A Creed for all seasons... why AC brotherhood shouln't be labled AC 2.5

I shall say this from the start i take no credit for what you are about to read i just tore it from the pages of nowgamer.com. I am simply posting this here for any of you like me that might have been worried Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood would turn into a half-arsed attempt to make a multiplayer game to quickly cash in after the success of Assassin's Creed 2

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s always a little disappointing when a much-loved franchise developer announces that, rather than make a whole new sequel – you know, the type with a number after it instead of a colon – an interim title featuring the same characters will instead appear. Gamers are a funny lot and they tend to cry ‘Cheap!’ before even thinking it through. We’d like to reassure you at this point that such a call would be way off the mark.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

We were only given a short ten minute blast of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, but even such a short demo was enough to see that the game is barely recognisable to anyone who’s just spanked one hundred whole percent out of Assassin’s Creed II. Put it this way, if you’re one of those people, what you really want is for that experience to carry onward with little or no gap in the story, while presenting you with a ripping plot and a bunch of new gameplay mechanics, locations, characters and graphical tweaks. That is exactly what you’re going to get with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Ezio’s re-emergence begins the morning after the culmination of events in the last game. The loveable rogue is busying himself pleasuring a lady-friend when all hell suddenly breaks loose. Your villa is under attack from the Borgia and the brought a few friends. When we say a few friends, what we actually mean is hundreds upon hundreds of enemy soldiers, catapults, trebuchets, horses and siege engines ready to grind Ezio and his villa into a gritty haemoglobin paste.

Ezio makes his way out onto the roof and helps man the walls. Taking control of a giant cannon containing explosive shot, he sets about destroying the siege towers before they make it over the villa walls. As well as tremendous fun – especially if you aim a shot or two at spots where the enemy soldiers are bunching – it’s also one of the most impressive sights to be seen at this year’s E3, with Ubisioft really going way above and beyond the call of duty with the already excellent engine. Brotherhood feels like a labour of love, not one of profit.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Mario’s back in his latest adventure not involving mushrooms. Good old Uncle Mario – panicking about the downfall of his beloved family residence, he tells Ezio to get a move on and get out. Ezio jumps from a balcony onto his horse Zorro-style and then for the first time ever, races through the streets on horseback as the buildings fell to the persistent barrage from the Borgia’s catapults. We find ourselves saying this a lot in this preview – better get used to it – but this was hugely impressive. Our demoer promised that horses will now play a far greater part, with horseback combat as well as various equestrian acrobatics.

The fighting system hasn’t been overhauled so much as tweaked and added to, and this is put to the test when Ezio has to slaughter a bunch of Borgia who’ve made it over the wall. The new system rewards players who strike first and with the most speed and aggression. This way, it’s less likely that players will fall back on the standard position of guard-counter-guard-counter-guard-counter-guard-counter-guard-counter ... we could go on. Doubly so since enemies can now interrupt counter animations and slaughter you to bits. The final new touch we got to see was the ability to pick up the gigantic weapons fo dead brute guards and rather than use them simply to attack and defend, Ezio can now throw them across distance, planting the blade in some poor AI douchebag’s forehead.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

But the title of this game is Brotherhood and there’s a reasons for that. In order to defeat the Borgia, Ezio must build himself an army of Assassin’s; a new order, if you will. As you play through the main campaign – there’s multiplayer, but like people who do a lot of work for ‘charidy’, Ubisoft don’t like to talk about it – you’ll gain recruits and they will level up RPG-style.

And there’s benefit to this. The next part of our demo saw Ezio approaching a cathedral in which he must assassinate a member of the clergy. But wait! There’s a dozen guards in your way. Rather than go through the protracted process of despatching them one by one, Ezio instead simply raises his hand into the air, and a storm of arrows rain down upon the enemy, killing them all instantly. Later, with the assassination done, five dozen or so guards block Ezio’s escape. Again, he calls in the help and his fellow assassins start a brawl that he can simply walk away from. All tres cool.

We came away from our demo thinking the exact opposite of that which our predisposed sceptical selves brought in with us. Ubisoft is doing a bang-up job with the game and all Creed fans should be very, very excited.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you want to view the original article click here

That has changed my perspective on this somewhat. Looking forward to it now!! My wallet could have done without yet another game popping up on my 'to buy' list!!

AC2 was pretty good. I'm up for this one after that info. Cheers for posting it.

Not played AC2 yet, but i did enjoy the first one (even if it did get repetitive).

But this sounds like a good addition to series, and not a simple cheap copy and paste, get it out in time for xmas with multiplayer added cash in!

i have only played ac two in the series so was spoilt somewhat when i went and bought the first one to play through. they are both good games and the second one is one of the best games that i have played on 360 i enjoyed building up your own city and codex pages and so on.
the building your army up i guess would be similar like buying so many soldiers and stuff. Glad to see that they have improved the game yet again and with multiplayer thrown in this really is a game that is getting better and better.

Mega-fantabulous news!
Have some rep for brightening up my day