Video Games - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (XBOX, PS3, PC, Mac; 2010)

Anyone passingly familiar with video games has probably heard of the Assassin's Creed series, but unless you've actually sat down to play the game you may not be aware of the premise and how the storyline spans centuries of time.  And since I finally beat the game (well, as close as I'm going to get...more on that later), I figured I'd bang out my first Random Pop Thoughts video game review.

In the first Assassin's Creed, Desmond Miles, a mild-mannered bartender, is abducted by Abstergo Industries and held against his will.  While in their clutches, he agrees to be connected to a strange machine called the Animus, a central plot device to the Assassin's Creed series.  You see, Abstergo (and others) have discovered that DNA carries not only genetic material from your ancestors, but is also encoded, to some extent with their memories.  What the Animus allows users to do is tap into these genetic memories and, in essence, live out the lives of their ancestors (with some limitations).

And thus the Assassin's Creed series plays out, partly in the past and partly in the present.  The overall story revolves around Desmond discovering his connection to a long line of Assassins and their ongoing fight through the ages against the Templars in a battle for a strange artifact, "the Piece of Eden," which both factions are hoping to locate in the present day through clues from the past.  All done in an extremely visually stunning manner.

So, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood...where to begin.  The first Assassin's Creed had Desmond visiting his ancestor Altair ibn-La'Ahad, a Syrian Assassin who lived during the Third Crusade (in the late 12th Century).  In Assassin's Creed 2, Desmond "inhabits" a more recent ancestor, Ezio Auditore (living in Italy during the late 15th/early 16th century).  And it's in Brotherhood (which I think of as Assassin's Creed 2.1) that we continue Ezio's adventures...this time in Rome.

And there's a lot to do in Rome.  A LOT.  It's a damn big city.  Roman Forum?  Check it out.  Colosseum?  Feel free to climb all over it.  Aqueducts?   Rebuild 'em and run along 'em.  Lots to see...and lots to do.  I mean, there's simply a ton of things that play out in this game to keep the gamer busy:

• The main storyline, which pits you against the Borgia family (who holds all the power in Rome)
• Releasing Rome from Borgia control, by destroying all their towers in the different parts of the city/countryside
• Rebuilding the financial infrastructure of Rome, by locating and renovating shut down tailors, banks, blacksmiths, art merchants, medicinal stands and art merchants throughout the city, not to mention key historical landmarks
• Completing assignments for your teams of thieves and courtesans
• Recruiting and managing a team of Assassins, including assigning them to assassination contracts and improving their skills
• Finding the ten hidden "Subject 16" locations and solving a fiendish series of puzzles at each one
• Finding and completing the six hidden lairs of the cult of Romulus
• Collecting treasure chests, flags and hidden feathers scattered throughout the land
• Reliving prior memories of Ezio's romantic involvement with Amerigo Vespucci's daughter (no, seriously)
• Reading about the extensive history of many of the locations and people Desmond encounters, through informational pop-ups that become available as they are discovered in the game
• An engaging present day storyline/action sequences

Add to that the fact that each quest along the way comes with not only conditions for successful completion (e.g. avoid detection), but an additional guideline that must be met to achieve "full synchronization" with the memories of the past (e.g. complete the level without losing any health or in a particular amount of time).

And...AND...almost forgot...there is a multiplayer function that takes things to a whole new level.  Whereas games such as Modern Warfare and Gears of War have players going at each other guns a-blazin', Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood takes a much stealthier approach.  Here, you are placed on a map as one of about 12 different character avatars (e.g. jester, executioner, noble).  Your mission is to track down your target (only knowing what their avatar type is and the direction/distance they are from you), while avoiding becoming a victim yourself.  Yes...someone is hunting you.  The trick is to move slowly, blend in with all the other non-player controlled avatars, etc.  Pretty innovative, and definitely nerve-wracking.  This video captures the essence rather well:

So, yeah...there's a lot to do. And I'm sure I left some things out.

For the most part, I beat the game.  I completed the main storyline (with ALMOST 100% synchronization), fully rebuilt Rome and all its shops, found all the hidden cult lairs and Subject 16 puzzles (Subject 16 was the test subject prior to Desmond who...didn't quite make it).  So while I didn't beat everything at 100%, and there a ton of hidden chests and flags I still could recover...I tackled the bulk of the game successfully.  And enjoyed it.

Next up is Assassin's Creed: Revelations (or Assassin's Creed 2.2).  But I need to take a break and change things up, game-wise, before I dive into that...don't want to go into Assassin's Creed overload.