{"id":993,"date":"2010-12-04T15:24:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T22:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/?p=993"},"modified":"2011-01-12T17:59:43","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T00:59:43","slug":"assassins-creed-brotherhood-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/assassins-creed-brotherhood-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It is not very often a game surprises me these days. Generally, I can tell if I’ll like a game based on the game play videos and trailers.\u00a0 I was expecting to enjoy the campaign in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood since it is a direct continuation of Assassin’s Creed 2 which I really enjoyed.\u00a0 While the campaign is a lot of fun and a great way to continue the story it is the multiplayer that caught me off guard.\u00a0 The verses modes in AC:B are AMAZING!\u00a0 I’m having some of the most fun I’ve had in years playing with the guys from AGE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The multiplayer is sort of like hide-n-seek for adults with lots of stabbing.\u00a0 Each map is filled with NPC characters who are the same skins as the players.\u00a0 You have to mix hiding and blending in with crowds with trying to escape people chains you. There is a constant tension as you play because you never know who around you is about to stab you in the back.\u00a0 There are three main multiplayer modes in AC:B.\u00a0 The ‘Wanted’ mode is an 8 person free for all where you always have one person you are trying to hunt down. The better you’re doing the more people you have hunting you. This mode is good for beginners because if they are not playing well then no one is hunting for them.\u00a0 The ‘Manhunt’ mode is my favorite.\u00a0 It has 2 teams of 4 with one team hiding and the other hunting.\u00a0 Ten, half way through the roles switch.\u00a0 The hiding team gets points for staying alive and hidden and the hunters get points for their kills. I think what I like about Manhunt is you don’t have to focus on killing and being killed.\u00a0 It is just one or the other. The third mode is ‘Alliance’ which has 3 teams of two.\u00a0 Each team has one that they are hunting and another team hunting them making a triangle of targets.\u00a0 Again, half way through the targets switch.\u00a0 Part of what makes the multiplayer so great is that no tow matches are the same. Plus, the pace is much slower than shooters I normally play.\u00a0 There is a lot of strategy involved and when you get a really great kill on someone you are rewarded with a ton of experience points.<\/p>\n

The single player campaign is really nicely done.\u00a0 It directly continues the story of Ezio\/Desmond from AC2.\u00a0 There are a few new mechanics like a crossbow, poisoned darts and the ability to throw heavy weapons. All of these little additions make for a fun playing experience, but what I really like is when you start to build your own Brotherhood of Assassins. As you recruit them they start out as lowly apprentices but you can then send them out on missions to get them experience. Eventually this gets them levels up to full fledged assassins. As soon as you have them recruited you can call your brotherhood members to help you.\u00a0 If you get into a fight or get spotted and need a guard taken out quickly just tap the left bumper and from around the nearest corner an assassin comes running in to help.\u00a0 Once you have three groups of assassins you can also have them do an “arrow storm” which kills off all the enemies in an area. There is a recharge time for having the brotherhood come help you but it is not overly long.\u00a0 In many of the missions having an extra person help is really useful.\u00a0 I really hope this is leading into having full co-op play in Assassin’s Creed 3 because having a team help me was a lot of fun and made for some fun strategies.<\/p>\n

If you have not played the campaign in AC2 you really should before playing Brotherhood, but you can skip AC1 and still follow along with the story.\u00a0 AC2 dis a great job filling in the back story for new players.\u00a0 AC:B does not do that.\u00a0 It instead assume you are ready to continue the AC2 story. The story itself in AC:B ends with a cliffhanger that clearly sets things up for the next game.\u00a0 I plan to be playing the multiplayer for quite a while but I’m already looking forward to AC3 for the single player (and hopefully co-op) portion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not very often a game surprises me these days. Generally, I can tell if I’ll like a game based on the game play videos and trailers.\u00a0 I was expecting to enjoy the campaign in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood since it is a direct continuation of Assassin’s Creed 2 which I really enjoyed.\u00a0 While the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[180,7,5],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-xbox-360","tag-assassins-creed-brotherhood","tag-review","tag-video-game"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andymerrill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}