The Assassin’s Creed franchise are, easily said, those mixed feelings type of games. In the beginning when we put on the hood of Altair, an assassin in the days of The Crusades holy wars, the game was met with comments of how overly familiair the title was to Ubisoft’s biggest franchise, Prince of Persia; more than that, however, the game was met with a lot of gamer backlash due to the tedious repetition of the game. Assassin’s Creed was in no way a bad game, it just needed more.
When Assassin’s Creed 2 came along and we then played as renaissance assassin Ezio, we had a far superior product. The game boasted a wider variety of mission types, things to do, ways to do it and toys to play with.
Now that we have the third installment of the series in our hands, does it surpass AC2, or just give us more of what we liked before?
It’sa me! Ezi-oh you know the joke
Story Okay, elephant in the room, so I’ll tackle that first. The Assassin’s Creed franchise has always come under a lot of fire from religious groups due to its content. The first title took part during The Crusades, where the player killed Christian and Muslim alike. It told us a story that regardless of our religious beliefs we’re not that different from one another, no organized religion has it completely right yet and that if we just stopped and opened our eyes we would realize we’re a lot more alike than we are different. This obviously outraged zealots of both sides who would rather continue prejudiced hate towards one another than reach out in acceptance and love *cough despite the Bible telling us to do so cough*
So AC2 toned it down a bit, or so they had hoped. The Knights Templar was an organization heavily set in the Catholic believe structure, and in Ezio’s adventures he was battling The Templars, with the pope at that time being one of their members. This once again enraged members of the Catholic belief structure, outraged that Ubisoft dare insinuate evil and wrongdoings by the head of their sect.
Longer story short, to late, I know, because this is Ezio’s tale, who is at war with The Templars, who have a member of theirs as the pope, the battle from the previous title is still raging on. No doubt this will continue to earn a lot of backlash from the Catholic community, so if the previous AC titles angered you because of its narrative that is heavily influenced by history fact of certain religious sects, this title won’t win you over.
That said, let’s move on, shall we?
Like the previous Assassin’s Creed games, the player actually walks in the shoes of Desmond, a bartender who had been kidnapped by the modern day Knights Templar. Desmond’s unique as he is a descendent of the great assassins of the past, primarily Altair and Ezio. Though the previous titles have always focused more on Desmond’s ancestors, this time around Desmond is taking more of the spotlight and finally having his story move on.
As Desmond digs further into his family’s past, he learns and hones his instinctual skills as an assassin in order to be ready when the order of assassins and the Knights Templar inevitably collide again in modern day. It’s refreshing that finally, in the third title, Desmond’s story is starting to come to fruition, it was getting pretty overdue in my opinion.
For the gamers who don’t really care about Desmond and want to get back into the swank leather boots of Ezio, worry not as the game still does primarily focus on the adventures Ezio has in 1500ad Rome. Ezio’s story is similar to the previous title, picking up immediately after Ezio’s story of AC2, once again our renaissance bad ass suffers a crushing blow that turns his life upside down; you can’t help but have a bit of sympathy for the guy since in AC2 he loses his home and his father is killed in front of him only to suffer an equally, if not greater, loss at the beginning of this story.
With Ezio in desperation and Rome under oppressive control, Ezio must gather ranks and rally allies to his cause to take down his enemies. Yes it does remind me of Fable 3 to, just without the fart jokes.
Gameplay The same recipe of the previous titles still applies in this game, for better and for worst. The free-run system still makes leaping and bounding through crowded city streets feel awesome and scaling walls and jumping from rooftop to rooftop while fleeing enemy soldiers still has the rush that originally made us think “didn’t we see this in Prince of Persia?”
The gameplay is still not without its bugs, however. Previous titles in the AC franchise used to have me on the verge of pulling my hair out as at times, and usually at the worst possible time, Altair or Ezio would jump or leap in a direction I either didn’t direct them in, or didn’t even command them to jump in the first place. I have experienced it less in Brotherhood, but it does still occur from time to time and it can suck the wind right out of an exciting chase sequence.
Combat is still the same as the previous AC titles; the player can run in and hope for the best, but ultimately it’s best to just hang back and counter attack for best results. I was hoping that for this title, with the stakes so high in the story, that we would be exposed to more epic battles, but really the combat system is just more of the same; yes we can now battle from atop horses, but at the end of the day you’ll more often than not find yourself blocking and countering your way through battles. Thank God for the stealth assassination techniques.
Graphics Much like the gameplay, the graphics are very much identical to the previous title. There is a little more environmental polish to the world, and the textures on clothing is a bit better, but it is very much what we saw in AC2. By no means does that make the graphics bad, since AC and AC2 both astounding audiences with their tremendous graphic showings at their times, it just would have been nice to have seen a bit of a bigger push made. Still a pretty game, just had been hoping for a bit more.
Music The assortment of music in this game is beautiful. From adrenaline-pumping tunes to get the gamer in the moment right down to gorgeous middle ages European arrangements that made my arm hairs stand up, the music is all wonderfully orchestrated. Admittedly some of the music does feel out of place at times as some of the songs have a middle eastern feel to them, which would have been more appropriate to the first Assassin’s Creed or Prince of Persia, but if the gamer can excuse the regional differences, the music is still very enveloping. There’s a wonderful piece played in the beginning of the game when you return to your villa that made me want to grab my mandolin and start playing along, it was that masterful… yes I play the mandolin, don’t judge me.
Online Finally AC has online multiplayer! In a story focused on alliances and uniting against a common enemy it only made sense for Ubisoft to finally give this game online multiplayer… only problem is that the story itself is still single player.
The online aspect of Brotherhood is pretty much an assortment of PvP assassination games where players are dropped into crowded locales, told to find and eliminate a specific other player while another player is sent to take you down, and off you go. The game does reward stealthiness in a double method, as it will award you more points per game (and therefore the player can unlock more elements) and it won’t blow their cover, making them an easy target for whomever is after them.
The online mode features a levelling up
system similar to Call of Duty and Transformers: War for Cybertron. The more players play and the better they do, the more experience they will acquire in games, increasing their skill level and making abilities, weapons and skill sets available. This is a nice perk but the downside of this feature, as in any game, is that it will greatly effect the unbalance of online matchmaking as the players who already have superior skill in the game will also be given better equipment; expect to see a lot of blowouts.
What I liked The story was a good pick up from the previous installment of the franchise and does a great job of taking up the stakes and incorporating more of the sense that this is a battle of two warring factions, not a lone assassin taking down templars by the boatload, plus the additional attention to Desmond’s character development is a very overdue and welcome addition.
Online is unique and a lot of fun for gamers who want to strategize instead of just running in and killing everything in sight. Brotherhood’s online style is a very much needed breath of fresh air from all the first person shooters that have a stranglehold on online gaming.
What I Would Change Make the story multiplayer! Let gamers join a friend who plays as Ezio in his campaign to overthrow the Templars, even take it up one more step and let players create their characters to take in to the battle. Providing that creative element will only further immerse the player in the story and make them appreciate the narrative of this tale.
Something has to be done about the loading times. Yes the AC franchise has always been plagued by long loading sequences, but sweet Jesus this one takes its time in single player and online; I’m aware the game just released today so the online servers may not be fully intact yet, but waiting five to ten minutes to join an eight player game is not something the average impatient gamer is willing to wait through. Again, online wait times can be forgiven by most of us who have some patience, I just hope it will be rectified soon. Single player’s loading time doesn’t fare much better as I can complete a level, the loading screen comes up, I can put down my controller, go to the washroom, get something out of the fridge, come back to my room and usually the next mission is still loading; I appreciate that the missions are loading entire cities and countrysides, but again this is something that could cripple the reception this game receives from the gaming community as they are known typically for being incredibly impatient.
Final Thoughts Fans of the franchise will want to pick this title up. It gives us more of what we love plus some more unique mission types and ways to go about completing them, and the online is a lot of fun once it actually gets going.
For those of you who thought the first two games were okay but not amazing, this game likely won’t do much to change your mind, but it is worth giving it a rent if for no other reason than to give you a few hours of fun and taking part in the latest installment of this incredible story.
Oh yeah and to our Catholic friends, just lighten up and enjoy the game, will you?
written by Lee Clifford
The Assassin’s Creed franchise are, easily said, those mixed feelings type of games. In the beginning when we put on the hood of Altair, an assassin in the days of The Crusades holy wars, the game was met with comments of how overly familiair the title was to Ubisoft’s biggest franchise, Prince of Persia; more than that, however, the game was met with a lot of gamer backlash due to the tedious repetition of the game. Assassin’s Creed was in no way a bad game, it just needed more.
When Assassin’s Creed 2 came along and we then played as renaissance assassin Ezio, we had a far superior product. The game boasted a wider variety of mission types, things to do, ways to do it and toys to play with.
Now that we have the third installment of the series in our hands, does it surpass AC2, or just give us more of what we liked before?
It’sa me! Ezi-oh you know the joke
Story Okay, elephant in the room, so I’ll tackle that first. The Assassin’s Creed franchise has always come under a lot of fire from religious groups due to its content. The first title took part during The Crusades, where the player killed Christian and Muslim alike. It told us a story that regardless of our religious beliefs we’re not that different from one another, no organized religion has it completely right yet and that if we just stopped and opened our eyes we would realize we’re a lot more alike than we are different. This obviously outraged zealots of both sides who would rather continue prejudiced hate towards one another than reach out in acceptance and love *cough despite the Bible telling us to do so cough*
So AC2 toned it down a bit, or so they had hoped. The Knights Templar was an organization heavily set in the Catholic believe structure, and in Ezio’s adventures he was battling The Templars, with the pope at that time being one of their members. This once again enraged members of the Catholic belief structure, outraged that Ubisoft dare insinuate evil and wrongdoings by the head of their sect.
Longer story short, to late, I know, because this is Ezio’s tale, who is at war with The Templars, who have a member of theirs as the pope, the battle from the previous title is still raging on. No doubt this will continue to earn a lot of backlash from the Catholic community, so if the previous AC titles angered you because of its narrative that is heavily influenced by history fact of certain religious sects, this title won’t win you over.
That said, let’s move on, shall we?
Like the previous Assassin’s Creed games, the player actually walks in the shoes of Desmond, a bartender who had been kidnapped by the modern day Knights Templar. Desmond’s unique as he is a descendent of the great assassins of the past, primarily Altair and Ezio. Though the previous titles have always focused more on Desmond’s ancestors, this time around Desmond is taking more of the spotlight and finally having his story move on.
As Desmond digs further into his family’s past, he learns and hones his instinctual skills as an assassin in order to be ready when the order of assassins and the Knights Templar inevitably collide again in modern day. It’s refreshing that finally, in the third title, Desmond’s story is starting to come to fruition, it was getting pretty overdue in my opinion.
For the gamers who don’t really care about Desmond and want to get back into the swank leather boots of Ezio, worry not as the game still does primarily focus on the adventures Ezio has in 1500ad Rome. Ezio’s story is similar to the previous title, picking up immediately after Ezio’s story of AC2, once again our renaissance bad ass suffers a crushing blow that turns his life upside down; you can’t help but have a bit of sympathy for the guy since in AC2 he loses his home and his father is killed in front of him only to suffer an equally, if not greater, loss at the beginning of this story.
With Ezio in desperation and Rome under oppressive control, Ezio must gather ranks and rally allies to his cause to take down his enemies. Yes it does remind me of Fable 3 to, just without the fart jokes.
Gameplay The same recipe of the previous titles still applies in this game, for better and for worst. The free-run system still makes leaping and bounding through crowded city streets feel awesome and scaling walls and jumping from rooftop to rooftop while fleeing enemy soldiers still has the rush that originally made us think “didn’t we see this in Prince of Persia?”
The gameplay is still not without its bugs, however. Previous titles in the AC franchise used to have me on the verge of pulling my hair out as at times, and usually at the worst possible time, Altair or Ezio would jump or leap in a direction I either didn’t direct them in, or didn’t even command them to jump in the first place. I have experienced it less in Brotherhood, but it does still occur from time to time and it can suck the wind right out of an exciting chase sequence.
Combat is still the same as the previous AC titles; the player can run in and hope for the best, but ultimately it’s best to just hang back and counter attack for best results. I was hoping that for this title, with the stakes so high in the story, that we would be exposed to more epic battles, but really the combat system is just more of the same; yes we can now battle from atop horses, but at the end of the day you’ll more often than not find yourself blocking and countering your way through battles. Thank God for the stealth assassination techniques.
Graphics Much like the gameplay, the graphics are very much identical to the previous title. There is a little more environmental polish to the world, and the textures on clothing is a bit better, but it is very much what we saw in AC2. By no means does that make the graphics bad, since AC and AC2 both astounding audiences with their tremendous graphic showings at their times, it just would have been nice to have seen a bit of a bigger push made. Still a pretty game, just had been hoping for a bit more.
Music The assortment of music in this game is beautiful. From adrenaline-pumping tunes to get the gamer in the moment right down to gorgeous middle ages European arrangements that made my arm hairs stand up, the music is all wonderfully orchestrated. Admittedly some of the music does feel out of place at times as some of the songs have a middle eastern feel to them, which would have been more appropriate to the first Assassin’s Creed or Prince of Persia, but if the gamer can excuse the regional differences, the music is still very enveloping. There’s a wonderful piece played in the beginning of the game when you return to your villa that made me want to grab my mandolin and start playing along, it was that masterful… yes I play the mandolin, don’t judge me.
Online Finally AC has online multiplayer! In a story focused on alliances and uniting against a common enemy it only made sense for Ubisoft to finally give this game online multiplayer… only problem is that the story itself is still single player.
The online aspect of Brotherhood is pretty much an assortment of PvP assassination games where players are dropped into crowded locales, told to find and eliminate a specific other player while another player is sent to take you down, and off you go. The game does reward stealthiness in a double method, as it will award you more points per game (and therefore the player can unlock more elements) and it won’t blow their cover, making them an easy target for whomever is after them.
The online mode features a levelling up
system similar to Call of Duty and Transformers: War for Cybertron. The more players play and the better they do, the more experience they will acquire in games, increasing their skill level and making abilities, weapons and skill sets available. This is a nice perk but the downside of this feature, as in any game, is that it will greatly effect the unbalance of online matchmaking as the players who already have superior skill in the game will also be given better equipment; expect to see a lot of blowouts.
What I liked The story was a good pick up from the previous installment of the franchise and does a great job of taking up the stakes and incorporating more of the sense that this is a battle of two warring factions, not a lone assassin taking down templars by the boatload, plus the additional attention to Desmond’s character development is a very overdue and welcome addition.
Online is unique and a lot of fun for gamers who want to strategize instead of just running in and killing everything in sight. Brotherhood’s online style is a very much needed breath of fresh air from all the first person shooters that have a stranglehold on online gaming.
What I Would Change Make the story multiplayer! Let gamers join a friend who plays as Ezio in his campaign to overthrow the Templars, even take it up one more step and let players create their characters to take in to the battle. Providing that creative element will only further immerse the player in the story and make them appreciate the narrative of this tale.
Something has to be done about the loading times. Yes the AC franchise has always been plagued by long loading sequences, but sweet Jesus this one takes its time in single player and online; I’m aware the game just released today so the online servers may not be fully intact yet, but waiting five to ten minutes to join an eight player game is not something the average impatient gamer is willing to wait through. Again, online wait times can be forgiven by most of us who have some patience, I just hope it will be rectified soon. Single player’s loading time doesn’t fare much better as I can complete a level, the loading screen comes up, I can put down my controller, go to the washroom, get something out of the fridge, come back to my room and usually the next mission is still loading; I appreciate that the missions are loading entire cities and countrysides, but again this is something that could cripple the reception this game receives from the gaming community as they are known typically for being incredibly impatient.
Final Thoughts Fans of the franchise will want to pick this title up. It gives us more of what we love plus some more unique mission types and ways to go about completing them, and the online is a lot of fun once it actually gets going.
For those of you who thought the first two games were okay but not amazing, this game likely won’t do much to change your mind, but it is worth giving it a rent if for no other reason than to give you a few hours of fun and taking part in the latest installment of this incredible story.
Oh yeah and to our Catholic friends, just lighten up and enjoy the game, will you?
written by Lee Clifford
The Assassin’s Creed franchise are, easily said, those mixed feelings type of games. In the beginning when we put on the hood of Altair, an assassin in the days of The Crusades holy wars, the game was met with comments of how overly familiair the title was to Ubisoft’s biggest franchise, Prince of Persia; more than that, however, the game was met with a lot of gamer backlash due to the tedious repetition of the game. Assassin’s Creed was in no way a bad game, it just needed more.
When Assassin’s Creed 2 came along and we then played as renaissance assassin Ezio, we had a far superior product. The game boasted a wider variety of mission types, things to do, ways to do it and toys to play with.
Now that we have the third installment of the series in our hands, does it surpass AC2, or just give us more of what we liked before?
It’sa me! Ezi-oh you know the joke
Story Okay, elephant in the room, so I’ll tackle that first. The Assassin’s Creed franchise has always come under a lot of fire from religious groups due to its content. The first title took part during The Crusades, where the player killed Christian and Muslim alike. It told us a story that regardless of our religious beliefs we’re not that different from one another, no organized religion has it completely right yet and that if we just stopped and opened our eyes we would realize we’re a lot more alike than we are different. This obviously outraged zealots of both sides who would rather continue prejudiced hate towards one another than reach out in acceptance and love *cough despite the Bible telling us to do so cough*
So AC2 toned it down a bit, or so they had hoped. The Knights Templar was an organization heavily set in the Catholic believe structure, and in Ezio’s adventures he was battling The Templars, with the pope at that time being one of their members. This once again enraged members of the Catholic belief structure, outraged that Ubisoft dare insinuate evil and wrongdoings by the head of their sect.
Longer story short, to late, I know, because this is Ezio’s tale, who is at war with The Templars, who have a member of theirs as the pope, the battle from the previous title is still raging on. No doubt this will continue to earn a lot of backlash from the Catholic community, so if the previous AC titles angered you because of its narrative that is heavily influenced by history fact of certain religious sects, this title won’t win you over.
That said, let’s move on, shall we?
Like the previous Assassin’s Creed games, the player actually walks in the shoes of Desmond, a bartender who had been kidnapped by the modern day Knights Templar. Desmond’s unique as he is a descendent of the great assassins of the past, primarily Altair and Ezio. Though the previous titles have always focused more on Desmond’s ancestors, this time around Desmond is taking more of the spotlight and finally having his story move on.
As Desmond digs further into his family’s past, he learns and hones his instinctual skills as an assassin in order to be ready when the order of assassins and the Knights Templar inevitably collide again in modern day. It’s refreshing that finally, in the third title, Desmond’s story is starting to come to fruition, it was getting pretty overdue in my opinion.
For the gamers who don’t really care about Desmond and want to get back into the swank leather boots of Ezio, worry not as the game still does primarily focus on the adventures Ezio has in 1500ad Rome. Ezio’s story is similar to the previous title, picking up immediately after Ezio’s story of AC2, once again our renaissance bad ass suffers a crushing blow that turns his life upside down; you can’t help but have a bit of sympathy for the guy since in AC2 he loses his home and his father is killed in front of him only to suffer an equally, if not greater, loss at the beginning of this story.
With Ezio in desperation and Rome under oppressive control, Ezio must gather ranks and rally allies to his cause to take down his enemies. Yes it does remind me of Fable 3 to, just without the fart jokes.
Gameplay The same recipe of the previous titles still applies in this game, for better and for worst. The free-run system still makes leaping and bounding through crowded city streets feel awesome and scaling walls and jumping from rooftop to rooftop while fleeing enemy soldiers still has the rush that originally made us think “didn’t we see this in Prince of Persia?”
The gameplay is still not without its bugs, however. Previous titles in the AC franchise used to have me on the verge of pulling my hair out as at times, and usually at the worst possible time, Altair or Ezio would jump or leap in a direction I either didn’t direct them in, or didn’t even command them to jump in the first place. I have experienced it less in Brotherhood, but it does still occur from time to time and it can suck the wind right out of an exciting chase sequence.
Combat is still the same as the previous AC titles; the player can run in and hope for the best, but ultimately it’s best to just hang back and counter attack for best results. I was hoping that for this title, with the stakes so high in the story, that we would be exposed to more epic battles, but really the combat system is just more of the same; yes we can now battle from atop horses, but at the end of the day you’ll more often than not find yourself blocking and countering your way through battles. Thank God for the stealth assassination techniques.
Graphics Much like the gameplay, the graphics are very much identical to the previous title. There is a little more environmental polish to the world, and the textures on clothing is a bit better, but it is very much what we saw in AC2. By no means does that make the graphics bad, since AC and AC2 both astounding audiences with their tremendous graphic showings at their times, it just would have been nice to have seen a bit of a bigger push made. Still a pretty game, just had been hoping for a bit more.
Music The assortment of music in this game is beautiful. From adrenaline-pumping tunes to get the gamer in the moment right down to gorgeous middle ages European arrangements that made my arm hairs stand up, the music is all wonderfully orchestrated. Admittedly some of the music does feel out of place at times as some of the songs have a middle eastern feel to them, which would have been more appropriate to the first Assassin’s Creed or Prince of Persia, but if the gamer can excuse the regional differences, the music is still very enveloping. There’s a wonderful piece played in the beginning of the game when you return to your villa that made me want to grab my mandolin and start playing along, it was that masterful… yes I play the mandolin, don’t judge me.
Online Finally AC has online multiplayer! In a story focused on alliances and uniting against a common enemy it only made sense for Ubisoft to finally give this game online multiplayer… only problem is that the story itself is still single player.
The online aspect of Brotherhood is pretty much an assortment of PvP assassination games where players are dropped into crowded locales, told to find and eliminate a specific other player while another player is sent to take you down, and off you go. The game does reward stealthiness in a double method, as it will award you more points per game (and therefore the player can unlock more elements) and it won’t blow their cover, making them an easy target for whomever is after them.
The online mode features a levelling up system similar t
o Call of Duty and Transformers: War for Cybertron. The more players play and the better they do, the more experience they will acquire in games, increasing their skill level and making abilities, weapons and skill sets available. This is a nice perk but the downside of this feature, as in any game, is that it will greatly effect the unbalance of online matchmaking as the players who already have superior skill in the game will also be given better equipment; expect to see a lot of blowouts.
What I liked The story was a good pick up from the previous installment of the franchise and does a great job of taking up the stakes and incorporating more of the sense that this is a battle of two warring factions, not a lone assassin taking down templars by the boatload, plus the additional attention to Desmond’s character development is a very overdue and welcome addition.
Online is unique and a lot of fun for gamers who want to strategize instead of just running in and killing everything in sight. Brotherhood’s online style is a very much needed breath of fresh air from all the first person shooters that have a stranglehold on online gaming.
What I Would Change Make the story multiplayer! Let gamers join a friend who plays as Ezio in his campaign to overthrow the Templars, even take it up one more step and let players create their characters to take in to the battle. Providing that creative element will only further immerse the player in the story and make them appreciate the narrative of this tale.
Something has to be done about the loading times. Yes the AC franchise has always been plagued by long loading sequences, but sweet Jesus this one takes its time in single player and online; I’m aware the game just released today so the online servers may not be fully intact yet, but waiting five to ten minutes to join an eight player game is not something the average impatient gamer is willing to wait through. Again, online wait times can be forgiven by most of us who have some patience, I just hope it will be rectified soon. Single player’s loading time doesn’t fare much better as I can complete a level, the loading screen comes up, I can put down my controller, go to the washroom, get something out of the fridge, come back to my room and usually the next mission is still loading; I appreciate that the missions are loading entire cities and countrysides, but again this is something that could cripple the reception this game receives from the gaming community as they are known typically for being incredibly impatient.
Final Thoughts Fans of the franchise will want to pick this title up. It gives us more of what we love plus some more unique mission types and ways to go about completing them, and the online is a lot of fun once it actually gets going.
For those of you who thought the first two games were okay but not amazing, this game likely won’t do much to change your mind, but it is worth giving it a rent if for no other reason than to give you a few hours of fun and taking part in the latest installment of this incredible story.
Oh yeah and to our Catholic friends, just lighten up and enjoy the game, will you?
written by Lee Clifford
The Assassin’s Creed franchise are, easily said, those mixed feelings type of games. In the beginning when we put on the hood of Altair, an assassin in the days of The Crusades holy wars, the game was met with comments of how overly familiair the title was to Ubisoft’s biggest franchise, Prince of Persia; more than that, however, the game was met with a lot of gamer backlash due to the tedious repetition of the game. Assassin’s Creed was in no way a bad game, it just needed more.
When Assassin’s Creed 2 came along and we then played as renaissance assassin Ezio, we had a far superior product. The game boasted a wider variety of mission types, things to do, ways to do it and toys to play with.
Now that we have the third installment of the series in our hands, does it surpass AC2, or just give us more of what we liked before?
It’sa me! Ezi-oh you know the joke
Story Okay, elephant in the room, so I’ll tackle that first. The Assassin’s Creed franchise has always come under a lot of fire from religious groups due to its content. The first title took part during The Crusades, where the player killed Christian and Muslim alike. It told us a story that regardless of our religious beliefs we’re not that different from one another, no organized religion has it completely right yet and that if we just stopped and opened our eyes we would realize we’re a lot more alike than we are different. This obviously outraged zealots of both sides who would rather continue prejudiced hate towards one another than reach out in acceptance and love *cough despite the Bible telling us to do so cough*
So AC2 toned it down a bit, or so they had hoped. The Knights Templar was an organization heavily set in the Catholic believe structure, and in Ezio’s adventures he was battling The Templars, with the pope at that time being one of their members. This once again enraged members of the Catholic belief structure, outraged that Ubisoft dare insinuate evil and wrongdoings by the head of their sect.
Longer story short, to late, I know, because this is Ezio’s tale, who is at war with The Templars, who have a member of theirs as the pope, the battle from the previous title is still raging on. No doubt this will continue to earn a lot of backlash from the Catholic community, so if the previous AC titles angered you because of its narrative that is heavily influenced by history fact of certain religious sects, this title won’t win you over.
That said, let’s move on, shall we?
Like the previous Assassin’s Creed games, the player actually walks in the shoes of Desmond, a bartender who had been kidnapped by the modern day Knights Templar. Desmond’s unique as he is a descendent of the great assassins of the past, primarily Altair and Ezio. Though the previous titles have always focused more on Desmond’s ancestors, this time around Desmond is taking more of the spotlight and finally having his story move on.
As Desmond digs further into his family’s past, he learns and hones his instinctual skills as an assassin in order to be ready when the order of assassins and the Knights Templar inevitably collide again in modern day. It’s refreshing that finally, in the third title, Desmond’s story is starting to come to fruition, it was getting pretty overdue in my opinion.
For the gamers who don’t really care about Desmond and want to get back into the swank leather boots of Ezio, worry not as the game still does primarily focus on the adventures Ezio has in 1500ad Rome. Ezio’s story is similar to the previous title, picking up immediately after Ezio’s story of AC2, once again our renaissance bad ass suffers a crushing blow that turns his life upside down; you can’t help but have a bit of sympathy for the guy since in AC2 he loses his home and his father is killed in front of him only to suffer an equally, if not greater, loss at the beginning of this story.
With Ezio in desperation and Rome under oppressive control, Ezio must gather ranks and rally allies to his cause to take down his enemies. Yes it does remind me of Fable 3 to, just without the fart jokes.
Gameplay The same recipe of the previous titles still applies in this game, for better and for worst. The free-run system still makes leaping and bounding through crowded city streets feel awesome and scaling walls and jumping from rooftop to rooftop while fleeing enemy soldiers still has the rush that originally made us think “didn’t we see this in Prince of Persia?”
The gameplay is still not without its bugs, however. Previous titles in the AC franchise used to have me on the verge of pulling my hair out as at times, and usually at the worst possible time, Altair or Ezio would jump or leap in a direction I either didn’t direct them in, or didn’t even command them to jump in the first place. I have experienced it less in Brotherhood, but it does still occur from time to time and it can suck the wind right out of an exciting chase sequence.
Combat is still the same as the previous AC titles; the player can run in and hope for the best, but ultimately it’s best to just hang back and counter attack for best results. I was hoping that for this title, with the stakes so high in the story, that we would be exposed to more epic battles, but really the combat system is just more of the same; yes we can now battle from atop horses, but at the end of the day you’ll more often than not find yourself blocking and countering your way through battles. Thank God for the stealth assassination techniques.
Graphics Much like the gameplay, the graphics are very much identical to the previous title. There is a little more environmental polish to the world, and the textures on clothing is a bit better, but it is very much what we saw in AC2. By no means does that make the graphics bad, since AC and AC2 both astounding audiences with their tremendous graphic showings at their times, it just would have been nice to have seen a bit of a bigger push made. Still a pretty game, just had been hoping for a bit more.
Music The assortment of music in this game is beautiful. From adrenaline-pumping tunes to get the gamer in the moment right down to gorgeous middle ages European arrangements that made my arm hairs stand up, the music is all wonderfully orchestrated. Admittedly some of the music does feel out of place at times as some of the songs have a middle eastern feel to them, which would have been more appropriate to the first Assassin’s Creed or Prince of Persia, but if the gamer can excuse the regional differences, the music is still very enveloping. There’s a wonderful piece played in the beginning of the game when you return to your villa that made me want to grab my mandolin and start playing along, it was that masterful… yes I play the mandolin, don’t judge me.
Online Finally AC has online multiplayer! In a story focused on alliances and uniting against a common enemy it only made sense for Ubisoft to finally give this game online multiplayer… only problem is that the story itself is still single player.
The online aspect of Brotherhood is pretty much an assortment of PvP assassination games where players are dropped into crowded locales, told to find and eliminate a specific other player while another player is sent to take you down, and off you go. The game does reward stealthiness in a double method, as it will award you more points per game (and therefore the player can unlock more elements) and it won’t blow their cover, making them an easy target for whomever is after them.
The online mode features a levelling up
system similar to Call of Duty and Transformers: War for Cybertron. The more players play and the better they do, the more experience they will acquire in games, increasing their skill level and making abilities, weapons and skill sets available. This is a nice perk but the downside of this feature, as in any game, is that it will greatly effect the unbalance of online matchmaking as the players who already have superior skill in the game will also be given better equipment; expect to see a lot of blowouts.
What I liked The story was a good pick up from the previous installment of the franchise and does a great job of taking up the stakes and incorporating more of the sense that this is a battle of two warring factions, not a lone assassin taking down templars by the boatload, plus the additional attention to Desmond’s character development is a very overdue and welcome addition.
Online is unique and a lot of fun for gamers who want to strategize instead of just running in and killing everything in sight. Brotherhood’s online style is a very much needed breath of fresh air from all the first person shooters that have a stranglehold on online gaming.
What I Would Change Make the story multiplayer! Let gamers join a friend who plays as Ezio in his campaign to overthrow the Templars, even take it up one more step and let players create their characters to take in to the battle. Providing that creative element will only further immerse the player in the story and make them appreciate the narrative of this tale.
Something has to be done about the loading times. Yes the AC franchise has always been plagued by long loading sequences, but sweet Jesus this one takes its time in single player and online; I’m aware the game just released today so the online servers may not be fully intact yet, but waiting five to ten minutes to join an eight player game is not something the average impatient gamer is willing to wait through. Again, online wait times can be forgiven by most of us who have some patience, I just hope it will be rectified soon. Single player’s loading time doesn’t fare much better as I can complete a level, the loading screen comes up, I can put down my controller, go to the washroom, get something out of the fridge, come back to my room and usually the next mission is still loading; I appreciate that the missions are loading entire cities and countrysides, but again this is something that could cripple the reception this game receives from the gaming community as they are known typically for being incredibly impatient.
Final Thoughts Fans of the franchise will want to pick this title up. It gives us more of what we love plus some more unique mission types and ways to go about completing them, and the online is a lot of fun once it actually gets going.
For those of you who thought the first two games were okay but not amazing, this game likely won’t do much to change your mind, but it is worth giving it a rent if for no other reason than to give you a few hours of fun and taking part in the latest installment of this incredible story.
Oh yeah and to our Catholic friends, just lighten up and enjoy the game, will you?
