Absolutely broken, constant dips in framerate, 15fps for the majority of Jak II and 3. Get an emulator instead. With save states, you'll also fix the biggest issue with this game: lack of checkpoints!
Brothers tries its hardest to be a dramatic story, but the characterization falls flat. The puzzles are incredibly simple and the mechanics rarely deliver the "brotherhood" experience. For must puzzles, you end up controlling each character separately: move Nanya here, move Nanyi there, activate, finish. An ice-climbers style platforming section is the highlight of the game by far, as its the only moment where the game takes advantage of the unique gameplay style. Otherwise, the game treats the two characters with independently, which flies in the face of the supposed meaning of the game. Why create this odd control style and never deliver unique mechanics? The game plays like a million other puzzle platformers, which is a shame considering the potential. The ending has a great mechanics-as-metaphor moment, and it feels like the entire game was a setup for that one well-done moment. That said, it's incredibly predictable and intensely cloying. It's a short game as well: my playthrough clocked in at about two hours. Overall, it has a few memorable moments, but the whole experience feels amateur. It's as if the team saw the success of Journey and Bastion and decided, "Yeah, let's do a game like that."
One of the best games of 2011. Every thing is tied together perfectly, creating a seamless, coherent experience. Everything about the game - the music, the art style, the gameplay - ties into the theme. A perfect, perfect game.
One of the best games of 2011. Every thing is tied together perfectly, creating a seamless, coherent experience. Everything about the game - the music, the art style, the gameplay - ties into the theme. A perfect, perfect game.
We could have had two really great games. What we got instead were three "good" games. Revelations was an unneeded game. Not because it didn't bring some great things to the series (the story, specifically), but because they were things that should have been in Brotherhood. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm sure some of the designers share my complaints. You never truly ship the "perfect" game you had in mind; there's always more that can be done. Assassin's Creed 2: The best in the series. Plenty of content. The story gave us a charming protagonist, and a sympathetic story of revenge. The biggest flaw? Not ending the Borgia plot. Instead, we were treated to a rushed climax, where Ezio simply decides to abandon his quest for revenge five minutes too soon. Brotherhood: I'm not saying Ezio should have killed the Pope in AC2. Every good character needs to make some mistakes to grow. But the Borgia plot in Brotherhood was just a bad case of deja vu. Hadn't the revenge themes already been explored? To its credit, Brotherhood added a great chunk of content, and refined all of the already great elements of AC2 without breaking the system. Revelations: The gameplay is exactly the same, for better or worse. Bombs are the only interesting addition. The hookblade is unneeded, and reeks of gimmick. Den Defense, however, is the worst thing to happen to the series. It absolutely ruins the pacing of the game, forcing players to engage in a mediocre (and horribly flawed) minigame whenever they gain too much Templar attention, a bar increased by trying to play the damn game.
However, it easily has the best story of the trilogy. Sofia's relationship with Ezio grows naturally, and runs concurrently with the main plot, giving us a nice change of pace. Shows some great duality in Ezio's character: assassin vs. man, something that's been teased throughout the series. But the early story is a bit familiar: didn't we already start a Brotherhood? These Ottoman assassin's don't exactly treat me like Il Mentore, hero of all Italy. No, they treat me like a senile old retiree. "What do you mean, you don't have a hookblade? No bombs? Get with the times, old man." Instead of adding new weapons, how about new defenses against riflemen, a new and scary enemy of the Assassins? Adapting to a new world is an interesting theme explored in games such as Red Dead Redemption, and I would have loved to see them explored here. No such luck. My Recommendations:
My additions to AC2 would purely be story based: none of the gameplay additions would be added until the sequel. The Christina Missions from Brotherhood should have been incorporated into AC2's plot. It gives us an anchor for an otherwise baseless story of revenge. It gives us an awareness for the passage of time, and the toll it has had on Ezio. It is the first example of my favorite theme in the series: a man giving all he has to an order (never fully explored until Revelations). AC2 would have ended with the Borgias. The main flaw of AC2 was a lack of closure, now achieved via the death of the Borgias. Instead of giving us a huge cast of conspirators to kill, the game should have limited our targets, incorporating the ending of AC2 and minimal plot of Brotherhood: ie: the plot to take down Italy via the papacy. This sort of streamlining worked great in Revelations. The next game would finish Ezio's story. The plot would largely resemble Revelations, with small changes. First and foremost: the world would need to be larger. Constantinople could serve as the hub world, with entire sequences taking place in smaller, newer areas (similar to multiple cities in AC2). Sequence 7 of Revelations does something similar, and was easily my favorite part of the game. We would get an idea of the global expansion of the Brotherhood, with a nice variation in mission structure. Simply put, this game would combine the gameplay innovations from Brotherhood with the superb story of Revelations. The best themes would be there: expansion of the Brotherhood, knowing a man's limits / place in the world, giving ones life to an organization, etc. It would be the perfect finisher. And yes, we would still keep the Altair missions. The Brotherhood / Revelations hybrid would have needed additional prep time. Personally, I would have been fine with not having Brotherhood and waiting until this year for the hybrid. It all boils down to planning. With time, the team could have come up with the perfect way of combining these games. It seems the crucial flaw of the series was maintaining a proper storyline across all games, and still giving each installment a sense of accomplishment and closure. Instead, we received three games where the protagonist never had a motive beyond revenge. A failure to develop a strong cast of characters (and even abandoning most of them in Revelations) gave the game a lack of heart, and a lack of direction.
