Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Review

I'm not sure how I went most of the year ignoring details about Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but it happened. Sure, I knew it was an Assassin's Creed game set in Renaissance Italy and that it would have multiplayer, but that was about it. But once details emerged about the lengthy single-player campaign, new side missions, truth puzzles, and collectibles, that's when my interest started to grow -- after all, those were the aspects I loved from its predecessor. Now, after investing a significant amount of time in the game, I can say that Brotherhood is like a refined and improved version of the already excellent Assassin's Creed 2...with a few caveats.

If there's a fault with Brotherhood (outside of the multiplayer, which I'll touch on later) is that it doesn't do a good job of introducing newcomers to this world of historical memory exploration. If this is your first Creed game, you're just not given the chance to become as emotionally invested in the game's characters as someone who's followed the series from the beginning. The only real back-story you're given is a short video that serves more to refresh returning fans rather than provide sufficient details to newcomers. Character deaths are simple plot devices that become as meaningless as the motives that drive Ezio Auditore and Desmond for most of the story. In AC2, you guided Ezio on a quest for revenge while learning more about the secret cult of Assassins. Here we find Ezio trying to rebuild the Assassin order in the city of Rome. Oh, and trying to retrieve the Apple, again. All in all the story doesn't feel as carefully plotted as that of AC2.

Rebuilding the order of Assassins is more than just a plot device, though. About a third of the way through the game you gain the ability to recruit citizens of Rome to your order; once you do you can obtain contracts from all of the world and send these Assassins to carry out your orders, putting money in your pocket and making your personal team better at assisting you during the game's main missions. There's nothing like highlighting a target in the street and then calling in an Assassin who magically appears from the rooftop, shoving their wrist-blade deep into the man's head before vanishing in a puff of smoke. All the while, you just sit watching on a nearby park bench. It makes Ezio seem like a powerful assassin, a Godfather, coming into his own much like his father before him.

The main story missions introduce a "100% Synchronization" mode that add mini-objectives to each mission; you now have goals like "don't touch the ground while chasing your target," or "complete a mission in under five minutes." Even if you only get "50% synchronization" (for completing a mission but failing to achieve full synchronization) you're still given credit for completing the mission. And you can return to previous missions at any time for "100%." Overall I like the inclusion of being able to play these missions the

"right" way rather than just approaching every mission like Rambo, killing any and all who stand before me and my objective. It introduces a thoroughly enjoyable level of re-playability, and obtaining 100% completion also unlocks additional side-missions.

Other noteworthy missions come from your re-introduction to Leonardo da Vinci. The Borgia have commissioned him to create terrible war machines, and these missions allow you to play around with some of his awesome inventions. I'm not sure how many of these are accurate reproductions from his blueprints, but that doesn't really matter; on your quest to destroy the weapons, you first get to try them out on surrounding enemy forces. Among other activities, you'll fire a mounted machine gun and launch rockets at enemy frigates in a boat harbor. These missions are a departure from the familiar, platforming gameplay, and they add welcome variety to Brotherhood.

Assassin Tomb quests return as well but are labeled as Wolfman Lairs...it makes sense when you unlock them. They're still as inventive, frustrating, and rewarding as the Tombs from AC2. I only played through a few of these and intend to go back at some point to complete them all, especially since they remind me of another of my favorite Ubisoft Montreal titles: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

But unlike the previous AC titles, you don't visit multiple cities throughout Europe. I do miss seeing the different vistas and exploring each area's distinct architecture, but the Rome in Brotherhood is gigantic. Keeping the game confined to one large city cuts down on the loading times between travel destinations and includes a number of additional fast travel options (like riding a horse through the city or using renovated underground tunnels), which more than make up for the loss of scenic locations.  

Renovating Rome replaces the work that you used to pour into Monteriggioni, your primary source of income in AC2. It's never made clear why Ezio makes money for repairing Rome, but that's just a videogame formality. However, before you can purchase renovations, you must free those districts from the influence of the Borgia. Each of these are skilled areas in which you must find and kill the Borgia captain and then ascend the nearby Borgia tower, blowing it up, and freeing the nearby area for your control. Bringing in a group of your own Assassins makes these missions go by much easier and again, makes you feel like an all-powerful Assassin leader.
Once an area has been freed of Borgia influence, you can purchase stables, tailor shops, blacksmith shops and other stores, allowing you to purchase better weapons, clothes, etc., and to unlock more side-missions. The blacksmith, for example, is looking for specific parts to create a special sword. Find these items and he'll create the weapon for you. You must locate these items hidden in treasure chests that tend to be near or around your central story quests. So, if you love the collection aspects in videogames (like myself), you'll have more than enough to keep busy for a long, long time.

And potentially extending the life of the game still further is multiplayer. Each of Brotherhood's multiplayer modes (Wanted, Manhunt, Alliance, and Advanced Wanted) demand the same result: Assassinate the other player or target before you're assassinated by the other players in the match. As you progress through the online modes, you earn upgrades like better weapons, or the ability to detect your target in a crowd. There's a little bit of strategy, guessing, and luck to finding your target in the street and the maps themselves are not very large so you should be able to become familiar with all of the hiding places in just a few rounds.
The catch with all of this is: you can't attack your would-be assailant -- you can only run away from your attacker or stun them. Stunning requires you to be behind your attacker, a difficult feat when you're watching them approach you, so it's better to just run away instead. It doesn't make sense to me why you can't defend yourself (you're an Assassin!), especially when a dynamic swordplay mechanic already exists in the single-player portion of the game.
Multiplayer is something I never imagined seeing in an Assassin's Creed game, but now that it's included I can think of so many ways for developers to improve upon it. For starters, all the multiplayer features are completely detached from the single-player content. It would have been nice to be able to bring over your own equipment or at least some of the hard-to-acquire outfits you earned in single-player to show off online. Including something as simple as rooftop races from point A to point B I feel would have also been worthwhile. Or even better, Co-op in the single player portion of the game would have been great; a technical hurdle, I know, but these are the types of online modes I'd like to see in the next game.

Overall it's not a real selling point for me. Multiplayer is a nice addition, but I can't see myself playing this mode as frequently as the solid single-player content.
There are still so many other small details I could talk about, but they all hammer home the same point: this is a great game. The multiplayer aspects aren't that engaging for me -- there's just not enough to do to balance out the frustration of not being able to defend myself in a fight. However, I love how deep the team has managed to make the single-player portion of the game (again). If you've followed the AC series this far, you'd be remiss to let this one pass you by; even with the criticisms I've listed above, I'm comfortable saying that another Assassin's Creed game will make my list of "favorite games of the year." I can't wait to see what Ubisoft Montreal does next with the series.