthetics.

The voice acting is once again particularly good, along with the soundtrack, which fits perfectly into the game. The ambient sound of peasants walking the streets and birds tweeting in the countryside adds to the immersive realism of the game. If you play it stealthy then the subtle sound of Ezio's hidden blade will be drowned out by the ambient surroundings, but if you go on a rampage killing every guard in sight then the crowds around you will respond and run in terror.

If you take this game on its own, it truly is truly superb, but compared to the massive advances that Assassin's Creed 2 made in relation to the 1st one, the developments that Brotherhood have made aren't quite as remarkable. Note that I have only reviewed the single player aspect of this game and the introduced multiplayer, which mainly involves the player hunting another player while also being hunted at the same time is a new dynamic to the franchise. The multiplayer does have the potential to be a hit but it only scratches the surface in terms of a deep multiplayer experience, as I reached the best level and completed most of the challenges that the game must offer in a number of weeks. Overall Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is a solid installment to the franchise but hopefully Ubisoft really take their time with the next one to create something extraordinary.