Reviews// Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

These Borgia strongholds assert their influence over the immediate neighbourhood, and business cannot operate without their patronage. So, rather than have an extensive network of Blacksmiths, Art Shops, Doctors and Tailors, Ezio must torch the Borgia Tower to weaken the family's influence. And a tower can only be ignited after the appropriate Borgia captain has been slain.

Tower of Power
So, each tower represents a separate combat mission. The captains themselves are tough cookies, and each displays different characteristics. Some will flee at the first sign of trouble, and you need to use stealth and assassination moves to pick off their troops before mounting a quick and effective assault on them. If they get away, they do not return until the next guard change at dawn or dusk. Some captains will fight valiantly, and they are adept at dodging your blows, so you have to grasp and grapple with them to kill them.

Once a tower has been torched, merchants in that area become available for purchase, and Ezio can renovate the shops and hire them out. Doing so increases the rate of income into the assassin's coffers, making more money available for purchasing weapons, art and armour, and for renovating further buildings.

It's not quite a management game, but it does add a level of strategy and a fun distraction from all the stabbing people in the eye. Other familiar aspects of the previous game are retained; as well as renovating Rome, Ezio also has his hideout, which you can bedeck with Renaissance art. There are the usual side missions, and part of the plot of Brotherhood involves winning the good graces of the courtesans and the thieves, which you do by undertaking missions for them.

You can also assist other junior assassins in their battle against the Borgia troops, and if you help them escape they will pledge their fealty to you and become part of your Assassin Army. They can then be used to help you perform missions within Rome, or be dispatched to other cities across Europe to undertake missions for you.

You need to choose your missions, and your assassins wisely. Send too green a recruit on too difficult a mission, and he'll come back in the medieval equivalent of a body bag. But once you've sent them on a few easy missions, your assassins will level up and be ready for more demanding tasks.

The Real World
The main missions are somewhat more involved, and more difficult than those in AssCreed II, and they are often made more so by the addition of certain criteria which have to be fulfilled to achieve "Full Synchronisation". Unlike the previous game, players can dip in and out of the virtual world of the Animus, and some of the game actually takes place in the "real" world of 2012. However, as in previous games this is really an unnecessary aspect of the game that feels needlessly tacked on.

Multi-Player
But the big difference with Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the provision of multi-player options. Notably absent from the major releases of the series, these features will give longevity to a title that already has it in spades. The on-line game is quite unusual because, although it has many of the game modes typical in online multi-player combat games, it is all based on close range combat, with blade weapons.

In Wanted mode everyone is hunting everyone else - the advanced version of this mode only has a 2D radar, so you cannot easily tell if other players are above or below you.

In Hunter Mode, one player is hunting one target, while the other attempts to prevent them.

Alliance Mode pits three teams against each other, with each hunting the team that is not hunting them. This allows for all sorts of strategic gameplay options. There's plenty there to be going on with, but it is highly likely that the on-line modes will be extended with DLC, to add new game modes, new weapons and new abilities and perks.

Conclusion
All in All, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is more of the same, tweaked enough to be interesting and present more of a challenge to AssCreed II fans. But there does not seem to be enough here to attract new fans to the franchise. Sure, the multiplayer will appeal to many and could attract new fans, but there is not enough of an introduction to the AssCreed universe to give them they grounding they need.

SPOnG Score: Assassin's Creed II Fans: 93%. Newcomers: 78%