Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Impressions - Part of the family, now.
My interest in playing different types of videogames certainly seems to broaden the older that I get. I’m a more patient and observant player these days. Far more willing to give a game the benefit of the doubt than when I was a kid. If a game didn’t grab me immediately, it was on to the next one. Or just back to another WCW vs. NWO: Revenge battle royale session with my man Rey Mysterio.
While that newfound mentality has produced its fair share of surprises, there are still games that I know I will never enjoy. I thought the Assassin’s Creed series fit that mold perfectly.
In a lot of ways the first game did. I don’t remember all of the inspiration behind my stormy cloud of hatefulness after experiencing Altair’s dark journey through the Holy Land. The biggest thing that sticks out in my memory is frustration with crowd combat. I could never get my bearings during battles with multiple enemies and ended up trying to avoid them altogether by rushing assassination contracts. Looking back on it with a more full understanding of how encounters are intended to work in Assassin’s Creed, that probably wasn’t the best solution. But, it’s how I decided to play it. As a result, the difficult crowd combat next to uninspired collectible stuff and repetitive main story missions left me wanting a whole lot more. It was certainly a beautiful looking game, but there was nothing for me in that world other than a pretty landscape and well-animated main character to screw around with.
After such a weird experience with the first game, it was difficult for me to even consider playing Assassin’s Creed II. However, while I was out spittin’ yang about one of Ubisoft’s flagship series’, my sister was becoming the die-hardest of die-hard Assassin’s Creed fans. So, somewhere between hearing her talk about how much she loved the sequel and skimming Assassin’s Creed 2 reviews, I decided I should give the series another shot. To my surprise, Assassin’s Creed 2 was a pretty great game. It did quite a bit to polish up and improve what was there in the first game. Even my distaste for Assassin’s Creed combat sort of faded as I was given more options to take out foes. But, I still found myself plowing through main missions, leaving side missions unexplored, and generally not caring about what was going on with characters or story.
Then I started playing Brotherhood.
I’m not really sure what happened - a change in attitude towards open-world games, really good timing, a metaphysical fucking shift in my brain? I don’t know. You’re guess is as good as mine. Because for whatever reason, I’m absolutely digging this game.
I think I can credit a pretty big chunk of my pleasant experience so far to the quick story intro at the beginning of the game. It was a good refresher and reminded me that, in fact, this story isn’t completely convoluted and silly. It’s actually kind of cool. I immediately felt invested in the characters and ready to stab some dudes.
And, oh, have I stabbed some dudes. The combat system has come so far since the first game. While I did express frustration with it during Episode 9, it’s just a matter of overcoming a quick learning curve. Once you really know how to control Ezio and utilize his various instruments of death, combat is varied and incredibly satisfying.
There’s also just a ton of stuff to do aside from the main story. I’ve spent probably three quarters of my time with the game just messing around in the world - rebuilding shops to improve the economy, destroying enemy placements, searching for treasure, reading codex info on historic landmarks. Oh yeah, and no big deal or whatever, but I’ve been recruiting for and commanding my very own assassin’s guild. It’s 100 times cooler than it sounds. And it sounds pretty damn cool, doesn’t it?
I couldn’t tell you exactly why I’ve stuck with the series for this long. It’s actually kind of crazy that I’ve played every Assassin’s Creed game after despising the first one so much. But, I’m glad Brotherhood was able to grab me like it has. I finally understand what people have been so excited about all this time and I’m excited to see where the series is headed.
Original Post Date - 9/14/11
