SoulCalibur V sees the long-running series undergo a serious makeover to the core gameplay. The major changes centre around the new Critical Gauge meter. Most of the moves you do consume some of your Critical Gauge: Critical Edge moves, the game’s flashy super moves, cost one bar of the gauge, while Brave Edge attacks power up regular attacks and cost half a bar. Even counters come at the expense of your Critical Gauge. Traditional parrying has been removed from SoulCalibur V, and replaced with a new Guard Impact system, which requires a sacrifice you to sacrifice half your Critical Gauge to deflect an enemy’s attack, allowing you to turn the tide of a match.

I could talk endlessly about the ins-and-outs of the new combat system but the important thing to note is that even in what is the most mechanically complex SoulCalibur in the series, there isn’t a decent tutorial mode to help explain all of these details to new players. The training mode offers character move lists and a brief explanation of tactics, but nothing like explaining the actual inputs themselves, or telling you when your timing’s off.

Despite the lack of a decent explanation for newcomers, the game is still fantastic no matter your skill level. Each match is intense and thrilling, with fast-paced action taking place in stunning arenas and supported by a beautiful soundtrack. Matches feel absolutely epic. The new Critical Edge moves really add something special to not only the gameplay, but also the presentation, allowing you to see the game’s detail up close in a series of quick, cinema-esque camera shots. The focus on block-counter-attack as opposed to all-out attack means matches can go down to the wire, and with all the tools at your disposal, you rarely feel completely overwhelmed.

Sadly, there is a lack of variety in the matches themselves. While there is a good amount of game modes, with Arcade, Story, Legendary Souls as well as online and an offline mode that replicates the online experience, there is nothing that adds something different to fights.

Where games like Mortal Kombat and even SoulCalibur IV excelled was in the different types of fights they offered. Some fights gave characters 50% health, poisoned, or even an inability to block. None of these are present here. The lack of fight variation is disappointing and would have been a nice twist to the already great fighting.

SoulCalibur has taken a leaf out of Street Fighter IV’s book by including a reward system for everything you do in the game. You earn points for every fight you compete in, both online and offline, which increase your overall level, and allow you to unlock different titles and player cards to customise your own playercard, as well as new characters, arenas, and customisation tools.

The large character roster sees a number of new faces, most of which are just slight alterations of older characters. The two brand new characters, Viola and Z.W.E.I (I have no idea what it stands for either), feel fresh and offer something new to the game. Each character feels strong and well balanced. Unlike other fighting games, there don’t seem to be any clear weak-entries on the roster. Ezio Auditore, the latest guest character, is a perfect fit. His move set employs all of the weapons you see in the Assassin’s Creed series, and his backstory slots in well with SoulCalibur lore.

The only filler are a few of the unlockable fighters, who act as copycats, replicating the move-sets of other fighters and changing style between rounds. If you get bored of the roster that Project Soul have provided, you can always make your own in the extensive character creation mode. You can lose hours creating the perfect incarnation of your favourite character in this mode, which is the best seen in the series yet.

Patroklos and Pyrhha, a brother and sister duo, and children of Sophitia, act as the core of the game’s story mode, which is sadly lacking in all areas. Most of the cut-scenes are presented in charcoal-drawn stills on parchment, which is a shame considering this is a graphically stunning game, and it would have been nice to have fully rendered cut-scenes. Considering the story takes place in 17th century Hungary, the voice acting hardly helps create the sense of the setting, and is dull at best. The very odd (and slightly incestuous) relationship between Potroklos and Pyrhha certainly raises an eyebrow at one or two points, and it sounds as though the majority of the male characters were voiced by the same guy. It also doesn’t help that for the first half of the story, Patroklos is an ignorant arsehole, and you not only have to fight as him, but win also. Luckily the disappointing narrative only takes around an hour or two to complete, and doesn’t detract from the fighting.

Online has been fleshed out to cater for all types, including a new Global Colosseo, which allows players to group together in large parties and take part in player matches. Text chat is supported, as well as spectator mode and the ability to upload replays of your fights.

This is a great game. It would have been nice to see more spice in the matches, but the thrilling combat, excellent roster, and stunning presentation make this a worthy purchase for anyone with a taste for fighters.

For players new to the SoulCalibur series, this is very much a slower-paced fighter when compared to the Street Fighter and Tekken series. Each character is equipped with a signature weapon, ranging from katanas to nunchucks and staffs. It rewards players for effective use of blocking and a careful implementation of strategy, requiring an amount of tactics and dedication much in the same way as the Virtua Fighter series.

Of course, being the first time that players in the UK were able to try out Italy’s deadliest assassin, I plumped for Ezio, and am pleased to say he fits in very well with the rest of the roster. Namco have effectively utilised his wide array of weaponry. Ezio acrobatically leaps around the screen while dishing out damage via crossbows, guns and his classic sword and hidden blade. Ezio also slots into the series’ over-arching narrative well. Being a renaissance-era assassin, he feels at home with the other characters, except for Voldo, who, let’s face it, doesn’t fit anywhere.

As a fighter, Ezio is best utilised at close-range, due to his quick combos and lethal juggles. He also possesses one of the more impressive supers in the game, combining his weapons to devastating effect, ending with a double dose of his crossbow.

SoulCalibur V feels like a much smoother and more streamlined experienced compared to its predecessors, bringing a welcome change to the series. There have been some new additions to the combat system; new EX-type moves called Critical Edge (differing from Soul Edge’s Critical Edge) and Brave Edge, which are basically powered-up specials, as well as easier executions of combos. Also added is the combo meter next to your character’s health bar, which is consumed for the Edge moves and Supers. Guard-breaking seems a much rarer occurrence in SoulCalibur V, mainly because there is no longer a critical attack which is dependent on it.

The game has been given a new lick of paint to look even more stunning than IV, which is still one of the best-looking fighters available. At this preview, I had approximately a dozen characters to toy around with in five stages. These included some of the stalwarts of the series, such as Maxi and Mitsurugi, as well as new additions Pyrrha and Natsu. I noticed some new characters seemed very similar to some of the older, ommitted characters. Natsu feels like a tweaked Taki and Pyhrra plays just like Sophitia. The introduction of dynamic stages is also impressive with fights starting on the deck of a ship, for the carnage to continue in the hull.

The controls for SoulCalibur V are solid and responsive. With all super move inputs being the same, newcomers will feel less overwhelmed with the number of moves to memorise. Some fighters still need balancing, particularly the overpowered Viola. Her mystical glowing orb verges on the absurd, able to attack from all angles and at any distance.

The game does a great job of creating epic moments in matches. There were many battles which saw amazing comebacks, giving the sense that no battle is ever truly lost until the round’s end. The slower pace of SoulCalibur compared to other fighters does take some adjustment but once settled into its rhythms, I quickly found myself devising new strategies and counters to take on my opponents.

Expect to see SoulCalibur V available on PS3 and Xbox 360 from February 3, 2012. You can preorder it from The Hut or Play.com to get the bonus Dampierre character from SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny.

The game is dominated by a huge, 14th century version of the city of Constantinople which is teeming with people, assassins, traders and full of historic buildings. It’s a quite wonderful place to explore. At dawn and dusk the landscape becomes shrouded in mist giving the city a quite eerie atmosphere. If you wander through some of the graveyards at night it’s like stumbling into Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video, minus the zombies and Michael unfortunately.

The city is packed with giant, climbable towers. This is Assassin’s Creed after all where the staple diet of an assassin consists of killing people and climbing towers. Every time I was perched on top of one of these buildings minutes would simply ebb away as I gazed out across the city. I’ve always loved the Assassin’s Creed games for moments like this and in Revelations the views were never less than awe-inspiring.

Gameplay remains pretty much unchanged from previous games with a mixture of killing, tracking and beating up people accounting for the bulk of the missions. The rest of the time is spent out and about hunting for lost items, climbing up towers and synchronizing viewpoints to uncover the city in your virtual map. There are also some Altair memories to complete which feature his old stomping ground of Masyaf. I found playing as Altair quite nostalgic, bringing back many happy memories of the first game.

You continue Ezio’s story with the help of his weapons from previous games. Crossbow, pistol, knives, daggers and swords are all expertly hidden about his persona along with a brand new toy – a hookblade. This weapon gives Ezio a much greater reach when grasping for ledges or handholds and makes climbing much quicker (30% quicker according to Ubisoft Montreal). It also allows Ezio to use zip lines to travel quickly around the city. However, Ezio does sound like Captain Hook climbing a building when using the hookblade. Clang, clang, clang!

Thanks to the numerous brand new bomb crafting stations, you can now concoct all manner of dastardly explosive devices from ingredients abandoned in chests throughout the city. Theoretically there are 300 different types of bombs available. In practice I used four of them – splinter, smoke, gas and stun. I did experiment a bit but then settled on my favourite recipes which unsurprisingly featured the most powerful gunpowder available. BOOM! On more than one occasion these bombs saved my life so they are well worth the effort of crafting them.

Your assassin recruits now have a much wider variety of missions to practice their skills. Spread across twelve European cites these new missions will not only give your recruits experience points but allow you to wrestle control of each city from the Templars. You see, cities under assassin control generate income. More income equals more weapons and more killing for Ezio. Once I’d taken over a few cities the cash really started to roll in.

The mechanics of these missions haven’t changed since the last game, with a success percentage being the most important figure on the screen. The age-old tactic of pairing up an experienced assassin with a newbie and a predicted success rate of 100% will quickly train up your assassin army. This whole conquer-Europe mini-game was not challenging in any way, shape or form and was entirely superfluous to the main story. Even so it proved to be an entertaining enough distraction.

There are five missions set within Desmond’s troubled little mind which are exclusive to this game. Taking place within the Animus, they have to be unlocked by collecting data fragments which are hidden throughout the game. Whilst these missions provided a much deeper understanding of Desmond’s backstory these levels were very surreal. Imagine a world formed from the fusion of the Clockwork Orange and Tron: Legacy films. Played via a first-person viewpoint, you have to navigate through a series of rooms using Desmond’s ability to create virtual blocks – a triangle and rectangle – which can be used to build a pathway to the room exits. Overall I found these levels more annoying than entertaining as I would frequently slip off the blocks as I ran across them or watch as they were dissolved by a moving energy grid before falling to my ”virtual” death.

Just being an assassin in Revelations is much tougher than ever before thanks to the heavy, city-wide presence of Templar guards. Climb up a building, bump into a guard on its roof. Fall off a building, land on a group of guards. Assassinate a person, get spotted by a guard. After the glorious kill-fest of Brotherhood, I had to seriously change the way I played Revelations as I was getting an ass-kicking from all the guards. Once I became more considered, stealthier and less of a show-off (i.e. no reckless running around on rooftops) the game became a lot easier and more enjoyable to play.

The Borgia towers from Brotherhood have been rebranded as Templar dens and gained about 50 times more guards. This makes them a real bitch to sneak into and stealthily assassinate the den captain. You’ll find it’s hard enough trying to track down the captain, never mind avoid detection by the guards whilst killing him. These den missions were fun but were frequently annoying as one tiny slip resulted in detection and the den captain legging it to safety.

Whenever you renovate a building or get spotted killing someone you are penalised through your Templar awareness meter filling up. The higher it is, the more hassle you’ll get from the guards around the city. This is clearly Ubisoft’s way of making the game harder and cracking down on reckless assassin behaviour. The only way to dump this awareness was through bribing a herald or killing a Templar Official. I shudder to think how much time I wasted going back and forth to the closest Herald, randomly picked by the Animus, to bribe him. I don’t mind making the game harder as Brotherhood was a little too easy but this method was far too harsh and boring. If I committed some act of villainy with a maxed out awareness meter Templars would attack one of my dens and I’d have to play a game of tower defence to protect it. Yeah, tower defence. What the hell is tower defence doing in Assassins Creed in the first place? It doesn’t fit in at all. So instead I came up with ways of managing my awareness meter to avoid this stupid tower defence game completely.

There are further problems with the game. The chariot racing levels which punctuate the main plot are extremely basic, dull and almost entirely pointless. And, as if ramming the city full of guards wasn’t bad enough you now have to contend with the threat of Templar stalkers. These guys appear out of nowhere to attack you at any point in the game. You have to listen out for a bit of music that signals their arrival and quickly perform a counter kill otherwise you get stabbed and lose a big chunk of health. On several occasions I missed the musical cue, got stabbed, noticed by the guards and attacked. Great.

Finally Ezio’s kick attack is still ridiculously over-powered. The fact that you can kill a heavily armed Templar soldier by repeatedly kneeing him in the nuts is laughable. It is handy though.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations has become a confusing mix of gameplay ideas. Whilst the bombs and hookblade work well the rest are terrible additions to the game. Ubisoft is trying far too hard to find ways to develop the Assassin’s Creed franchise and instead risks alienating its fans through unnecessary and poorly thought out changes and additions. I don’t play Assassin’s Creed for tower defence or to repeatedly bribe Heralds. I play it to be a kick-ass assassin who runs around cities killing anyone he likes. When the game allowed me to do this it was truly spectacular. Indeed, Revelations has many moments of pure magic and ties up some of the plot arcs from the previous games but in the end can’t quite match the brilliance of Brotherhood.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is out now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Note: There are some mild gameplay spoilers in these tips.

1. Steal from everyone, all the time – Right from the very start of the game pickpocket and steal everything. Don’t get rushed by the main plot. It can wait. Quickly rack up your cash by pickpocketing people during the walk and talk bits so you can buy some better armour as soon as possible. Go have a wander, explore the city and mug some people.
2. Renovate banks and book shops first – The quicker you start renovating the city, the more money you’ll earn. Renovate the book shops first and buy all the treasure maps you can afford. Many of the maps are really cheap so you’ll redeem your money just by finding a couple of treasure chests. Then renovate the banks so you can get your money out to spend on armour and weapons.



3. Aim for the nuts – As with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, the kick is a ridiculously overpowered attack. There’s only one type of guard – who turns up a lot later in the game – that isn’t totally crippled by kicks to the groin. Especially when you’re outnumbered and cornered, start kicking. More armour = more kicking in the bollocks.
4. Reset your Templar Awareness (formerly known as notoriety) – Find a memory start to push the main plot on a bit. This has the effect of resetting your awareness to zero. So all you need to worry about is making it to the memory start without annoying the highly alert Templars in the meantime. That means no killing, renovating property or recklessly running about the city. Added bonus, it means you’ll spend less time in the game’s tedious version of Tower Defence.
5. Forget about a lost den – If you lose a den back to the Templars, don’t worry about it. You’ll still retain the 2 assassin recruit spots you gained from reclaiming it the first time. Get on with training your team of assassins and making lots of cash.
6. Don’t rush to a contested den – When one of your dens gets attacked, don’t rush to win it back. You have loads of time. Go search for treasure chests, Animus data fragments or organise/training your assassins. Take your time.
7. You can bribe the same Herald twice – When you max out your Templar Awareness meter (i.e. top left logo on the HUD is completely red) all your dens are at risk of Templar attack and navigating the city is a real pain as everyone hates you. There are 2 ways to get your status back down to secret (white).
   • First way – Find a memory start (see tip 4).
   • Second way – Kill a Templar Official (eye shaped icon) and bribe two Heralds (person shaped icon). You can bribe the same Herald twice in quick succession by running away for about 15 seconds and then coming back. He will have mysteriously forgotten that you’d bribed him earlier and happily take another chunk off your awareness status.
8. More cities equals lots more income – In the Mediterranean defence game use the easy difficulty missions to start off your assassins training. Once they are above level 6 start sending them in groups on the reclaim the city missions. Once you’ve got control over other European cities the money starts rolling in.
9. Listen for the “twinkly” sound – As with all Assassin’s Creed games, the twinkly sound means that treasure or a collectable item is close by. In Revelations it’s either a treasure chest, a chest with bomb making ingredients or an Animus fragment. You can turn down the voice and music volumes (via Options>General) and leave SFX volume set on 10 to make this sound a lot easier to hear.
10. Go for the Templar den captain – Forget about everyone else. Just focus on killing the Templar den captain(s), even if they’re surrounded by a million guards. Once you’ve killed the head honcho they’ll all run off like frightened rabbits, leaving you to climb the tower and set off the flare. Job done.

Check out my 9 top tips for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood if you haven’t finished that game. IF you haven’t, you probably shouldn’t start playing Revelations unless you don’t mind major plot spoilers.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is out now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

There will be a Q&A panel with the composers from 14:00-15:30, but seating is strictly limited so you will have to book your place by calling the store (number given below). Then between 16:00 – 17:00 there will be an in-store signing session. Fortunately, you don’t have to book a place for this. It’s open to everyone.

Composers:

• Greg Edmonson - Uncharted series, Firefly TV series
• Inon Zur – Dragon Age series, Crysis
• Jesper Kyd – Assassin’s Creed series, Hitman series
• Garry Schyman – Bioshock series, Dante’s Inferno
• Mike Reagan – God Of War series, Conan
• Penka Kouneva – Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Richard Jacques – Mass Effect, James Bond 007: Blood Stone
• Sean Murray – Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series, Call Of Duty: Black Ops

Presumably all these people are all in LA for the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 show which will have taken place a few days earlier, which The Average Gamer will be attending :-)

I’m a big fan of Jesper Kyd’s music, especially his Assassin’s Creed work. There are so many brilliant tracks on his Assassin’s Creed II soundtrack like Venice Rooftops and Flight Over Venice 1. Check out the rest of the album too, it’s full of great tracks.

Also Buffy and Firefly composers. Err, squee!

Event Summary:

For 3 wonderful hours, I was back in Ezio’s world; revelling in the sights and sounds of renaissance Rome, raiding tombs, leaping from building to building, stealthy assassinations, escaping from guards and listening to Jesper Kyd’s wonderful music. You now have a whole set of new missions restored memories adorning your (well used) map of Rome. Within these restored memories lie a couple of new locations to explore, which adds a bit of variety to the game.

I also found myself in the unusual position of repeatedly failing a mission. Whilst Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is a brilliant game, it’s not exactly hard to play. Along comes this DLC pack and suddenly the missions are just a little bit tougher. Not too tough mind you, as after a few attempts you’ll be happily on your way again. The extra challenge is very welcome though. More of this please, Ubisoft.

On top of the “find Leonardo” missions, there are 2 new tombs to explore. Well, the second tomb is more of a quarry really, alive with flowing water and viaducts. I felt like Ezio was on his holidays, catching some rays and having a bit of a paddle in the water. I had huge amounts of fun exploring these tombs with Ezio performing even more outrageous feats of acrobatics using dizzyingly high rocky outcrops or bits of buildings. I love the confidence I have in Ezio that he will make even the most difficult jump or make a climb look effortless. These locations really take advantage of the tweaks that Ubisoft made to Ezio’s controls for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

There is also a new dice game to play in the thieves’ hideout for when you fancy a break from all the killing and free-running. It’s called Hazard, sharing a name with the complicated Old English dice game from which a simpler version emerged in the 19th Century called Craps. The rules of the in-game version of Hazard are a little different: roll two dice to get a winning roll (7 or 11) or avoid the losing roll (2, 3 or 12). If you roll any other numbers they then become the “chance” roll; If you hit that number again you win (whilst still avoiding the losing and winning roll numbers). After each roll you can bet up to a maximum of 7500 florins. Whilst this game is mildly entertaining to play, as I had over 800,000 florins in my burgeoning money pouch, any money I won or lost was completely meaningless. If only the bets were hundreds of thousands of florins per roll then this game would at least give you some reason to play it.

The only real downside to the Da Vinci disappearance DLC is that it’s all over so quickly. I spent about 30 minutes exploring the 2 tombs and about 2.5 hours rescuing Leonardo. That’s it. It is also more of the same as far as the missions are concerned. So you might get a bit bored with the lack of variety on offer, particularly if you’ve played a lot of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

More back-stabbing

The multiplayer component to Brotherhood is significantly expanded with the addition of 1 new map (Alhambra), 4 new characters (the Dama Rossa, the Knight, the Marquis and the Pariah) and 2 new gameplay modes (assassinate and escort).

During the Assassinate game mode every other human player is a potential target. There are no assigned targets, unlike Wanted mode in which your targets selected by the animus. You also have to lock on to your target before killing them, otherwise it doesn’t count. Although your HUD points you in the general direction of the other players, the key is to watch for unusual behaviour – running, frequent changes of direction and killing. In the games I played, nobody runs around at all. It is just too dangerous, unless you are being chased of course. But then the act of escaping also puts you on the radar of other players! All in all, these Assassinate games are a lot of fun.

One thing I did suffer from in this mode was the problem of chained kills. Anyone performing a kill sticks out like a sore thumb making themselves an easy target. So when I killed someone, someone else then killed me, and then they got killed by someone else, all in quick succession. I don’t see how Ubisoft can stop this happening without substantially altering the gameplay. However, this problem does make it especially satisfying to escape unharmed following a nice stealthy kill.

In the Escort mode games, one team of hunters aims to kill as many of the animus-controlled VIPs as possible whilst the team of protectors have to protect the VIPs and kill any hunters. The protectors also earn points when each VIP passes through one of the many checkpoints littered throughout the map. Personally, I found playing as a hunter bloody hard, as whenever I got within sniffing distance of a VIP I’d get stabbed in the back by a protector. It was much, much easier to rack up the points as a protector by closely shadowing your assigned VIP through checkpoints. But you do end up looking at every single person that gets anywhere remotely close to your VIP as an assassin. Frequently, I found myself getting a bit twitchy and accidentally killing a few innocent civilians. Unfortunately, each civilian death gifts 100 points to the team of protectors. Ooops!

The multiplayer mode does suffer from one massive problem; there’s hardly anyone else online. I frequently have to wait over 15 minutes before the system finally discovered 5 other people to play against. This is true for every game mode. The words “searching for a program session” and “searching for other Abstergo agents” will be burned into your brain as you wait (im)patiently for the game to start. Unfortunately, there’s no way of telling how many people are online to decide: A – to keep waiting as you will get a game eventually, or B – to just give up as there’s no one there, just like Team Fortress 2 on the Xbox 360. Of course, if you have 5 other Assassins’s Creed: Brotherhood Da Vinci Disappearance DLC-owning friends then you’re fine. We all have those, right?

Summary:

The Da Vinci disappearance adds a very, very enjoyable 3-4 hours of gameplay to Brotherhood’s story mode and expands the multiplayer component nicely with 2 new interesting and challenging modes. This DLC pack represents an ideal reason to dust off your copy of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood as the multiplayer game really needs more players.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood – The Da Vinci Disappearance is available now for Xbox 360 (800 MS Points) and PlayStation 3 (£7.99).

Here’s the trailer. It’s all looking very sexy.

This new add-on pack will be released next week. 8th March for Xbox Live (800 MS points) and 9th March on the PlayStation Network (£7.99).

As with the previous games, I’ve played this one to death before writing this review. Every assassination completed, Rome 100% renovated, full set of trained Assassins in my guild, all weapons destroyed, all flags and feathers collected etc. It took me 32 hours to complete the single player campaign. Not too bad for a quick cash-in! You could probably knock off a few hours off that as I did partake in a fair bit of wandering through Rome and general larking around – parachuting off tall buildings and running along the tops of viaducts.

Home, Sweet Home

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood picks up right after the end of Assassin’s Creed II, so if you haven’t played it, go do it now, as you will miss some of the back story. Anyway, ignoring the fact that a whole year of my real life has just whizzed by between games, I carry on where I’d left off with my old mate Ezio. In no time we are out on the hunt again after being made homeless by another dastardly ruffian. Hmm, I’ll kill him later no doubt.

This time Ezio has been tasked with saving Rome from the evil Borgia, carrying out a bit of DIY on most of its buildings, killing the odd person and recruiting his own Assassin army. This is all very much like Assassin’s Creed II, apart from the Assassin army bit; that’s new. Once you’ve reached a certain point, sorry memory, in the game you can recruit up to 9 civilians to train to be part of your Assassins guild. This involves assigning them to various missions (go tail a spy or kill an important person) to earn experience. Unfortunately, you never see what happens during these missions. It’s more like a text based adventure where you just read about what happened. To help you decide who to send, there is a mission success percentage calculator. Junior Assassins tend to only contribute a small amount (20-30%) to the success percentage total whereas an experienced Assassin can complete whole missions on their own without fail. This success percentage calculator does make it really easy to never fail a mission, as you only attempt ones with 100% predicted success. A simple tactic of sending 4 experienced Assassins and 1 junior Assassin on the hardest mission possible, with a 100% predicted success rate (naturally) blasts the junior Assassin through about 7 of the 9 skill levels in one go!

Attack, My Pretties

Once you have recruited your Assassins you can then call upon them (assuming they are not away on missions at the time) to help when you’re out and about in Rome. Whilst it’s great to have all this backup at the touch of a button, it does make the game really, really easy. For example, when you see a huge amount of guards, just call in an arrow storm and bam, everyone’s dead. In the 32 hours it took me to complete the single player campaign I lost just 1 Assassin in battle. Yeah, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is not a hard game to play.

Another change from Assassin’s Creed II is that there is only 1 city to explore. Whilst the missions to destroy Leonardo da Vinci’s weapons do indeed take you away from Rome, they are only short-lived excursions and the cities are really small anyway. To compensate for this, Ubisoft have made Rome absolutely massive. The city is so big that you need to travel either by horse (which are now commonplace across the city) or the sewers which Ezio can use to effectively warp around the map. Personally, I found myself running about the city, as there is so much to do that you rarely get bored by just running. The main problem I found was I would frequently get distracted from my original task by collecting a flag or 10 along the way. Be warned, just like Assassin’s Creed II, this game will make entire days fly by. It’s a total time sink as you get immersed in this wonderful environment of a city thronging with life, activity and beautiful music (Jesper Kyd’s in-game soundtrack is as awesome as always). Or, you could look upon it as a city packed full of potential targets for an Assassin ;-)

Rome Raider

Following on from Assassin’s Creed II there are 6 tombs to explore which are all hidden throughout Rome. As early as the first tomb, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood had me feeling like I was playing the Tomb Raider game that I’d always dreamed of. Ezio is effortless to control, majestic in his movement and spectacular in his execution. Exploring each of the 6 tombs is fun and surprisingly varied. Whilst there are only so many things you can do in a room with lots of pointy objects – walk, run, jump, swim, ride, sneak, climb and kill – Ubisoft have admirably tried to vary the place of each Tomb. Each one has its particular set of puzzles, from navigating and fighting, to acrobatics in order to get to the Tomb’s treasure. On top of navigating your way around these vast areas without a map, there is also a challenge per tomb if you are to achieve 100% memory synchronisation. Some are fairly easy to complete, like not letting your health drop below 5 squares. Others are more challenging – complete the tomb in less than 8 minutes. All of these challenges add to the longevity of the game.

One area that did surprise me in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood were the changes made to the beggars and musicians. Amazingly they are less annoying and intrusive than in the first 2 games. Hurrah! As many of you will already know of the pain of having a perfectly good tail or kill spoilt by some pesky musician, or even worse a swarm of musicians herding around you to play a terrible song. I usually got into all sorts of trouble after introducing them to my hidden blade. The momentary peace and quiet, from the now dead musician, was bliss though ;-)

One of the reasons I love playing the Assassin’s Creed games so much is they make you feel like you can take on anything – animal, vegetable or mineral. No wait, I mean climb any building or kill any amount of people. It is almost a superhuman approach to gaming. You feel so good causing total mayhem around Rome with consummate ease. You can climb everything in sight, with the exception of Rome’s large rock faces which weave their way across the landscape. Exploring Rome with Ezio is enormous fun. Ubisoft have also tweaked a number of Ezio’s skills. For instance Ezio’s climbing action is much more efficient, making it even easier and quicker to climb a building than ever before. Battles have been improved, with Ezio able to quickly kill guards one after the other, rather than having to wait to counter attack or slowly hack them to death. It is a case of evolution rather than revolution of Ezio’s skills and abilities. Having sunk so many hours into this series I still find myself looking at real life buildings and think “Yep, that’s climbable!”

Must try harder

Now on to what’s not so good in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The dialogue is stilted and unconvincing, especially the conversations between Desmond and Veronica Mars Lucy Stillman. If the dialogue was as well written as Prince of Persia’s (also made by Ubisoft) you would actually care more about the “real life” sections of this game. Also the only reason the supposedly sarcastic character Shaun Hastings is still alive and talking in my game is because you can’t kill people as Desmond. He can run around like Ezio, but there are no convenient throwing daggers or swordw lying around in 2012. Bah. Danny Wallace (who voices Shaun Hastings) is quite a funny writer, but I just want to kill his character every time he opens his stupid trap. He states the bloody obvious, is really irritating and adds nothing to the game. I really hope Ubisoft chop him from the next game.

You hear the same lines of dialogue repeatedly from the NPCs. This happens most notably from the town criers who repeat the same proclamations over and over again. Also when you are recruiting your Assassins Ezio mutters the same bit of dialogue “the liberation of Rome gas begun” to them. How about varying the dialogue a little, Ezio? Mass Effect 2 from Bioware demonstrated perfectly how to perform the same bit of dialogue so it doesn’t become repetitive (probe launched, probe away, launching probe) all beautifully voiced by Tricia Helfer.

Whilst Ubisoft have further developed the graphics engine behind Assassin’s Creed to make it produce some very pretty environments and characters, there are still a few issues. Firstly, the game suffers from some fairly horrendous pop-up. It is as bad as Grand Theft Auto 4, with parts of buildings and bits of the landscape blocking into existence right in front of you. With the city of Rome being so huge, it looks to have pushed the graphics engine to its limit.

I got stuck inside a bush after falling into off a building. Yes, inside a bush, with no way of escaping it. The world map also developed a habit of showing icons for things I’d already synchronised (i.e. completed), like viewpoints and assassinations. Guards and my own Assassins (who I love and cherish very much) would get stuck inside walls, flailing their arms and legs in a vain attempt to escape their bricky predicament. I was surprised just how glitchy the game was, given the quality of the previous instalments.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is out now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.