Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Review

When the release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was first made official my immediate reaction was excitement. The first Assassin’s Creed game was fun to play and Assassin’s Creed II was phenomenal. However, then the release date set in. Where Ubisoft had spent 2 years on Assassin’s Creed II after the first game came out, the newest release would be out just 1 year later. I started reading more about where the game would take place and what would be going on and I actually liked what the studio was doing. They had built a fantastic world in renaissance Italy. They had populated that world with lots of memorable characters. It was an exciting place to play. Why on earth would they immediately can it all and move on to some other point in history? I certainly welcomed another chance to get to play as Ezio Auditore.  Like it’s predecessors, it was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft.

Even though this game takes place in the same general area, you know spend almost all of your time in Rome. Instead of several smaller cities that you travel between, happening things are now centered in Rome so that’s where you stay. Rome is much different from Florence or Venice. Instead of enlightened cities full of happy people, Rome is almost in ruins. Things are bad. Having been under the thumb of oppressive rulers, people are struggling. Instead of grand and beautiful buildings, the mostly brick Rome is falling apart. While Rome was fun to play in, spending all my time in a single city didn’t seem to work quite as well. In previous games traveling to different cities seemed to pace things quite well. Now that all your time is spent in Rome the game seems to have much more of a sandbox type feel. There’s nothing wrong with sandbox type games but Assassin’s Creed games have always had a fairly linear plot progression and this game just didn’t seem to flow as well because of it.

To complicate this problem, there are now many more ‘side’ things for you to be involved in. Instead of just a couple extra things you can do on the way, now it felt like most of my time was spent on these side projects. In the game there are side assassination missions, managing your assassin recruits, destroying Leonardo’s machines, finding feathers, finding flags, courtesan missions, Christina missions, finding the clusters, razing the Borgia towers, navigating the lairs of Romulus, purchasing most of Rome, and on and on. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things and actually a lot that was good, but without different cities to pace and break up all these side missions, I often found myself spending hours roaming around to complete these side missions and sometimes I would run somewhere only to find out I didn’t have access to that area yet.

So for a quick rundown of new features here we go: The assassin recruits are definitely fun. There is just something inherently gratifying about raising your hand, letting out a little whistle, and seeing your recruits jump down to lay waste to your enemy. Leonardo’s machines were a lot of fun as well. The Borgia towers are a good example of improving on something that worked. You take a mechanic that already existed, viewpoints, and you tweak them to give them an additional challenge and meaning. You now must kill a guard captain before you can raze the tower and you must raze the tower before you can purchase nearby shops. The new clusters that you find, while not as good as the system in Assassin’s Creed 2, are still enjoyable.

The Christina missions were very well done and are the perfect example of implementing ‘side quests’ that really serve to enhance the overall storyline. Brotherhood begins well into Ezio’s life. In fact you get references early in the game indicating that Ezio is not the young bird he once was. These flashbacks serve as an excellent means of character development in showing what he has been through to make him who he is now. We already have known that the main catalyst which began Ezio’s journey was the wrongful execution of half his family. This catapulted him to fight against a world of corruption. The Christina missions serve as a way to show that Ezio’s loss did not end with the death of his family. Instead of being beaten down by a single, albeit large, event where then he can go on with his life, Ezio is forced to live a life of loss. There is no moving on. Even though Ezio normally is quite the player with the ladies, you can tell that Christina was very different. The missions are brilliantly laid out in a way which you often think you have finished the last one and it has ended in tragedy, only to get another mission which ends even more tragically. In addition, each mission also makes you think that even the the situation seemed hopeless in the previous mission, that there still was actually something that could have been done, or at least attempted, to remedy the situation, but alas it is not meant to be. Watching this important aspect of Ezio’s life slowly spiral into the abyss heightens the sense loneliness and despair that Ezio must struggle with.

Now for the not as good changes. The problem I had with the feathers and flags is that they seemed like a step backwards. In the first Assassin’s Creed there were over 400 random flags that you were to take down just for kicks. Assassin’s Creed II improved the formula by changing to feathers and giving these feathers meaning. You knew why they were there and it was integrated into the game with something meaningful happening when you got them all. Now, we’re left with flags and feathers and both are completely meaningless. Though not terrible, the lairs of Romulus were a bit of a disappointment. Instead of puzzle solving in beautiful cathedrals, you know run through the sewers killing hordes of dumb people in wolf costumes. I thought they did an excellent job with the lair up by the Vatican. It seemed to have a real purpose. Most of the lairs were definitely a step down as far as puzzle-solving goes and a big step down as far as the ‘coolness’ of the places they took place, and to top it all off, when you complete them all your prize is a giant wolf costume. It just looked terrible. It’s the best armor in the game but it looks like something that if Ezio was told to wear it he would have laughed.

As for the purchasing of most of Rome it was definitely not something that enhanced the game in any way. Most of the shops you will never actually shop at and most of the money you get over time from buying them is used to buy more shops. It seemed like Ubisoft was trying to take the well done mechanic from Assassin’s Creed II and expand upon it. It’s good to always want to make things better but this is an example of taking something that should have remained a fun little side thing and just making it pretty annoying.

Gameplay is definitely still very fun. The music, noise and ambiance are still great – especially the music. The music does a fantastic job setting the mood especially in those key moments. It’s really a continuation of the same but Ezio does learn some new tricks. As far as the story that is told, it is good, but it fails to match it’s predecessor. The beginning of the game simply feels like the Ubisoft team got together to think out “Ezio has the apple and is pretty powerful, how can we sort of hit the reset button?” This is understandable because something there needs to be something for Ezio to do but it seems like it could have been done a bit better. I definitely have a gripe with Rodrigo Borgia. In the last game he was this conniving genius who you battled. In Brotherhood he is instantly relegated to second string status. He just seems weak from the get go. Sure there’s a new cat in town, but they really should of had Rodrigo start strong and then play out how he gets overshadowed. Instead it just doesn’t seem true to the character from the first game. With all that being said, you do get to see more character development from a lot of the people you’ve seen before. There is still a very meaningful plot and purpose as to why what you’re doing is necessary.

As always, the ending of the game was still a love it or hate it type thing. I loved it. Now I was expecting a similar type setup from previous games where the ancestor you play as, in this case Ezio, would have the ‘what on earth just happened’ moment and I was initially confused in a disappointed type of way. From when Ezio uses the apple to see what Cesare is doing, then suddenly rushing off somewhere where Cesare has somehow escaped and for some reason has some army that is battling against someone else, to when you drop him off the wall, I was just left wondering what was going on. How did Cesare escape? What was he after? How did he get an army? He kept dropping lines like he couldn’t be killed by the hands of men which I thought were interesting, until Ezio decides not to shank him and instead just drops him off the wall. This now marks the second game in a row where Ezio refuses to shank the end-game boss and it makes no sense. While Cesare’s curious dialogue intrigues me and makes me excited to figure out what he was talking about, the rest of the ending just seemed unnecessarily vague as to what was happening.

So then you leave the animus and head to the Colosseum to hunt for the apple. This was kind of exciting to begin with because Desmond has never really gotten out much. Then as you watch everything unfold it is pretty interesting but not entirely clear. Then the ‘what on earth just happened’ moment happens and that’s the end. So while endless theories abound about what everything means we are all left to hope that we will get some sort of understanding when the next game comes out.

Overall: 91

Release: 16 November 2010