Review: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (1st draft)

Ah, Roma. Once my grades were done, you have consumed my life.

But that's how I roll, so this is neither a surprise nor a seal of quality.

To sum up: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a third person sandbox parkour simulator where the player (typically an Italian aristro who schmoozes with Da Vinci, but sometimes a kidnapped ninja barkeeper) gets to kill people in Renaissance Rome. Enzio (the aristro, not the barkeep) is a leader in a secret society dedicated to supporting freedom and stopping the Knights Templar from... doing something bad. Whatever the opposite of freedom is? Oppressing? Governing? Being aware of economics?

It's basically irrelevant. They are bad guys, and the game makes certain that you know that, so that you can be the "good" assassin, in an order of good guy assassins. Because, I presume, Assassin's Creed was just too good of a name to pass up.

But is it a good game? I'm going to go with a qualified "yes".

First, the qualified part. Maybe it was being in my twenties and in college when 9/11 happened, but I'm really leery of reductionist thinking, like "freedom vs. oppression". And I'm very tired of hearing about grand conspiracies that engineered the fall of nations, great events, et cetera. Impassioned young revolutionaries make me wince. This game is full of all three. In Assassin's Creed II, that was less of a "thing". Enzio was growing up and becoming an assassin, so the rhetoric tended to stay in the background. Now, he is older, and has learned the lessons of the past, and he talks about them. Constantly. So does everyone else.

This game is attempting to be taken seriously as a work of fiction. As as a "video games as art" person, I think this move is a step in the right direction. However, by doing so, the designers are asking me to assess the work on a different level, that of narrative fiction, as opposed as purely a game system. Enzio (the Italian) and Desmond (the ninja barkeep) both learn and grow (though they don't have character arcs). It makes me grumpy that these arcs seem to end in their early twenties.

Gameplaywise they add some improvements (you get to recruit locals and they are baby assassins who function, in essence, like another weapon). I enjoy the fairly accurate Rome of the 1500s, it feels like a real place. The use of famous pieces of art and real history is fun and appeals to the teacher in me. I'm still not a fan of the auto paurkor functions, when running down a hall I often end up trying to climb the walls, which can allow the person I'm trying to pursue escape.

((meta: This is a first draft. It's basically unorganized, and the gameplay section is far too small. I went on a little rant, which is par for the course, but it's sloppy writing))