Assassins Creed Brotherhood. First impressions.

[leo-rcc]

I had the game pre-ordered because I wanted the Harlequin figure and yesterday I got it in my hands finally.

I've played for about 6 hours, and I've noticed a few changes from AC2.

First, a big downside for me. Fighting has become even easier. Even with minimum armour you can bash through most defenses with the greatest of ease.

The entire game has had a major upgrade in terms of graphics (not that I could fault the AC2 GFX much, this one just looks even better).

The way they make you lose all the stuff you worked so hard for to collect in AC2 is pretty clever. You start off carrying everything you had before in AC2 (assuming you've played it to completion) and within a few minutes all you have is the shirt on your back, the single blade on your arm and a sword (and not the good one).

The guards are less prone to memory loss (just because you stand behind a wall doesn't mean the guard just forgets you were there before). Enzio makes more use of his gun now in fights, which fortunately doesn't deduct bullets from your inventory or you'd be out of ammo pretty quick. At the moment, I miss my double blade. ACB for the moment focuses more on swordplay than using the hidden blades anyway, and my favorite move for the moment, specially on the big guys is still taking their own weapon away from them and killing them off with it.

The city is huge, structures like the Colosseum really look the part.

In ACB you can now use horses in the city walls to move around quicker. At least, thats the idea, but in my opinion moving through the narrow streets of Rome on horseback is slow as hell. I'm probably everywhere faster over the roofs even while taking out the guards than trying to reach X on horse. The only exception being outside the city walls of course, then a horse is very handy indeed as the landscape is pretty vast.

There is also more of a bartering system at work in ACB. Besides Florins, you can now also collect and sell goods and ingredients to buy other stuff with. You can also restore shops and landmarks throughout the town, and your money doesn't need to be collected at a central location anymore, but can be withdrawn from banks throughout the city. As you restore and renovate more landmarks the more money is coming in to your bank account.

A lot of the characters from AC and AC2 are back in Brotherhood, some get a more active role than they had in AC2. There is now more time alloted outside the Animus to develop a more side-by-side storyline where you can switch between the two. The missions I've done so far outside the animus are pretty easy and straightforward, and only server to show Desmond is learning the skills of Enzio and it creates the backdrop for the finale I guess (I'm not there yet fortunately).

The truth puzzles are in there again as well. Use eagle eye where you see a building marked with a red eye, find the spot and enter puzzle. The first puzzles are always easy, which is logical since you have to allow for new players that have never played AC or AC2 before.

Well this is what I've got so far. If I find anything more interesting I'll let you know.