Assassin's creed 2, Brotherhood, and Revelations are all centered around Ezio Auditore de Florenzi. At the beginning of Assassin's Creed 2 (2009), he is a young Italian man, who is unaware of his families role as Assassins. After is father, and two brothers are executed he is thrown into the role of the Assassin, and is instructed by his uncle Mario. With his training, and with the help of all the other, well paced, Italian Assassins, who are more discreet than there young counterpart, and the inventing skills of non-Assassin Leonardo DaVinci, he is able to take revenge for his family, and become a full fledged member of the Assassins. The game has an equally entertaining story line as the first, and maintains many of the same principles. The game takes place all over Italy, in cities like Venice, Florence, Rome and others. Ezio fields the same weapons as Altair, with the addition of a poison blade, which is used for poisoning enemies, who proceed to go into death fits and distract other enemies, another wrist blade, which enable Ezio to make double assassinations, and a wrist gun, a simple black powder weapon mounted on the wrist, behind the wrist blade. The new weapons make Ezio deadlier in a fight than Altair in pitched battle. New features include the ability to dye your robes, and buy new weapons instead of upgrading the old ones, and lower your notoriety in a city, by doing small tasks (very useful to remain incognito). You can also pick up weapons dropped by your enemies and use them for a short amount of time. Another great game, however this one has multiple DLCs, which add more story to the game, and unique robes. A multiplayer game is added, in which players fight try to assassinate each other. This is also slightly outdated, but still worth the buy.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (2010) picks up, three days after the events of Assassin's Creed 2. It is centered around another revenge story, this time Ezio takes revenge against the Borgia family for killing other members of the Auditore family. The entire game takes place in Rome, and Ezio is revisited by a few of the other Assassins from 2, along with Leonardo DaVinci. The biggest new feature of this game is the ability to recruit new assassins in Rome, and send them all over the world to help other Assassins.. The game is basically a war for control of Rome, pitching Assassins against Templar controlled Borgia troops. Beside a whole crew of Assassins, Ezio gets a new weapon in the crossbow, which he carries across his back and uses for long range engagements. The combat system was also given a makeover, and it is now easier for Ezio to engage guards in open combat. The story line is equally great as the previous two, and includes all of the features of 2. Brotherhood also come with a plethora of DLCs which add more story content, and phenotypic features. The multiplayer returns with minor updates. Like all of the previous games of the series, this deserves to be played.
Assassin's Creed Revelations was the last installation of the series to center around Ezio, however some of the game play involves the long dead Altair. Ezio, now elderly,
and the head of all the Assassins in Italy, travels to Constantinople, to learn about the past of the Assassin Order. The new enemies are the Templar backed Byzantines, and the templar allies, the Janissaries. The story line is, as usual, very involved and entertaining. All the features, and weapons of 2 and Brotherhood come to Revelations, along with two new weapons, the hook blade (very useful for zip-lining or interesting assassinations), and a bomb making mechanic, which allows the player to make a variety of different bombs from ingredients found or bought around the game. The Assassin recruiting returns with minor updates to the assignment feature, and a new feature, tower defense is brought to the game. In tower defense, Ezio is in charge of a small band of Assassins, who are defending their base from a multi-wave Templar assault. The multiplayer returns again, and because of the recent release of the game (2011), the graphics are up-to-date. Another great game in the Assassin's Creed series, a must buy.The most recent installment of the series is Assassin's Creed 3 (2012), or as it is most commonly known, AC3. The story jumps from Renaissance Italy, and Etzio, to Colonial America (Boston and New York). The new Assassin is Connor, a half white, half Native American, man. He is the largest, and strongest Assassin so far in the series. Connor, in an attempt to stop the Templars from entering America, joins forces with George Washington and the colonial rebels, to gain independence from the English, who's military is backed by the Templars. The story is, like all the other games in the series, par-excellence, and follows the American revolution. Besides the Templar-Assassins conflict, and the America-England conflict, a conflict emerges in the game between Connor's new life, and his Native American life. A slew of new weapons are introduced. Connor is armed with a sword/axe/blunt weapon (player's choice), a flintlock pistol, dual wrist blades, poison darts, robe darts (interesting weapons that can be used to hang enemies from tree branches), and dual wielding a knife and tomahawk/dagger (player's choice). The assassins recruiting feature returns, along with the multiplayer. Naval combat is introduced, Connor is the captain of the Aquila, a small (upgradeable) ship that can be used with the French navy to stop the British, or used to find Templars to assassinate on the high seas, to find pirate treasure, or to privateer and gain riches. As of this post, one DLC has come out for AC3, a alternate story that adds a lot of new gameplay. Another absolutely great game, a must buy.
The next Assassin's Creed game to come out will be Assassin's Creed 4, Black Flag. It follows the story of Edward Kenway, Connor's grandfather. The game is to be released in fall 2013, and will be 40% naval combat. Edward is a pirate, who's Assassin skills make him uber deadly. He duel wields two cutlasses, and has four flintlock pistols, along the the wrist blades. The naval combat is very much the same, but the map includes Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Mexico, and the rest of the Caribbean. Not much information has been released, but the game looks promising.
Overall rating, based on story line, playability, replay ability, however, the repetitive feel between games and missions impedes this series from getting a perfect score.
9 of 10
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