Review: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

It’s pretty rare to see anyone disagree that Assassin’s Creed II heavily surpassed the first game with gameplay tweaks, additions and features. Assassin’s Creed was great because of the story and the setting you play in is one we’ve encountered infrequently in video games so far. Part two just blew me out of the water with how much more fun they made the gameplay. How much more the characters were developed and how much the world really came alive. Brotherhood absolutely does not provide that much of a gameplay upgrade experience-wise, but this is a hell of a good game. It does for the series what Mass Effect 2 did for that series: it sets up the next entry into the series perfectly.

When you first boot up the story mode, you’ll be treated to a really well-done introduction video rehashing the pertinent happenings of both Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed II. Future video games, take note! This is so thoughtful, even if it’s just a year after release - we play so many games a little refresher that isn’t in the form of a 9000 page scrollable in-game encyclopedia is something we are beyond grateful for! The story sets you up immediately after Assassin’s Creed II left you, and although I’d have loved a full new Assassin’s Creed III game - I am really happy Ubisoft decided to give me a little more time with Ezio - probably my favorite playable character of this generation.

Desmond is pitted in the war of the Templars and the assassins in his modern-day setting, while the bleeding effect from such extended time spent in the Animus, the machine that allows Desmond to relive his ancestors memories, Altaïr and Ezio’s memories have made him to both really feel like an assassin - and start to mentally lose it just a bit. For a long while in the beginning of the game, the premise somewhat annoyed me - the Borgia still live, and get hold of the Apple of Eden early on when they invade your villa at Monteriggioni. You’ll spend the majority of the game working to take down the rest of the Borgia family once and for all and secure the Apple of Eden once again.

Rome is your main stay of the game. Probably about 85-90% of the game takes place in Rome, thank goodness you can now call and ride your horse from any point in the city. Though the town is absolutely enormous, varied and exciting - I did like being able to visit the different cities of Italy like Forlì in the last game. Somewhat like rebuilding your villa in ACII, you will now be rebuilding Rome. Except instead of upgrading from a little menu in your mansion, you will literally wander the city and select buildings to restore like blacksmiths, artist shops and medical aid buildings for your use and to gain more revenue (every 20 minutes the value of Rome that you’ve attained is deposited into the bank). Unlike in ACII though, you actually see the building be restored before you when you choose to complete any renovations. Many of the rebuilding cannot be done until you take down a surrounding Borgia tower - which puts the area on lockdown, more or less. Once you kill the captain of that district and burn the Borgia tower, you will have liberated that area of Rome. Guards will then be on lower alert and the buildings are yours to restore.

Side missions with Leonardo da Vinci are available to switch up the gameplay a bit. He and Ezio will collaborate on four big side missions to help take down some of his weapon creations that the Borgia are using, so that they no longer have access to these war machines. You’ll get to man a really interesting tank (fun) and fly an iteration of that damn flying machine again (not fun) and more.

Since Ezio will become the head of the Assassin’s Guild in Brotherhood, you can also now recruit and train assassins throughout the game to join any of your fights and aid you in any dire situations. You can send them on missions to gain XP while you’re out and about, but they also gain XP from being called into battle. As you rank up several of your assassins, they will learn a really helpful skill called Arrow Storm where there will come in and help you pelt anyone on screen with crossbows at high-speed. It makes you feel a bit overpowered to have this at your aid, and definitely makes the game a bit easier if you hang onto it just for dire situations - but it makes you feel really damn powerful, I’ll just say that much.

You can also now replay memories or sections of a memory. To relive and remember something - maybe, but more likely to gain 100% synchronization on a memory block. You will get 50% synchronization every memory you complete, and 100% if you complete it by fulfilling a certain condition (annoying, in my opinion), i.e. finishing in a certain time amount (I have exploring to do!), beat it without losing a health block or without being detected - things like that to “go the extra mile.”

I’ve already sunk over 20 hours into the single player alone. After I beat the game (and was both angry and gushing about the ending and reading between the lines, crafting wild theories), I immediately jumped back into my file and continued my quest to reveal all of Subject 16′s puzzles, find the remaining few feathers, burn the last few Borgia towers, manned a tank, trained up a few more of my assassin recruits and took on quite a few side quests and missions. Like Assassin’s Creed II, there is a lot to do to keep you busy in this game. Like I just mentioned, many of the collectibles return - feathers (only 10 this time, phew), Borgia flags (104 flags), 10 Borgia towers overseeing Rome to ignite and destroy, a gigantic city to restore buildings and buy landmarks in, and there are also a bunch of those areas just like the Tombs in the last game to explore and unlock a big treasure in t he end. And seriously, there’s still more to do. Not to mention the epic multiplayer…

This is hands-down the best multiplayer experience available that involves killing without a gun. Honestly, its frame is built from Call of Duty. The rank up system, the perks, the classes. It’s very similar and easily recognizable. The gameplay, however, is truly unique and extremely addictive. I went in completely doubting it, much like I felt with BioShock 2, worried it’d be a tacked-on experience, hindering the hard work and glory of the single player experience that would peter out and die quickly. Brotherhood is not that. The single player did not suffer for the development of the multiplayer, and with the million+ copies sold Brotherhood has done so far, there will be plenty of people to play with for a while.

There are a few types of modes in the online. There are free for all type matches, where you are both the hunter and the hunted - at the same time. You’ll have a target to assassinate which you’ll need to do by keeping your cover and detecting them amongst the crowd - which isn’t easy, even though you have a radar detector to get close to their location. Players can easily blend into an area or crowd, or even literally through an unlockable perk make the crowd they’re in transform into the same character as they are, so pinpointing the real vs the fake can be tough. Pick the wrong one of a group, and your target will knock you out and escape, making you lose your contract and having to start anew if they get away. You might even be being stalked on your way to your target and die before you even see that target. The better you’re doing in the match, the more people will get you as their target - you might have up to four assassins tailing you at once while you stalk your one target if you’re doing really well in the match.

You’ll literally be watching your back and watching your front at all times, as it gets really tense. As you play more, you’ll start to pick up on little behaviors that the human players have that will make them stand out from a crowd. There are multiple ways to take out a target, and more points are awarded for the more discreet and stylish your kill. There are so many perks to help you on both the defensive and opposing end at all times. You can also unlock near gear and costume colors for the characters you can play as at later levels as you rank up.

The other main game type is where you will have a team of four human players, all the same character (i.e. you’ll all be the barber), and hunt out another team of characters (i.e. they’ll all be courtesans), and much like the free for all type, you will have a target each time that you will hunt down stealthily and take out as many of the enemy team as possible while the other team tries to hide. Then at the end of the round you’ll switch sides and take the hiding side while you are hunted. It’s much like a hide-and-seek mode, if said child’s game ended in death upon being discovered.

My one and only major gripe with the online is that the matchmaking can at times take… forever. You might get lucky and get into a match right away, but even though it’ll say players found 8/8 - it’ll still stutter to bring up the actual lobby for minutes and minutes at a time sometimes. Once you’re into the game, my advice is not to back out of the room until you’re turning off the game! Other than that, once you’re in, you’ll never want to turn it off. It’s that good.

The single player experience was robust and fun and definitely worth picking up for any fan, despite not bringing too much “new” to the table, but the multiplayer experience. Wow. And it doesn’t hurt that Ubisoft is already rewarding fans with free DLC for the online before the holidays to keep the experience alive and well. Brotherhood, whichever mode you decide to buy it for (or most likely, for both) will keep you entertained and busy for 20+ hours, a charm I always appreciated about the series among the blossoming increase of 4-6 hour story modes in other games these days.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Xbox 360 (Reviewed), Playstation 3
	Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Genre: Action Release Date: November 16, 2025 MSRP: $59.99 ESRB Rating: M for Mature

Doin’ It RIGHT: - Story’s ending sets you up very nicely for the next game. - Multiplayer is a godsend, and the single player did not suffer an ounce for its inclusion. - More Ezio! Oh, and insane amounts of things to keep you busy besides the main story. 20+ hours worth of things to do here.	Doin’ It RONG: - Matchmaking can take a minute… or more often than not, 5+ minutes. - Albeit large, you mostly only get to explore the city of Rome.
FINAL SCORE: 9.5 / 10

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