Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Review

By Xite - January 1, 2015
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It’s great to see that Assassin’s Creed game makers are using their grey cells and are thinking out of the box. Its new installment – Rogue’s story play is quite different from the series. Yes....

Rogue is hardly gripping and is barely adventurous, though it has a great storyline but it lacks serious content

It’s great to see that Assassin’s Creed game makers are using their grey cells and are thinking out of the box. Its new installment – Rogue’s story play is quite different from the series. Yes, you still climb walls and towers, blend in the crowd to avoid unnecessary confrontation, face the storm in the ocean and of course, quietly kill anyone who comes in your way, but this time from an Assassin Brotherhood member, you become the assassin hunter or Templar.

You are Shay Patrick Cormac, an assassin who questions orders and doesn’t see everything in black and white. The protagonist gets fed up of carrying out violent acts and starts to doubt the so-called good motives of the Brotherhood. This is the first in the series we get to see the game in the eyes of the Templar rather than just slaughtering them. But by switching allegiance means its open season on you as you can now be assassinated anywhere and any time. What you will miss a lot is the direction indicator, which tells you if anyone is about to sneak up on you. You have to keep an eye on all directions before you make your move.

The weapons options have slightly increased like an air rifle and grenade launcher, but they aren’t much to rave about. A carry over from the previous installment, Black Flag, there are sea adventures, but this it is a lot tougher because now the enemies can come on board your ship. To make matters more challenging you also have to make sure that ship does not ram into an iceberg and share the same fate as the Titanic. Good news is that you can shoot down icebergs, but it is advisable to avoid them as much as possible because if big icebergs are shot down they create towering waves and this becomes another serious problem. The ship is fitted with guns that can automatically search and find an enemy ship’s weak points. You can also leave a trail of oil, light it and see the enemy burn or fire can also create a wall for protection.

Rogue in many ways does play like a sequel to the Black Flag because a lot depends on your sea ventures and the maps take you to the frozen North Atlantic and other far off settlements. Unlike the Caribbean environment, we face more of snowy conditions and piercing icy winds. You face a lot of blizzards as well and the graphics are realistic enough to give you the chills.

Apart from steering the ship to safety, the rest of the game felt like a walk in the park, rather mechanical. The action play remains like a puppet master pulling the strings. We were hoping it would be more of a natural free flow feel. During several missions it was important to go into stealth mode. But this was quite laughable, as you would clumsily jump into the sea instead of the pier and while taking down guards it felt like a straight forward kill as you don’t really need to plan out your kill.

In the end, the game makers get full marks for the radical concept of switching sides and at the same time, it feels conflicted over the kills you carry out. But everything else is like you have seen it before, have played it before and sometimes you even wished it wasn’t in the game. It is time the series now gets a serious re-jig as it is losing the plot and as a big fan of this franchise, I hate to say it but this is a very average game from such a cult title.

REVIEW
OVERVIEW
6.77/ 10
OVERALL SCORE
  • Graphics 8.5
  • Gameplay 6.9
  • Plot 4.9
  • Tags
  • Assassin’s Creed