Assassin’s Creed 2 from Ubisoft Entertainment improved on the original in almost every facet, giving players even more to enjoy. The follow-up, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood looks to improve even further upon the outstanding design of the series, it hits store shelves in a couple weeks. We had a chance to spend a bit of time with Desmond and his memories of a long dead relative, Ezio Auditore. While Brotherhood doesn’t carry a 3 in its title, it certainly adds to the canon that we’ve all grown so fond of. Picking up where Assassin’s Creed 2 left off, Ezio quickly comes under fire and the city of Rome is taken hold by a new enemy. Ezio takes it upon himself to stealthily retake the city via a team of trained assassins. While most of the elements that comprised 2 are returning, Ezio can now create and build upon a guild of assassins in order to carry out missions. Fellow assassins can be recruited typically by saving them, which they will in dedicate themselves to Ezio’s cause. Once you have recruited a few good men, Ezio can either task these killers with their own missions or in times of need, they can follow Ezio out into combat. Each member is also fully customizable, with a variation of cloaks and colors, as well as an interchangeable arsenal.
As you use individuals from your crew, they accrue experience and gold, while gaining access to new methods of killing. It is key to build upon your team as later missions can cause grief without another trained assassin at your back. What makes the entire experience feel so intriguing is that all these recruits can be killed off. Don’t get too attached to any one specific guildie, as their departure from the land of the living feels almost like a plot device. The entire guild system has been well implemented to say the least. While Ezio is running train in the DNA of Desmond, Desmond also makes a much more stunning return, playing out some of the slick moves he began brandishing in 2. As Desmond dives in and out of the Animus, he has a bit more time in the spotlight, doing some parkour of his own. Desmond seems to play a much bigger role in the plot of Brotherhood and we certainly don’t disapprove of this direction. All of Ezio’s toils are intended to take back Rome, and he’ll have to do taking down towers throughout the city. Each tower Ezio takes from the enemy, a bit of notoriety is gained for the guild. In an attempt to aid Ezio’s conquest, Leonardo Da Vinci makes his return with some new inventions. There are plenty of new features in Brotherhood, look for more details on if they help the game succeed beyond AC2 in our detailed review around launch time.
To name a few, Da Vinci has cooked up a tank of sorts, as well as a parachute that gives a whole new meaning to death from above. We spent a couple hours with a near-final build of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s single-player campaign and walked away thoroughly excited for where the franchise is heading, as well as wanting to play more. A simple expansion game to the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Brotherhood is not. The game is set to be a full-fledged sequel, only lacking a 3 in the title (which is not always a bad thing). Not only do we get a continuation to second game’s story, it is said that Brotherhood clocks in at around 15 hours just for the campaign – and we can see that statement as an accurate representation of everything there is to do in the game. The story is new and fresh, and there are plenty of optional quests to complete. You’ve also got the stellar multiplayer that is bound to captivate fans of the series and give the thid game in the series legs to stay in gamer’s consoles for some time to come. If you are even the slightest bit hesitant about Brotherhood, you should lose your reservations. This may not be a huge improvement over last year’s Creed, but it easily looks to be the best addition to the franchise and well worth the cost of admission during the month of November.
