Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a major step back from Assassin's Creed II.
Table of Contents
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1. Story
2. Gameplay
3. Graphics
4. Controls
5. Extra Features
6. Overall
1. Story
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Rating: 4/10
The story in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is boring and forgettable. The game starts off with Desmond and the gang going to Monteriggioni to escape the Templars. They set up their facility in the Assassin's crypt where Altair's armor was stored. The few missions and elements of gameplay in Monteriggioni have almost no point and do nothing for the game. Inside the Animus, the player starts out at the end of the last game, in the Vatican after meeting Minerva. Ezio heads back to Monteriggioni, where his family and friends find out that he spared Rodrigo Borgia, the Spaniard. After a short while, the Borgia themselves start attacking Monteriggioni, leaving the villa in shambles and causing Ezio and his family to escape to Rome. Mario does not come with them; the main antagonist of the game, Cesare Borgia, kills him. The rest of the game is spent in Rome and the surrounding areas.
2. Gameplay
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Rating: 6/10
The gameplay is similar to that of the previous games in the series, but with minor changes.
Like in previous games, there is information on the various characters and locations in the game. Unlike the previous games, the information is not accurate and has been modified to include the Assassin's Creed storyline. While this could be enjoyable for some and adding to the immersion, I personally preferred the real information because I was interested in hearing about the real people rather than the game people.
The controls are awful (I will cover that more in section 4).
The missions are more annoying than any of the previous games. For instance, there are many missions where you are desynchronized for getting detected or for killing your target at the wrong time. There are also special goals for each mission that, if you successfully complete them, will give you 100% synchronization with that mission and will unlock special memories or cheats. Cheats can only be used when you repeat memories.
3. Graphics
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Rating: 9/10
In the Assassin's Creed franchise, each game has expanded and improved its graphics. There are still some graphical hitches, but nothing too serious and game-breaking.
4. Controls
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Rating: 4/10
The controls are awful in this game. I, as a seasoned Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 player, was frustrated with the changes made to the controls. I had just gotten used to using the spacebar, shift, and WASD keys in the game menus when Ubisoft decided to change them to the enter, backspace, and arrow keys. While these are more widely used, in my opinion, they're harder to reach and less convenient than spacebar, left shift, and WASD. While the old controls were all in one location on the keyboard, now they're spread out and I have to use my mouse hand to reach them, whereas it was easier using my keyboard hand.
Besides the annoying new menu controls, Ezio's coding is awful. For instance, say you're standing right behind a guard with his back to you. There's civilians all around you, but the guard is highlighted (not locked). You use your hidden blade to go in for the kill, but instead of killing that guard standing right in front of you, you accidentally turn the camera a bit to the left and you pull a nearby civilian off his horse and stab him, thereby alerting the guard in front of you. Annoying, right? That happens all too often. Like in Assassin's Creed II, when you kill three civilians, you are automatically desynchronized. In one circumstance, I was on a horse and decided to kill a guard on patrol nearby. When on a horse, you can assassinate people, automatically jumping off and killing them. Instead of killing the guard, who was standing right nearby, I ended up jumping off the horse and using my double hidden blade to kill two pedestrians walking by at the wrong time. What's with that?
There's also new camera controls. When you're locked onto a enemy, moving the camera targets a different enemy. Read that: LOCKED. In the previous games and in other games, locking on to an enemy means locking on until you unlock or they die. In this game, it's been redefined to become "now you can change your locked target simply by moving the camera two millimeters!"
It's also because the game wrestles the camera from you occasionally, so it turns in a different direction. You're primed and ready to deliver the final blow to the enemy in front of you, and the camera suddenly turns and you attack someone else while the original enemy can get a hit in. It's especially annoying when you're jumping from rooftop to rooftop and you have to watch out which way the camera turns because instead of jumping to the next building, you might end up falling to your death. This actually happened to me, I had just killed a Borgia captain and I was going to ignite the tower, but before igniting it, I decided to synchronize my camera with the viewpoint at the top. Ezio jumped the wrong way at the very top, and not only was I not able to synchronize with the viewpoint, I didn't ignite the tower and the memory restarted, meaning the captain respawned and I had to repeat everything (which was extremely difficult the first time through). I had to repeat this sequence at least 3 times, not including the initial time, before I was able to get the tower ignited.
Anyway, enough ranting about things that you might not encounter.
Finally, there's a new feature called "kill streaks", in which Ezio can instantly kill another enemy after killing someone. Execute an enemy by counter-attacking or attacking continuously, then press one of the WASD keys towards another enemy to instantly kill them. In this way, Ezio can kill entire groups of enemies in mere seconds, making the game much too easy. If he is attacked in the middle of a kill, however, it will break his streak. There is also a new "kick" feature, where you can kick enemies to break their defenses and hit them easier.
5. Extra Features
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Rating: 7/10
Some of the extra features are okay. For instance, you can recruit assassins to your new Assassin's Guild. They can be sent out on contracts in different areas of Europe. Rewards from those contracts include experience for the assassins, money, and trade goods. If you have assassins available, you can also call on them at any time to kill the nearest group of enemies. As you recruit more assassins, you get special bars under your synchronization bar that shows you how many assassin groups you can call on and how long it will be before they are available again. There is a total of three bars, and a new one is added on the first, fourth, and sixth assassin. Each group has two assassins. You can level up your assassins with experience they collect from various actions like completing contracts and helping you in battle. With each rank, you can upgrade their armor or weapons, and eventually, they will gain new weapons to perform their assassinations and more health squares to last longer in combat.
Some areas of the map are restricted zones. This means that when the player goes into them, they are automatically the equivalent of "notorious". Guards will notice them faster and attack more readily. Most of the restricted zones are run by Borgia captains. To free the area, kill the captain and ignite the towers that are in the center of the area. This will also allow you to purchase and renovate nearby buildings so you can use them. The buildings include doctors, art merchants, blacksmiths, tailors, horse stables, banks, monuments, and assassin tunnels. Each building purchased generates revenue, which is deposited every 20 minutes into banks located around Rome. Visit a bank to collect your money. Some vendors also have "Shop Quests", which unlock special items for purchase if you sell the shop a certain number of trade goods. For example, a shop could want a shrunken head, two alum, and three silk to unlock a special weapon or piece of armor.
You can finally ride horses in the city. Renovate stables to always have a nearby supply of horses. There are also different types of horses with different benefits. You can tap the E key at any time to call your horse. It will spawn a short distance away and run to you. The horses can rarely get stuck on buildings and fences and such because of poor pathfinding. You can also assassinate and attack from horses.
At the beginning of the game, you lose all armor, weapons, and abilities that you had before. You have to purchase new armor and weapons and upgrade your existing equipment using Leonardo, who follows you to Rome. He is under the employment of the Borgia to design dangerous weapons for them, so he does not have a permanent location. Rebecca monitors his location and marks it on your map. In each location, you must find a bench with a hand drawn on it and sit on the bench. Be sure to have a few thousand florins available, as Leonardo is charging for his services this time.
In the pause menu, you can access "Virtual Training", which are special memories that allow you to test your skills and earn medals.
Collectible flags are reintroduced and feathers are scattered around Rome. There are many flags, but only ten feathers.
6. Overall
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Rating: 6/10
Overall, there are good and bad things about this game, some of which I didn't cover because the game truly is large. In my opinion, this game is barely worth $20, if that. The main gameplay elements and story are just too boring to justify the price. It's all the same, as well. There's nothing really new and worthwhile. What is new is just mediocre. This game truly is hard to describe, because it doesn't really fit under any one category. If you feel that what this review describes does justify the price, feel free to purchase it, but be sure that you're ready for all the minor and major annoyances this game brings along with the good things.