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" Also available on: PS3, PC Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action Adventure It&amp;#039;s the sign of a good series that multiple iterations bring new features and ideas to the party, while also retaining what made the property so good in the first place. To their credit, the team at Ubisoft Montreal have done this with Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed Brotherhood. Essentially, the game is a continuation of the superb Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed II, including its story, characters, missions and most of the core gameplay. However, there are enough new features to make this feel like a satisfying package, including new RPG mechanics for recruiting a team of killers and bringing the Renaissance-era Rome back to life, along with a really innovative and engaging multiplayer. All this unfurls in a rich, vibrant and utterly stunning Renaissance-era world, making Brotherhood a familiar but still brilliant experience. The story continues the drama surrounding superhero killer Ezio Auditore, picking up right from the end of Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed II. Ezio heads back to his family home in Monteriggioni looking for some well earned rest, but his nemesis Cesare Borgia attacks the town, kills Ezio&amp;#039;s uncle Mario and steals a powerful artifact known as the Apple of Eden. Enraged, Ezio heads to Rome to take down the Borgia for good and reclaim the city for the people. Various historical characters return to the series, including Machiavelli, Caterina Sforza and Leonardo Da Vinci, complete with his array of fantastical machines. Other new characters also arrive, such as the downright evil Lucrezia Borgia, who is willing to do pretty much anything for power.  In reality, the story lacks the impact of Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed II and is more of a straightforward dotted line between the missions. There is little real progression of Ezio&amp;#039;s character, making him feel a bit like a cardboard cut-out at times. Thankfully, though, the voice acting and script inject much-needed life to the narrative to make it engaging. Aside the missions in Rome, the game also continues the ongoing story of Desmond Miles, Ezio&amp;#039;s ancestor who is locked in a battle between the Templars and the Assassins. Miles lives in the present day, but can jump back into the memories of Ezio using a device called the Animus. The game switches between the two time periods, but the bulk of the gameplay occurs in Rome, which is a shame as the modern-day sequences are memorable and in a sense much fresher and more compelling. The vast majority of time spent in Brotherhood is in the city of Rome. It may disappoint some players not being able to explore multiple cities as in the last game, but the enormous open-world space is simply a joy to explore. As in all good sandbox games, Brotherhood&amp;#039;s recreation of Rome is like a character in itself, packed with vibrant life and resplendent detail. Running around the streets or free climbing the buildings always uncovers new surprises and the city genuinely feels as though it lives and breathes. Particularly, the dynamic sky has to be one of the best ever created in a game, with the bright sunshine glistening through the powder puff clouds over the beautiful yet dangerous world. There is a bit of texture fade-in, as well as some screen tearing and frame rate issues, but otherwise the visual presentation is majestic. Add to that a magnificent and atmospheric score and Rome quickly becomes a great place to be. All the Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed gameplay staples return in Brotherhood, including free-roaming parkour over the rooftops, stealthy assassinations and fast-paced combat. All these areas have been tweaked in positive ways, but don&amp;#039;t expect a revolution to the core gamplay. This is essentially just a continuation of Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed II, meaning some series veterans may find the game does not feel quite so fresh. However, there is a huge amount of stuff to do in the city and it&amp;#039;s easy to get sidetracked from the 20+ hour main story. Rome is completely under the tyrannical influence of the Borgia, meaning all 12 districts of the city are commanded by Borgia captains inside fortified towers, ruling over the population with an iron fist. The player must kill the Borgia captain and destroy the towers to bring prosperity back to the population. Interestingly, all the Borgia towers do not need to be taken down to complete the campaign, as the player can choose which ones to tackle. Smashing the towers frees an area of troops and takes back the city, but some players may just want to get on with the story. One reason to take down the towers, though, is to enable Ezio to gain influence and perks. Banks, blacksmiths, doctors and tailors can all be brought back to life, opening up the opportunity to buy new armour, medicine or cloaks that can hide secret weapons. Renovating the city also brings an income to Ezio and it won&amp;#039;t be long before you have a string of businesses pulling in a tidy sum. NPCs in the city can also be pick-pocketed to add to your coffers, while corpses can be looted for a range of items, including medicines, throwing knives and rare collectibles. Items can be sold to earn money and improve your kit, including blades, bullets and armour to improve health. The majority of missions in Brotherhood will feel instantly familiar to series veterans, including tailing targets, defeating waves of attackers or travelling across the city to fulfill a series of objectives. However, there are also some neat side missions, such as destroying Leonardo Da Vinci&amp;#039;s advanced weaponry which has been commandeered by the Borgia, including a mad chase killing soldiers using a carriage-mounted Gatling gun. Other missions send the player into the subterranean environments of Rome to take on the feral Sons of Romulus, opening up some neat environmental puzzles. A few issues sour the experience slightly, particularly the stealth missions where detection brings instant failure. The weak stealth mechanics can make these sections a frustrating experience, while there are other moments when the game simply doesn&amp;#039;t explain itself very well. However, the vast majority of missions in Brotherhood are well designed and fun. A new feature in the game is the Assassins Guild, a system in which Ezio can assist rebellious citizens and then recruit them as his allies. The main idea is that Ezio cannot fight the Borgia on his own and so he must reunite the underground resistance towards the common goal of bringing harmony back to Rome. At any time, the player can call on these killers at the touch of a button, which is a really cool feature. Each Borgia tower destroyed opens up a new slot on the Assassins Guild and Ezio can have up to 12 killers on his books at any one time, but they must be replaced if they get killed. The assassins are handled by a meter with a cool-down time, meaning you cannot constantly use them to do your dirty work. However, there is a sense that the Guild makes the game a bit easier, as the assassins are an easy option to get out of tight spots.  The Assassins Guild also involves some light RPG mechanics, as Ezio can train up his team to be more effective in the field. Assassins earn extra skill upgrades in open-world combat, as well as by doing contracts in a system that works a bit like a strategy board game. Pigeon coops are dotted around the city - created by Machiavelli as a sort of Renaissance PDA - where you can access a map of Europe for allocating assassins to contracts in cities such as Barcelona, Cologne, London and Vienna. These non-playing missions have varying difficulties and so the player must judge the chances that the agents will come back alive. Sending extra assassins increases the chances of success, but there is a trade off in that they will have to share out the experience points. The system doesn&amp;#039;t feel quite as immersive as it could be, but it does succeed in adding an extra layer to the gameplay. Horses play a much bigger part in Brotherhood, from moving around to combat. There are a variety of different mounts in the game, including armoured steeds that are slower but can take more hits. Unsuspecting riders can be jacked of their horses by leaping off buildings, while there are also options for horse-to-horse assassinations. While on foot, the combat system has been improved to be faster and more free-flowing. As before, you can quick-shift between enemies for a variety of heavy and light attacks, but defensive opponents can now be undone with kick attacks. You can string together combo streaks against multiple foes, but sometimes the lock-on system feels frustratingly twitchy. It&amp;#039;s not a showstopper, but the combat could have been made even more fluid.  Another new feature is that each mission carries an additional objective to achieve, such as not taking any hits or completing the challenge within a time limit. It&amp;#039;s a really good feature that adds an extra layer of difficulty for the Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed veterans already familiar with the gameplay. But the game&amp;#039;s biggest new aspect is the multiplayer, which brings a genuinely fresh and innovative extra layer to the series. Similarly to BioShock 2, Brotherhood&amp;#039;s multiplayer carries its own story as players become agents of Abstergo - the modern day Templars - being trained in the art of death. The multiplayer contests occur on a rich variety of maps, with the player always tasked with killing designated targets. A radar system guides you to your foe, but the trick is that other Templars are also hunting you, which triggers an exciting contest of cat and mouse. Brotherhood essentially has three main multiplayer modes - the free-for-all &amp;#039;Wanted&amp;#039; is an open deathmatch, with an advanced mode available that reduces the radar accuracy and requires players to be more observant while tracking their targets. &amp;#039;Alliance&amp;#039; splits players into pairs for coordinated hunting, while &amp;#039;Manhunt&amp;#039; divides players into two teams, with one-team hunting and the other one hiding. All achievements in the game earn the player points, but there is particular incentive to behave as a stealthy assassin. For example, an overt assassination earns fewer points than nipping out from the shadows and stealthily cutting someone&amp;#039;s throat. The rich levelling up system gives the contests a compelling and addictive edge, which could make Brotherhood a surprise challenger to the multiplayer giants on the market.  Overall, Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed Brotherhood continues the good points of the series - free-roaming parkour, mysterious historical plotting and lashings of violence - but also introduces much-needed new features. The light RPG mechanics for managing a team of assassins and rejuvenating Rome are mostly a success and the new multiplayer modes add a surprisingly addictive extra layer to the franchise. All this goes ahead in one of the best looking and immersive open worlds ever created. While Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed II was very a different game to the first Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed, Brotherhood feels more of an extension of its processor, which may disappoint some series veterans. However, the lengthy single-player campaign, rich Renaissance world and innovative new features make this game still an irresistible prospect.  &amp;gt; What do you think of the game? Share your views "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/assassins-creed/review/a288808/assassins-creed-brotherhood-xbox-360/>