Assassins Creed: Brotherhood
Produced by Ubisoft Montreal

There seem be a lot of people who still haven't got the message that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is a FULL single player game based in a whole new city which is the same size as the 3 main cities in AC 2 Combined. The game has also been given an all new multiplayer element as well making this the largest Assassin’s Creed game to date so if you are scepticle about getting it as you think it sould only be an add-on for Assassins Creed 2 think again. AC: Brotherhood’s single player continues on from exactly where AC 2 ended. While in AC 2 you might have thought Ezio’s work was done it turns out he still has a way to go before Desmond can access the memory he needs to find one of the lost pieces of Eden.


The majority of AC: Brotherhood will see you running, climbing and jumping across the massive city of Rome however you do get to spend a bit more time playing as Desmond in this game where you will go to 2 Key locations with him and this is where you can see the bleeding affect has really taught him the tricks of his ancestors.



When you now play as Ezio you will notice very early in the game that the combat mechanic has been overhauled giving it a much more balanced feeling between offensive and defensive attacks as the previously invaluable counter has been weakened. To put an emphasis on making Ezio attack after a few parries Ezio will go into a quick kill sequence where you will get one hit kills on each enemy you target as long as you don’t get hit by an attack or grab from another enemy which they will try to do to break your quick kill chain. This makes the combat side if the game a lot more fun and when you unlock the ability to recruit assassin’s into your guild you can also call in for help which can be invaluable later in the game.



The economy system has be carried over from AC 2 however it has been given something of an overhaul as you will be using the majority of your money to restore Rome to its former glory reinstating shops, getting the old tunnel system (fast travel) back up and running and buying up monuments and places of interest as well. All of these buildings add to your earnings which get deposited in the banks and they can be accessed all over the city. There’s also quite a few new bits of kit Ezio is going to need to spend quite a bit of cash for including some new items from Leonardo.



With Ezio’s new ability to recruit wannabe assassins we also get another new feature the ability to manage you guild of assassins. You can accept contracts all over Europe and assign your apprentices to these contracts where they will gain experience making them more powerful and also enabling you to give them better armour and weapons.

One of the least liked features in previous Assassin’s Creed games was the requirement to collect lost of flags and feathers and I’m afraid to say this game is no different in that respect however there are much few flags only 101 and only 10 feathers and the best bit about this is once you have completed the campaign you can then buy maps for them from art shops and they will appear as icons on the main map the same way the treasure chests did in AC 2.



The multiplayer is another innovative new feature in AC: Brotherhood and while the Game play mechanic isn’t entirely original until a month ago I have only seen one other game use this system and that was a game on the pc called “The Ship”. This is several hundred times better however as it puts you on reasonably large maps with hundreds of NPC characters all walking around doing their own thing and this is where it gets interesting.

There are 3 main game types there is Wanted which is an 6-8 player free for all in which you are given a target (another player) to kill you get more points the more stealthy you make the kill and you will be being hunted by another player so you need to blend with the crowd as much as possible to make it harder for them to target you. The higher up the scoreboard you are as the round progresses the more people will be contracted to take you down if you are first you can have 4 people hunting you if your second you can have 3 and so on. Also should you miss your target and take out a lookalike NPC then your target will actually receive points instead and you also have the ability to stun your pursuer which will give you a good points boost but is very hard to do.



Manhunt has you working as 2 teams of 4 and you take turns over 2 rounds playing as hunters and hunted where roles switch at the beginning of each round as attackers you earn the most points for performing the most coordinated attacks and getting the highest quality kills. As prey you get most points for hiding from your attackers close to another teammate and also humiliating your pursuers by escaping from them and stunning them.

The final game type is Alliance and sees you split into 3 teams of 2 and again is played over 2 rounds this time however each team is hunting another team which is displayed as each team making up a corner of a triangle so in round one team 1 hunts team 2, team 2 hunts team 3 and team 3 hunts team 1then in round 2 the triangle as it is displayed reverses and team 1 hunts team 3 and so on.

This game has 40 single player and 10 multiplayer achievements and I can easily say is a granted 1000 as there are guides online already for anything anyone might struggle with in the single player although they are all easy achievements you should be able to get anyway. Most of the multiplayer achievements can be boosted in a private match with a couple of friends in only a few minutes and all the ones you can’t you should get when going for the reach level 50 achievement anyway.



This is an excellent addition to an already brilliant series in my opinion. It's very well put together the graphics feel sharper and the game play seems to be more refined with each new game. The story continues to be as character driven, focused and most importantly engaging as it was in the last game and with the addition of a little more story taking place outside the animus including yet another big ending this time focused around Desmond it will leave you hoping they get a move on with the next game. The multiplayer is also very fun and with its ranking system continuously giving you new abilities and weapons I can’t see myself getting bored of stabbing random strangers in the back any time soon.

Score.... 9.5/10