Review : Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood

Happy Birthday to me... yeah right! After spending god knows how many hours playing the story mode and dabbling in with the multiplayer a bit I'm now ready to finally get this review done. Here's my review of Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood.


The story of Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood continues straight after Assassin's Creed II and I mean it actually starts right after the ending of Assassin's Creed II. You return to the role of Desmond Miles, the bartender who was kidnapped and forced to relive his ancestors memories to help the Templar company Abstergo find the piece of Eden, who then gets rescued by Lucy who is a member of the assassin's guild and is now training in the memories of Ezio and trying to find out where the pieces of Eden are through Ezio's memories. Now Ezio's story in this game has him thinking he's battles are over with the Borgia until Cesare Borgia and the Borgia soldiers invade his home and kill his uncle Mario to obtain the Apple of Eden. Now Ezio has travelled to Rome to finish what he started and recover the Apple of Eden. Wow! That's a lot of story summery!

Anyone returning from Assassin's Creed II knows how the game plays because nothings changed really, but the game provides tutorials and story recaps for newcomers. Like in previous entries in the series, the game has you assassinating targets, fighting soldiers, tailing marks and free running all over the city. Combat is still as flawed as ever but now they've added a kill streak system where you can insta-kill other enemies after killing an enemy with a counter attack by holing the analog stick in the direction of another enemy and pressing the attack button. The free running is still as fun and flawed as ever but easy to get used to.

There are TONS of missions to do and completing the game can take a really long time for perfectionists like me but if not it will still take a long while.The missions are pretty much assassinate a target and a couple of different ones and a couple of platforming ones too. The economy system also makes a return and you use the money you earn in the game to upgrade the city's stores and buy landmarks to increase the amount of money you earn from the banks so you can upgrade more stores, landmarks, buy equipment and if you feel like it dye your clothes. Also added to the game is the assassin's guild. The assassin's guild allows you to recruit citizens who are being attacked by soldiers into your guild after rescuing them. The assassin's you recruit can be called into combat and sent on missions across Europe to level them up and earn money and items. The funny thing about the guild is that even though it's a useful feature, it ultimately doesn't really have much of an effect on the story.

On top of the main story mode there's a multiplayer mode which trust me, you'll only really play it for the achievements/trophies or just to try to give it a go. The multiplayer has a few modes but there isn't much difference between them. Wanted mode has you hunting down targets while evading you pursuers, Alliance is pretty much the same but in 3 teams of 2 and Manhunt which has 2 teams taking turns hunting and evading. The multiplayer plays similarly to the story mode but more simplified. 1 thing that is annoying is that if the connection is weak you'll see yourself killed even though the enemy wasn't near you very frequently. I personally don't like the multiplayer but I'm sure some people will like it.

Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood has a solid single player that will keep you playing for a long time that's held together by a great story and good gameplay. The multiplayer on the other hand is meh in my opinion but I'm sure there's a niche group that will enjoy it. I give it a 4/5, it's single player is awesome and it has so much to do and even with the mediocre multiplayer it's still a great game.

Score 4/5