Brotherly love. Part 1

Hugs anyone?

Ahoy,
Sorry for not posting yesterday, didn't quite get the inspiration. Well anyway, today I thought of writing about Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and a little bit about the series in a whole. This is one of my favourite game series of all time so brace your behinds for a WALL OF MFing TEXT~ Enjoy :)

Like Alex Mercer of Prototype, Brotherhood's Ezio Auditore da Firenze is a jolly hooded fellow with killing as his main hobby... What an awful guy, the both of them, you must think. Well atleast Ezio has a just reason for his blood splattering deeds. He is an assassin, the word and profession which comes from old Arabia. The original name would be: حشّاشين, ħashshāshīyīn, also Hashishin or Hashashiyyin. We'll call him an assassin though, so don't worry.

The basic idea goes something like this: Ezio's guild of assassin's orders him to slay problematic individuals like templars (their main enemies) and he shoves his "hidded blade" in their throats, hearts or other nasty places. This then usually ends in a ceremonial laying to rest for the victim. The assassins creed is a complicated one. The hidden blade is a rectractable blade attached to your wrist, if you are wondering. In the first game, assassins had to cut their ring finger off to fully use the blade, but luckily in Ezio's time (late 16th century Rome) the blade's design has improved a lot. Mainly thanks to his good friend Leonardo Da Vinci.

AC Brotherhood and the whole AC series is heavily based on real events, people and places, as you may have noticed. For an example (I'll try not to spoil so you shouldn't worry), if a person in the game was assassinated you may want to google his name and be surprised, like I was many times, that it says something like this on wikipedia: "His death was followed by scenes of wild disorder." or "Cause of death unknown.". I gotta tell you, the people who made this conspiracy filled story are geniouses.

To make things even more complicated, the games take place in two different times at the same time: 2012 and some past era. The templars have created a machine, the Animus, which can let you replay your ancestors memories that are stored in your DNA. This machine is what you are actually using in the game as you play. Well, I won't go much to the story in 2012, but it has the most interesting features in my opinion.

Time for gameplay then. As you control the parkouring assassin Ezio in the rooftops of Rome, you surely need good controls. You don't need to press something to grab or jump everytime, the controls would be insane if that was the case. You just hold a certain button to go with the flow of jumping from roof to roof.

Now before some older gamer comes here and starts to stuff my behind with a copy of the original Ninja Gaiden screaming with tear-filled eyes: "GAMES NOWADAYS ARE SO EASY AND PROVIDE NO CHALLENGE!" let me tell you it doesn't need to be hard to move around. Ezio makes it look easy to jump from a cliff to a small haystack so it would be crazy to first jump off the cliff and press down, up down, left, X, right to do a somersault and not die by missing the haystack with careful aiming using the analog stick... These escape methods have to be used pretty commonly so it makes no sense to let a rabid badger with 20 cups of coffee behind him to design the controls. And let me tell you those badgers ain't cool.

The easy moving lets you better strategize your assassination routes and escapes and focus more on the main fun: killing bad guys. Sneakyness and cunning are your main tools... if you do not include all the cool gadgets you have with you. Poison darts, a hidden gun, crossbow, double hidden blades, smoke bombs, distracting pouches of money thrown to the ground... everything an assassin wishes for christmas! The many ways you can execute a kill are truly a big bunch. And in AC Brotherhood you don't need to do it alone.

The games name was not Assassin's Creed 3 for a reason folks: you can recruit people from the streets to join your brotherhood, customize their gear and looks and send them on missions around Europe or call them to assassinate enemies you don't have time to lay your hands on. In addition the city and brotherhood management offers a nice change to all the killing and physical work you have to do. As Niccoló Machiavelli, one of the leading assassins would say: "He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command."

The singleplayer is an awesome experience in a whole, likes of which people after good and captivating storytelling and sneaky action must undergo. The story digs deeper and deeper with every sequel and people new to the series are not suggested by me to start this experience from AC Brotherhood. It'll be pretty confusing, trust me. Just start from the beginning to get the most of it.

Stay tuned

I haven't even wrote half of what I wanted to, including the awesome and unique multiplayer so....
DEVE ESSERE CONTINUATA... Molto bene


-Gnyrll