toblix

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

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I can't wait to start playing this once it unlocks on steam.

I guess the AC team realized they don't want to deal with DLC on PCs so they just delay AC until it's all out. I don't mind one bit.

2 hours to go! In the interest of making my experience of AC:B as rounded as possible, I'm rushing through the main story of 2. Probably won't finish (just finished the Carnavale games) but I might, considering the install time.

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That might be good. Having never played either of the first 2, the story in AC:B was entirely confusing for the first hour or two.

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I definitely recommend finishing the main story of AC2 before playing AC:B as AC:B literally picks up exactly where AC2 left off.

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I definitely recommend finishing the main story of AC2 before playing AC:B as AC:B literally picks up exactly where AC2 left off.

I already know that it basically ends with

"Punch pope, listen to aliens"

so I think even without having finished it, I'm good to go.

Edited by Orvidos

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Ok.

You fight the pope. With your bare fists. Then an alien who may or may not be the Greek goddess Minerva talks to you for a while.

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Spoilers bro!

Bite me! Like that isn't already public knowledge. The pope thing not. . .biting me.

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Back on topic a little, been enjoying the game a lot, although it does seem to be revealing some disturbing completionist tendencies in me. That is, I'm not even halfway through chapter 4 yet and I have Rome over 50% restored. I'm just doing every possible side thing before getting around to progressing the story. That said, I'm sitting at work right now thinking "Man, I could totally be stabbing dudes in the face right now," so it's got its hooks in me.

One thing I have noticed is that the larger rural expanses don't seem to fit the engine too well. I never noticed that things weren't drawing in until I got pretty close in AC2 because I was usually surrounded by large buildings. Here I'm watching grass and fences appear 20 feet in front of me as I run through a field. Kinda rough. That's really it for criticisms though.

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Really, really enjoying the multiplayer. So much so that I have. . .supposedly 114 minutes played. I don't think it's tracking the multiplayer client, or something, because I know I have at least that of multiplayer, and I'm at the start of sequence 3/4 in the single.

That said, all my fears about potential failing for the multiplayer have been addressed by the developers. Now if only I could prevent people from sprinting about like idiots on a sugar high.

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Back on topic a little, been enjoying the game a lot, although it does seem to be revealing some disturbing completionist tendencies in me. That is, I'm not even halfway through chapter 4 yet and I have Rome over 50% restored. I'm just doing every possible side thing before getting around to progressing the story. That said, I'm sitting at work right now thinking "Man, I could totally be stabbing dudes in the face right now," so it's got its hooks in me.

I'm almost ashamed to admit how addictive the game is. It's hard to explain why I have to restore every little corner shop, especially since there's not even an achievement for it. It's just that... there are these icons, and when you restore a shop you get some more income and closer to those hundred per cents.

I watched the Assassin's Creed 2 talk from GDC 2010, and was surprised by how ice-cold and factory-like the whole thing was. They were tasked to produce a commercially successful, award-winning game with this and that feature in this exact period of time with no room for failure and no room for changing direction at any point. There wasn't any talk of creativity or having fun at work or any of the things I would sort of expect to hear at a games developer conference; instead it was about using testing metrics and getting developers to work hard even though what they were working on was peripheral to the core game play. The whole thing made Ubisoft seem very much more like a game mill than, say, Naughty Dog.

That said, all my fears about potential failing for the multiplayer have been addressed by the developers. Now if only I could prevent people from sprinting about like idiots on a sugar high.

Yes, multiplayer was surprisingly fun. Walking around like the ice-cold Code 47 hitman, brushing against your target in a crowd and then bam! stabbing his head was pretty fun.

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I've actually been put off the multiplayer, because three matches in a row froze on me - once during a 'sweet execution'. I'll cool down and try again later.

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I've actually been put off the multiplayer, because three matches in a row froze on me - once during a 'sweet execution'. I'll cool down and try again later.

No issues here yet, except the lag from the obvious match-making issue of "can't find enough players, expanding search to other side of the Earth".

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Purely on my friends list, I have Cap'n and Patters, so with you that's 4. I believe the minimum for a private Wanted match is 4, but it may be six. Who else nabbed this on PC?

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Ho ho, I love how they end these games, they always make me laugh with their awesome nonsense cliffhangers. I find the games are great fun. TAKE THAT, MINSTREL

The fact that with this one, you could summon an army of ninja-like Assassins to appear from nowhere and "dispatch" anyone you point at was totally awesome. It reminded me of The Magic Finger, in a way, only with less ducks and more murder.

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I have been loving the hell out of that ability. The amount of arrow storms and "Hey, drop that dude" events that I've done so far is astounding considering I've barely unlocked the things. Running along rooftops would always get irritating as soon as an archer says "What are you doing up here?!", but now I respond to that with a whistle and watch one of my homeys stab them in the neck. So satisfying. I'm near to finishing Chapter 5 now, and going through everything that I possibly can. God is it great. I have had a pretty big glitch though, which involved me attempting to tackle a Borgia courier and instead flying off into the stratosphere. As glitches go though, it was pretty fantastic. Sure, I had to go into the training menu and leave again in order to respawn in the city, but I got an astoundingly beautiful bird's-eye-view of the entire city. Holy shit is it gorgeous what they've pulled off with this game. Just, wow.

Anyway, back to the game.

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I've only tried a single round of multi, and it ended with my game crashing. I'd be willing to try a thumbs game though.

One thing I liked in multi is the interface. I'm using a non-360 gamepad (PS2-to-USB adaptor) and there are "button #" pop ups all over the screen in single player. I find it's a big step back from just calling out the functions (Lock on, Head, Feet) like in the previous game. Saying "press high profile to shoot" is more easily understandable than "press button 8 to shoot". I'm just glad there are no hug quick time events in this one, I'd never catch them in time.

post-3852-13375603341697_thumb.png

I've had a fun single player experience though. I love the Assassin Recruit stuff. It's hilarious everytime they spawn out of a hiding spot. I actually worried about them failing missions. Weird thing, I didn't think they'd allow your recruits to be female, and once I realized it I wanted to make a predominantly female assassin squad. It seemed like something Ezio would do. I then spent the next two hours saving nothing but male potential recruits. I eventually found enough to have an equal amount of both genders, but it had to be a 1:5 ratio in the world. Unlike the female ones, the male recruits generally all look the same too, save for one bald guy who fell off a cliff.

I like the Full Synchronization idea. Most of the time it's a great way to add difficulty to a task. When it's a short mission with a time limit, or a more involved one with a weapon restriction or a who to kill restriction it works great Sometimes they choose poor restrictions, though. The first two Romulus tasks come to mind, where you're given an 8 minute time limit, and the levels are filled with chests and flags you can't get in that limit. There are also other objectives that only occur on the final leg of multi-part missions, forcing you to replay the whole thing if you fail.

I do think that some of the context control stuff is getting cluttered. I like how they've attached most ranged weapons to a melee slot, but I wonder how understandable it is for those who haven't played AC2. Even I find myself doing ranged attacks by accident every once in a while. Game unlock spoiler: You unlock a

parachute

that uses Weapon Hand while you're in the air. However, it only works if your jump isn't a 'land on your feet' jump between two ledges. Basically, you can't

parachute

between two close rooftops. You also can't use it from a hanging ledge drop, or a mostly downward jump. I've had issues where I've lost health because a

parachute wouldn't deploy

because I'm not in the right context (jumping off a roof, not doing a leap of faith, not bridging a gap, not doing a weird drop jump etc.). It's a bummer because I find the extra horizontal distance is helpful, but the level design often has a leap of faith nearby that the game will default to, because the gap isn't bridgeable by normal means.

tl;dr Really enjoying the game, have some nitpicks.

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I think my favourite Assassin's Creed-related glitch was in the first one, when I killed someone and then just sat down on the bench, while people ran around me shouting AHHHHHHHH THERE'S THE KILLER AAAAAHHHH MURDERER

Glitches can be fun - who on earth would have played Stunts if it wasn't glitchy?

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Finished. I don't really know what I can say. Running around as Desmond, particularly

during the last chapter

has me really, REALLY wanting to play Assassin's Creed 3 now, as does the new, even-more-than-AC2, "What the fuck?" ending. That shit was fun as hell. Also, getting Rome to 100% rebuilt was really fun, though I could never tell you why.

All in all, I greatly enjoyed the game. Definitely glad that I sunk the 20+ hours into it. It was crazy fun, and continues to make me suspect that when all is said and done, AC will be one of my top candidates for "series of whatever console generation we're in".

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Picked this up during the recent Steam sale on a whim. Actually enjoying it a lot, and I couldn't stand the first AC. Anyone still playing MP? Been finding Assassinate really fun.

Edited by Brannigan

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You might consider playing ACII as well. It's miles better than the original.

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You might consider playing ACII as well. It's miles better than the original.

I tried it a little on ps3 last week and couldn't be bothered to make it through the intro.

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It's bound to happen with a series that has been so popular and prolific, but i can't imagine playing these games out of order, with how weird and nested the mythology for the series is becoming.

Of course, if you don't care about the story, that's not an issue.

Personally though, i've been pretty into it, and it's an interesting experiment if nothing else, to see such heavily serialized story-telling in what has become such an enormous franchise.

It's kind of the Lost of video games.

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