Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Review

Just barely over one year ago, Assassin’s Creed II hit store shelves and made a huge impact on the gaming world. Taking the series from a fledgling IP with some interesting but flawed concepts to a true AAA title, it solidified the Assassin’s Creed series as an important and powerful member of the current generation and exemplified all that a truly great sequel should be. It was better in almost every regard than the original. Now it’s another year later, and Ubisoft has unleashed a third game in the series with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Is it a quick and sloppy cash grab or just as big an improvement over Assassin’s Creed II as that title was to the original?

The main motivation to play any game in the Assassin’s Creed series is the singleplayer campaign and its associated storyline. It’s why so many of us trudged our way through the repetitive and lackluster first installment and blew our way through the second. With Assassin’s Creed II’s story ending in such a final and thought-provoking manner pointing the narrative towards Desmond’s future storyline rather than back at Ezio’s, it was impossible for Brotherhood to pick up with any reasonably comparable amount of excitement and immediacy.

As quickly as you obtained the Apple of Eden at the end of Assassin’s Creed II, Ezio and his brethren lose track of it in a rather uncharacteristic and somewhat unbelievable lack of forethought. The game then relies on the tired and frustrating mechanic of removing all of the items and abilities you gained in the previous game and then asking them to regain them exactly in the manner you did before. The storyline here is frustrating and problematic, but ultimately, it is just boring, feeling like an epilogue to Assassin’s Creed II that has been stretched almost 20 hours long, rather than a compelling narrative in its own right.

Outside of the game’s fiction, many of the game’s most problematic mechanics have seen a lot of added polish and reworking. Combat now flows much more quickly than before. No more will you find yourself simply waiting for a chance to counter-attack each enemy one at a time. The ability to chain together series of assassinations and block-breaking kicks quicken the pace and make you feel more like a powerful assassin and less than a rat trapped in a corner.

Living up to its name, Brotherhood does, eventually, grant you the ability to recruit, train, and lead a brotherhood of fellow assassins into battle. Acting more as a power-up or ability than a true party system, Ezio can call in single groups of assassins at a time or even rain down arrows from above with a single flick of his wrist. This mechanic is exciting and does allow for you to face enemy encounters in an entirely different way than ever before possible.

After a bit of time with your team of assassins though, you’ll find that they never really seem to get anywhere close to dying and that the bars required to call them in fill far too quickly. Much like the economy systems of both Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood, the team of assassin’s becomes something of a win-button not long after you obtain it. The player must be the judge of how difficult he or she wants the game to be rather than the game making that decision for him or her which tends to be a bit of a double-edged sword throughout the campaign. Regardless, this is a mechanic that needs to stay with the series and make its way into future games both for its relation to the logic of the story and the interesting mechanics it adds to the game overall.

Horse combat has been revamped as well and with exciting results. Not only has the ability to ride horses through bustling city streets been granted but the combat is much more ruthless and breakneck while atop one and the same applies for guards. While on foot facing a guard on horseback will have you scrambling out of harm’s way while trying to figure out a way to throw him off or kill him before he gets back to you. These somewhat subtle changes take the role of the horse from nothing more than a poorly-implemented driving mechanic and into a useful mode of transportation and an exciting combat tactic.

Outside of the series’ well-known singleplayer, Brotherhood also contains a much talked about multiplayer suite. Taking a lot of obvious cues from a tiny PC game from a few years back called The Ship, Brotherhood’s multiplayer places you in an arena full of NPC characters as well as your fellow players and tasks you with finding and killing your mark while also being targeted yourself. A small number of character models are repeated throughout the arena which keeps the player always on the hunt as even finding a look-alike for your target, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s him. It’s not as hard as it sounds, and although it may take a game or two to get the hang of it, it becomes a rather exhilarating experience. Multiplayer with so little action makes what action is present, a subtle slashing of the throat or powerful jab to the spine, all the more exciting. My first kill had me cackling with glee as it felt as if I had accomplished a very difficult task, truly assassinated another human player without ever blowing my cover.

The most problematic aspect of the multiplayer isn’t any of the game’s mechanics or modes but the simple fact that people don’t buy Assassin’s Creed games for the multiplayer. You know with a Call of Duty game that you’ll always be able to find a multiplayer match to join, but the same can’t be said with Brotherhood’s multiplayer. On more than one occasion, I found myself waiting a ridiculous amount of time to find or put together a game. Will it stand the test of time and become a new standard for the series or will it fail to resonate properly with the masses and die off as quickly as it came to be? Only time will tell.

In the end, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood comes off a little half-baked. Despite the fact that it is absolutely overflowing with content, contains a new and interesting multiplayer component, has perfected some of the series most problematic aspects, and grants new and interesting looks into the world of Assassin’s Creed, the singleplayer storyline lacks almost all of the urgency, excitement, and intrigue that made Assassin’s Creed II so enticing. Immediately, you’ll find Ezio losing everything that he gained in the end of the last game and being tasked to regain it, but to what end? Desmond already received the information he was looking for. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is still a good game overall and a must-play for any diehard Assassin’s Creed fans, but for those previously unsure of the series or looking to jump in now, do yourself a favor and go with Assassin’s Creed II instead.