With the holiday season in full swing, it’s past time to talk about some of the games on every gamer’s wish list, and to start us off, I decided to go with perhaps the most surprising title of the season.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is, on its face, a tough sell. A non-numbered sequel adding a multiplayer element to a series that has been exclusively a single-player experience, coming out only a year after the previous entry in the series. Sounds like a recipe for disaster (or at least mediocrity), right? I thought so, too, but the more I saw of the game’s multiplayer, the more intrigued I became. So, after a few sessions of both the campaign and multiplayer, what do I think?
Well, it’s a mixed bag. The campaign, while still excellent in terms of gameplay, offers very few surprises. The story picks up immediately after the events of the second game, and while the story is interesting, there’s not much new to talk about. Ezio still picks up missions, kills targets, advances the story, and repeats the process until you get to the credits. In the campaign’s early hours, there is an interesting part of the game where you get to play as Desmond, the near-present day descendant of Altair and Ezio, doing some light platforming near the game’s beginning as the modern-day assassin and his compatriots set up shop in Ezio’s renovated mansion. Though largely disposable, the sequence may provide a glimpse into what Assassin’s Creed III may have in store (since the modern-day events take place in 2012, likely the year in which the third and presumably final game will launch).
Multiplayer, unsurprisingly, is where most gamers will get the most bang for their buck in Brotherhood. The multiplayer mechanics are simple, yet surprisingly effective. Each player chooses an avatar (the differences are purely cosmetic), and begins a ten minute match in which you try to hunt down your target while evading your own pursuer(s). As you move up the leaderboards, you’ll have more and more pursuers, and you’ll also have to deal with other players hunting down your target.
Despite how hectic that all sounds, the game rewards patience and stealth, as wins are determined by the total number of points scored, not the number of kills recorded. You gain points for streaks, killing a target while not being detected, killing a target from above, and various other feats. The result is a multiplayer experience that feels fresh and unique. Even so, it’s easy to get frustrated, as you’ll often be killed by an undetected assailant or have all of your patient pursuit of a target go for naught as another assassin kills your would-be victim.
Despite numerous temptations to throw the controller into the wall, however, I highly recommend Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The multiplayer alone is worth the price of admission, but the solid singleplayer campaign that’s included should help vault the title to the top of your wish list.