Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’ll know that Assassin’s Creed III will be released at the end of this month. We’ve been playing through the previous games in the franchise (part 1, part 2) to follow its evolution. This post contains Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood spoilers.
The Borgias’ Revenge
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the third game in the series, releasing on consoles in late 2010 and reaching the PC and Mac in March 2011.
Ezio’s story continues: he now has to deal with the consequences of his show of mercy when facing the Pope, Rodrigo Borgia, in a lengthy fist fight last time out.
The Borgia have taken control of the Vatican, Rome, and seemingly most of Italy.
Ezio’s enjoying some downtime with his friends in Monteriggioni when Cesare Borgia decides to get some revenge on behalf of his father, revenge that involves blasting lots and lots of cannonballs into our hero’s beloved town.
Naturally, Ezio was too arrogant to have foreseen such a move, and only has time to grab a single hidden blade before he rushes out to confront the Borgia.
That means buying all your weapons and armor from Assassin’s Creed II all over again. I’ll be interested to see if Ubisoft finds another convenient way for Ezio to lose his belongings in Revelations.
In a similarly convenient fashion, whilst the Assassins are on the run in the 21st century, the only safe haven they can find is in Monteriggioni. Astonishingly, 500 years of time have had next to no effect on the little town, save from the addition of a couple of road signs. The Auditore Villa also remained untouched. Still, it was pretty neat to see Desmond, Lucy, Rebecca and Shaun entering Ezio’s old place.
Once the Animus is set up, you’re back exploring Rome in the early 16th century. With the help of Machiavelli, La Volpe and lots of other assassins, you work to relinquish the Borgia’s grip on the city through eliminating their Generals, igniting their watchtowers and rousing the locals into action.
Your base is on Tiber Island, the equivalent of the Auditore Villa from Assassin’s Creed II. It plays the same role, a place to store weapons, armor and paintings; whilst also housing your friends and followers. The only person that was missing was Leonardo da Vinci, our friend from Assassin’s Creed II. More on him later.
Rebuilding Rome
The gameplay changes from Assassin’s Creed II to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood are much subtler than the huge changes from the first to the second games in the franchise. Perhaps the largest difference is that Brotherhood is set almost entirely in Rome rather than in several cities, but given the nature of the game, this doesn’t feel like a bad thing.
While you’re eliminating the Borgia and their followers, you can also invest in the dozens of shops in Rome, buy landmarks such as the Pantheon and the Coliseum and also repair aqueducts, restore faction buildings and buy entrances to the tunnels of Rome, which act as a fast travel system. After fifteen hours with Brotherhood, Ezio was a master assassin, retail guru and a property tycoon. All in a day’s work.
Crossbows and dirty tricks
Combat hasn’t changed too much. The addition of enemies’ hit points to the combat UI is incredibly helpful – in Brotherhood it is possible to tell whether a single throwing knife will take out an enemy or if something deadlier is required, such as a crossbow bolt. Yep, crossbows are in, and they’re ridiculously good, giving Ezio the ability to assassinate silently from a distance. The reload time is only a couple of seconds too, making the crossbow the most versatile and useful of the toys Ezio gets to play with.
In larger fights, that sword will still come in handy, and with the addition of execution streaks, where you can chain deadly strikes together, sword fights are less of a chore than in the previous two games. You can also kick your enemies to lower their guard, further shortening the lengths of fights.
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