Assassin's Creed Review Part 2

Introduction

            Welcome back to Part 2 of the review of the Assassin’s Creed series, with our focus now shifting to the Assassin’s Creed titles of Brotherhood and Revelations, both of which continue Ezio’s story from Assassin’s Creed II, in his fight to restore the Assassin order, and to eliminate those who killed his family. So now, a continuation to the series review…

The transition…

            At the end of the whole trilogy, Ezio is transformed from a reckless young adolescent in the beginning of Assassin’s Creed II to a matured and understanding Master Assassin at the end of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, who has been hardened by the things he have seen and done, and also the things he have experienced across the 15^th and 16^th century in Italy, Rome and Constantinople, all threes being major locations from Assassin’s Creed II, to Brotherhood and to Revelations, respectively.

Constantinople

            The trilogy also resulted in the game’s improved graphics fidelity as the game engine became more advanced and thus allows the expansion and addition of various gameplay options the player is offered through each sequel, adding on to the hours of gameplay that increases through the newer installments.

Revelations gameplay

            The combat system is also something that has significantly improved over the three titles, from simple finishing moves in Assassin’s Creed II to fluid and unique ones in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Various classes of weapons such as swords, axes, shivs and daggers have also been expanded to allow for more variety and to rate them according to their effectiveness in battle to differentiate them, allowing the player to buy/equip the weapons he needs for each battle.

Combat ft. Altair

Welcome to da hood, da Brotherhood

            Created by Ubisoft Montreal (everytime), Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (AC:B cos that whole name is hard to type) was released in 2010 and set in a whole new area of Rome, and includes many of its iconic buildings such as the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel, the game also includes historical characters such as Pope Alexander IV, Leonardo da Vinci and Cesare Borgia, the main antagonist in this game.

Cesare Borgia, looks like the flower boy of Italy

            A new feature of AC:B in terms of general gameplay is the addition of something I would call “guild management”, except you’re always the leader. Regular people can be recruited into the Assassin Brotherhood (now you know where the name comes from) and help out Ezio in combat, either by air assassinating certain targets or thinning out the enemies’ numbers in open combat. These recruits can be outfitted as you see fit and trained in certain areas, creating a RPG-esque feel, and because who wouldn’t like killing that guard that’s been annoying you by just a click of a button, right?

The player can also send them to do missions

            Something else that AC:B was the first to add is the multiplayer aspect. The concept is pretty unique and definitely not something you see in many games these days, or at all. Players get to decide what persona they wish to use, after which they are launched into the game session of differing game modes, but in this case it shall be the game mode called “Wanted”, and because what I am about to say wouldn’t make sense without a picture…

In multiplayer - Top right: Target to kill. Middle bottom: Compass indicating target's location and  bottom left: abilities with cooldowns after use.

            Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has received critical acclaim. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version 90.55% and 89/100, the PlayStation 3 version 89.92% and 90/100, and the PC version 87.64% and 88/100. It won best Action Adventure game in the Spike TV Video Game Awards 2010. The game has also been nominated for 7 British Academy Video Games Awards in 2011, including Best Game. It won an award in the Action category, losing to Mass Effect 2 in the category for Best Game.

Concept art never fails to impress

            With many added features, a continuation to Ezio’s epic story, and the first inclusion of multiplayer, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood was seeking anything but failure or any of its synonyms, but instead set the bar higher for the sequels that follow.

A Revelation-ary end

          Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (AC:R) was released in 2011, a direct sequel to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and is the final game in the Ezio trilogy (sobs). The game is set in the city of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in the year 1511, and features 4 districts Constantine, Bayezid, Imperial, and Galata. It also includes story-related areas such as Cappadocia, an underground city, and Masyaf, the location of the old Assassin Stronghold in the first game, where Ezio travels to at the start of the story. The player will, during one point in the story, control Altair and relive his memories after the events of the first Assassin’s Creed.

Cappadocia; an underground populated city.

The game was primarily created by Ubisoft Montreal (but wait, there’s more), production was sped up with the aid of five other Ubisoft developers: Annecy, Massive, Quebec, Singapore and Bucharest.

AC:R builds up (albeit very slightly) on AC:B’s “guild management” system, the combat system, and basically every other gameplay mechanics discussed above in AC:B, but because of AC:R’s extremely tight production time of less than a year, the quality of an Assassin’s Creed game was not showing, and thus the game was criticized slightly over this, but its sales says otherwise, with it exceeding the sales of its predecessors.

Well, it definitely got darker

AC:R’s multiplayer is different though, it introduced character customization, and made character navigation and turning smoother and less nauseating (AC:B made me dizzy in one match). Maps were also created with good flow and balance. A new game mode, Deathmatch, was added, which is different from the mode, Wanted, by limiting the overall map size to a small area and the complete removal of the compass in the screenshot above.

Customization options wooooow

Assassin's Creed: Revelations has received generally positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 80.05% and 80/100, the Xbox 360 version 79.37% and 80/100, and the PC version 74.67% and 80/100.

Too epic to not include

IGN gave the game a rating of 8.5 out of 10, stating "This is the best Assassin's Creed yet, even if that victory is claimed by an inch and not a mile. If you've been following the lives of Altair and Ezio this long, you owe it to yourself to see their last adventure." 1UP gave the game a rating of B+, stating "While Revelations lacks that one supreme improvement or standout mechanic that defined AC2 and Brotherhood each, it's still a damn fine sendoff for Altair and Ezio."

Conclusion of Part 2

The end of a trilogy, the end of a 3-year story, and the end of the Altair and Ezio, these four games would be the ones that carve the path that would lead to the next Assassin’s Creed, where new heroes, new settings and new enemies will be created. And what better way to do so than to propel the story 200 years forward, into the American Revolution…

            Thank you all for reading part 2 of this series review! If there was one thing I forgot to mention in Part 1 is to leave any comment you have about this series review and any good/bad points about them! I would take them as learning points to improve on for future review posts! So once again, happy reading and see you in part 3!