{"id":5736,"date":"2013-01-19T20:08:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T19:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/satrapov.net\/mysst\/?p=5736"},"modified":"2013-01-22T19:04:20","modified_gmt":"2013-01-22T18:04:20","slug":"get-on-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/get-on-with-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Get on with it"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The culprit:<\/strong> Assassin\u2019s Creed: Brotherhood (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)<\/p>\n

\"Assassin's<\/a>When Assassin\u2019s Creed: Brotherhood<\/i> was first announced, my reaction was one of suspicion. It\u2019s not that the AC series hadn\u2019t produced spinoffs before: there were two for the first game and one for the second already. And it\u2019s not that I didn\u2019t fully expect Ezio\u2019s decision at the end of ACII to come back and bite him\u2013or at least some<\/i>one\u2013in the rear end. However, ACB wasn\u2019t a spinoff: it was a fully-fledged game giving Ezio more limelight than I thought he deserved. The fact that it also looked like a poorly-disguised vehicle for multiplayer didn\u2019t help. All in all, it felt like an unnecessary filler episode.<\/p>\n

\"Killchain\"<\/a>Just to get this out of the way: I am not a multiplayer person. With some very rare exceptions, you\u2019ll never see me advocating it. Blame it on my completionism, my non-competitiveness or my extensively exploratory gaming style, but there you have it. So all I know about ACB multiplayer is that you can play as a variety of Assassin types.<\/p>\n

Back to the matter at hand. Despite my first impression, I did give single-player ACB its due. And well\u2026it is<\/i> a filler episode, there\u2019s no way around that. But if you like Ezio, you\u2019ll probably be glad that he gets more screentime. And if you don\u2019t, there are other things that \"Friendly<\/a>ACB could reel you in with. For instance, it confirms a trend of memorable secondary characters. Our good old pal Leo is still there, even though his relevance to the main plot is greatly reduced; he\u2019s only there to provide Ezio with gadgets (including parachutes) and some sidequests to destroy his war machines, which he doesn\u2019t want used by the Templars. Additionally, the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC provides him with a lengthier side-story.<\/p>\n

Other recurring faces include Caterina Sforza, whom Ezio gets to know a lot better, if you catch my drift, and the garrulous, yet sympathetic mercenary captain Bartolomeo d\u2019Alviano, thanks to whom Ezio finds himself involved in a rather hilarious linguistic \"Nemesis\"<\/a>episode. But the main highlight of the cast is the main villain: Cesare Borgia, son of Rodrigo, ACII\u2019s big bad. As Ezio, for some obscure reason, spared Rodrigo at the end of ACII, it\u2019s only fair that his son should want payback. Let\u2019s not mince words: Cesare is a colossal jerk. But he\u2019s precisely one of those you love to hate. Flamboyant, petulant, arrogant and infinitely ambitious, he provides enough theatrics and cruelty to make you want to kick his butt. I may also rather like his dark looks\u2026Anyway, no story about the Borgia would be complete without Lucrezia, Cesare\u2019s infamous sister, and sure enough, she\u2019s there, even though her role is less prominent than her sibling\u2019s. And if you\u2019re wondering whether the game upholds the historical rumours concerning the two, the answer is clearly \u2018yes\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"When<\/a>The storyline I found to be distinctly weaker this time around. Ezio finds himself in Rome, trying to sap Cesare\u2019s influence and put an end to the Borgias. And\u2026that\u2019s about it. You\u2019ll spend 95% of the game in Rome; the rest is comprised of Desmond\u2019s sequences, which are set in modern-day Monteriggioni, and some short secondary missions, which briefly take you back to Florence, Venice and other, hitherto unknown locations. I find this to be a distinct flaw: part of the appeal of the AC series so far, for me, has been the exploration of different cityscapes, so to be effectively limited to one city, no matter how large and varied, feels restrictive. Moreover, the plot casts Ezio in a rather poor light: he made a big mistake, and now he has to fix it, but considering the amount of faffing he gets up to once again, he doesn\u2019t seem to be in too much hurry to do so. Then again, what are seven more years when you\u2019ve already spent twenty doing who knows what, right?<\/p>\n

\"Paratrooper\"<\/a>Combat is virtually identical to ACII with some additional gadgets. Parachutes have already been mentioned, thus allowing Ezio to survive potentially lethal falls. Moreover, he now has poison darts, which spare him the trouble of walking up to guards to poison them, but also a crossbow, which has the advantage of a longer range over throwing knives and silence over the gun. What\u2019s more, Ezio is now able to dual-wield, usually the gun alongside a sword. The most significant change, however, is the introduction of execution \"Learn<\/a>streaks. To wit: if you select a different enemy than the one Ezio is currently killing (it has to be in the middle of the killing animation), he\u2019ll immediately kill him in one hit straight afterwards, and you can keep going until everyone\u2019s dead. That is, provided you don\u2019t get interrupted, as other enemies can attack you while you\u2019re doing this. The key is pre-empting attacks by keeping an eye on their health bars. If one starts flashing, that enemy is about to attack, meaning that Ezio should target him next. It\u2019s not always easy, but if you manage it, combat becomes a cakewalk. I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s an advantage, but there you have it. If you need practice, you have the Virtual Training Program, an upgrade to the Animus which allows Desmond to participate in a variety of simulations\u2013both combat- and agility-related\u2013as Ezio.<\/p>\n

Gameplay also receives several noteworthy brushups. First of all, while Desmond simply had to perform a set goal during each of Alta\u00efr\u2019s and ACII Ezio\u2019s memories, the new and \"The<\/a>upgraded Animus spices things up. Now, simply achieving the mission goal will only grant you 50% sync. If you want the full 100%, you\u2019ll have to fulfil an additional requirement, such as completing the mission within a certain time, killing the target in a specific way or not falling into water (or some other equally arbitrary condition), presumably to do things exactly<\/i> like Ezio did. I understand the developers\u2019 desire to keep things challenging, but I found this change aggravating.<\/p>\n

\"Fireworks\"<\/a>Secondly, instead of renovating Monteriggioni, you now renovate Rome. In order to start renovating a district, you have to free it from Borgia influence, which involves killing the local Templar captain, then setting fire to a lookout tower. You can then put shops back into business, renovate monuments (eg. the Coliseum) and sewer tunnels, which are a new addition to allow faster travel between the various districts, but also assign vacant buildings to various factions, thus strategically distributing groups of courtesans, mercenaries and thieves throughout the city. As if that weren\u2019t enough, each faction now has a set of challenges Ezio can undertake (such as killing a certain number of guards with poison). There are various advantages to completing these (reduced hiring costs, new weapons), and they’re also needed for a trophy\/achievement.<\/p>\n

\"Have<\/a>Last but not least, the reason behind the game\u2019s name: Assassin recruits. Partway through the storyline, Ezio will be able to help civilians being harassed by guards. In return, they will pledge themselves to the Assassin cause. Ezio can then send them on missions, which will gradually increase their rank. Mission difficulty is indicated by stars and a percentage of success. Obviously, you don\u2019t want to send a fresh recruit on a 4-star mission: if they fail, they die, and you\u2019ll have to recruit someone new. Recruits can be of either gender, depending on the location where you find them, and their names are randomised. You can change the colour of their outfits and, once they gain a level, \"Full-fledged\"<\/a>upgrade their weapons and armour. When they finally reach the rank of Assassin, you can travel back to the Assassin HQ to formally induct them into the Order via a ceremony. The advantages of recruits? Ezio can summon them in combat or have them unleash an arrow storm, which usually kills all soldiers in the immediate vicinity. Of course, this only makes fighting even easier\u2026<\/p>\n

Overall, I\u2019d say that this game is a mixed bag at best. It does have its good moments, and after a while, you get into the old AC-swing of things. On the other hand, it also shows distinct signs of getting bogged down by bling. I was already concerned about excessive variety in ACII, and ACB only adds more chips to the pile. Ultimately, you\u2019ll still wind up with a mountain of cash and a boatload of optional things to accomplish that make you lose track of the overall goal. On the other hand, if you just go for the overall goal with as few distractions as possible, you\u2019d end up with a rather meagre story, more akin to a scraggly, underfed pony than a well-groomed, healthy purebred. Desmond\u2019s plotline\u00a0does get a rather shocking twist at the very end, but apart from that, it\u2019s still as \"I<\/a>dull as before and doesn’t help the rest of the game. I guess it\u2019s not easy to deal with this sort of hybrid: crammed into ACII, the events would\u2019ve felt inconsistent and tacked on. But, as a standalone game, it\u2019s a bit too light, and, in the immortal words of Monty Python, I frequently found myself mentally telling Ezio to \u201cget on with it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The culprit: Assassin\u2019s Creed: Brotherhood (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) When Assassin\u2019s Creed: Brotherhood was first announced, my reaction was one of suspicion. It\u2019s not that the AC series hadn\u2019t produced spinoffs before: there were two for the first game … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,25,21,18,3,899,11],"tags":[1279,1288,1289,1286,36,29,1308,34],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5736"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5736"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5898,"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5736\/revisions\/5898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grafskaya.club\/mysst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}