Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

The Good
Assassin's Creed was a streamlined version of the 3D platformer that Tomb Raider and the new Prince of Persias made popular, but it was not very loved. After Assassin's Creed 2 delivered a very polished version of Assassin's Creed (I still love the first game, but I admit it was very shallow and repetitive) Brotherhood took the elements and added a bit more. The previous game ended in a cliffhanger that made you promise to the world that you would avenge the Borgias, and this is what this game is about: undermining the influence of the evil Spanish (and some French now that we are on it) in the wonderful Rome.

So it's basically the same game play as the previous games in the saga: you have a city to explore, with a small available section that will widen up as you accomplish missions from the main quest, and the city has markers for different Assassin's tasks: robbery, spying, murder, climb high towers and why not, love. You still meet some standouts from the previous games as Leonardo Da Vinci who will build some weapons for you in between his other tasks and other historical figures that will make you feel like in an episode of, you guessed it, The Borgias. All in a framing device of a present time where thanks to virtual reality and some jungian concepts you can unravel the secrets of the past, and all with beautiful visuals, music and sounds.

Though the game is linear, there is always a lot of things to do. You have if not all most of the game play components from the last game multiplied by 3: many factions give you missions, many collectibles are around the city (this time you will not move from Rome apart from some errands for Da Vinci and some flashbacks), and you can play a capitalistic dream where you own shops with items that improve your character and decorate your lair. Parkour is still the main selling point now with some more weapons, and there is a very very fun introduction of a mob of assassins that you can call just by a whistle.

The Bad
And there is the glyphs. And there is the wolves. And the reconstruction of the whole Rome. And the three factions.

And this is bad because one of the better things of AC2 is how everything was a build up to the final stage, one of the most memorable experiences I had with a video game but one experience that worked because what happened before pushed you to it, to a feeling that the whole Italy was supporting you. In this one the sense of urgency is of course nowhere to be found, and among the many side missions only a few of them are actually interesting (the Templars ones are I think the best).

The parkour controls still work but when there is a timed sequence you will probably jump to the straw, in a direction you won't want, or just activating a hotspot you are not interested in. Many times I ended up hiring people when I wanted to call a horse, and the enemy "lock" where you focus on one enemy to fight is so restrictive with the camera and movements (you cannot run away) that you end up not using it at all and unfortunately murdering some peasants. Horses are cool but are still fairly slow. In the end the only way to run from one place to the other is either being a bad citizen pushing everyone or driving over them with your horse. So much for being a hero.

The flashback romantic missions are a bit of a disaster, and made me despise the main character. The Desmond section has no sense whatsoever (when they got this so right in the first game!) And the obsession with collectibles in Ubi games is something I could live without.

The Bottom Line
An typical game of its generation, the Assassin's Creed mix of sandbox game, stealth game, fight game and secondary things to do like collecting stuff and restoring the city works very well in AC Brotherhood and is very fun, but after some time you lose track as a gamer of the motivation of it all and it becomes a repetitive routine. A sometimes fun one, one that has Rome to explore and mechanics that are very polished, but a routine. This is something that happened so often to Ubi games of that era, and for that reason, and for the pulpy take on Renaissance history, is why you would want to play it. It is maybe not as good as the second one, but it has its unique charms.

As a bottom line, it's very recommended to play AC2 before this.