Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Review
- Posted November 16th, 2010 at 17:01 EDT by Steven Williamson
- 19 Comments
Review Score
- PSU Review Score
- 9.5
- Avg. user review score:
- 8.2
Summary
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is everything we wanted it to be and more. It's not just the most epic, focused and action-packed Assassin's Creed game yet, but it's a real contender for Game of the Year.
We like
- Free-running and fighting around Roma. It feels more fluid than ever
- Burning Borgia towers down and re-building the city. The money system is very rewarding
- The refreshingly unique multiplayer experience
We dislike
- The texture popping, but we're really picking at straws
See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings
Caught in a moment of passion with an attractive young lady, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's time-traveling hero, Ezio, is rudely interrupted by the sound of gunfire. News reaches him quick that the papal army are descending on Moneteriggioni in their thousands, hell bent on destroying the familiar site of the Villa Auditore, which was used for refuge in Assassin’s Creed II. Ezio leaps out of bed to support the defending army, fighting for survival as legions of enemy soldiers descend on the base and attempt to break through the gates, scale the ramparts and destroy any signs of life. You take to the battlements and try relentlessly to stem the onslaught with cannon fire as the masses approach the front gates, but there’s just too many of them to contend with.
Soldiers break through the entrance and clamber over the castle walls. Moneteriggioni has been infiltrated and its people are vulnerable. You leave the cannon, realising that you’ll be more help in the city fighting off the foot soldiers. You run around the outer and upper walls of the stronghold, kick the lever of the merchandise lift and zip up to the tower roof, before jumping down the other side of the rampart - which has now been heavily breached. You whip out your sword and muster together all of your fighting skills in order to dispatch the enemy, thrusting swords through their midriffs and knocking them off the perimeter wall to their death far below.
Buildings catch on fire. The city is going down in flames and you need to get out before you go down with it. You jump on your horse and navigate the crumbling buildings, jumping over debris to escape the carnage in an action-packed sequence that really gets the adrenaline pumping as you race to the exit. It's no use helping to defend Moneteriggioni any more, the city has been destroyed. The Borgia dynasty, behind the attacks, has crossed the mark and took many lives. Ezio is sparked into life on a journey to save humanity and crumble the grip that the Borgia now has on society.
This is most explosive and exciting start to an Assassin's Creed game to date, and it fits in perfectly with the new aggressive tone of this third title where lots of lives are at stake. Not only does this action-packed sequence give you the opportunity to get to grips with the subtle, yet game-enhancing tweaks that have been made to the combat system -- as you chain together assassination combos and send soldiers tumbling to their bloody deaths -- but it also sets a benchmark for the whole production moving forward; at no point does Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ever disappoint in that department.
Picking up where Assassin’s Creed II left off, former bartender, Desmond Morris steps into the Animus 2.0 again to relive the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze. This time, he’s off to Rome (Roma) where the likes of the Vatican, Tiber and Antique await - all places where disillusioned city folk need a new hero that will stand up to the Borgia bigwigs. The Assassin's Creed series as a whole is swamped in fascinating, historically accurate content, but it also has a so-crazy-it's-entertaining, fantasy-fuelled back-story, which is too complicated to re-cap on now. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood once again takes place in a sandbox environment, a playground for an agile assassin who is seeking answers and revenge. To sum up the gameplay as a whole: there's a lot of killing and a lot of sneaking around; a bit of skulduggery and plenty of horse riding. Oh, and a lot of burning towers.
If you’re coming at this Assassin’s Creed without playing any of the previous games, you’ll probably be lost and puzzled by the mere existence of the Animus 2.0, the machine that allows Ezio to connect genetically with his ancestors. This really is a game that builds on the existing titles storylines and the Assassin’s Creed’s lore, with many meaningful references. But even if this is your first Assassin's Creed experience, it shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the gameplay. A decent job has been done at recapping the events in bite-sized chunks; so if you have played Assassin’s Creed before, it’s nice to ... (continued on next page)
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Comments
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ps3freak18
- 1:10pm EST - November 16th, 2010
- 4
Man that has to be the quickest turnaround for a review on PSU! I'm glad though, sounds like a good one. Hope its in the mail today, odds are though I will have to wait until tomorrow.
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honomaru
- 8:24pm EST - November 16th, 2010
- 10
@9 Is there really a dire need to review collections? I mean the games each have their own reviews from when they released. Why dont you just go to metacritic for each game and get an average or something? And if you care so much about a review why not just go buy the game?
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Ergunno
- 1:00pm EST - November 17th, 2010
- 12
Excellent review. Although I quickly got bored from AC 1 and 2 (not really impressed with the games but haven't played this yet, gotta try multiplayer but it looks incredibly boring to me, have to try to make a good opinion though) but there's no denying that all the games in the series are excellent!
Very good and expansive review!
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bigCman123
- 3:54pm EST - November 17th, 2010
- 13
I'm currently borrowing AC2 (awesome game) and I will buy this game when I'm finished. The raiden costume and my experience from AC2 has pretty much sold me on this game. Can't wait.
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IAMLEGEND2488
- 1:08pm EST - November 18th, 2010
- 15
woah
Black ops scored 9.0
AC Brotherhood scored 9.5
Has this ever happened before?
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knowitall222
- 11:54pm EST - November 21st, 2010
- 16
Finally the 3rd game of the series(Not including the spin offs).The graphics has not improved(7)The gameplay is great(8)and the story line is epic(9)lasting appeal is not to good(6).
Overall(7.5)
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davemo
- 7:51pm EST - November 26th, 2010
- 17
Got it a few days ago its good ... real good. But a few things always hang me up with the ac games(i got all three) controlling ezio as he flees or runs rooftop to rooftop is a little difficult . In short the controls (for me) are a little lacking but everything else is excellent. Not as good as uncharted 2 but still i love it!!!!!!!!
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M1B
- 3:12pm EST - November 27th, 2010
- 18
It's just hold R1 + X while you move the left stick to do a consistant free run. You just gotta know when to let go of X or you'll be jumping where you don't need to be. I actually thought the free running element was easiest to perform in AC:Brotherhood.
Seen a lot of people fail in the multiplayer videos on YouTube--like one guy didn't even know how to jump from roof to roof and climb buildings, but he had uploaded a bunch of multiplayer vids already. It was quite sad.
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X_JUDGEMENT_X
- 8:06pm EST - December 19th, 2010
- 19
assassins creed brotherhood was an outstanding game. some think it is better than AC2, that is false, the only thing that could be better than AC2 would be AC3... but acb is amongst my favorite games
BlindMangoThis will permanently ban this user and delete all associated comments. This action is irreversible, are you SURE you want to do this?!
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