So as you guys might know, I was at E3 last week. I’m surprised to have readers who actually want to hear more about my experience at E3. I guess I should stop procrastinating and start blogging. Like it or not, I’ll be making a post a day for the next 7 days about my experience :/
Let’s start the ball rolling with Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.
The single player mode was not available for us to try, but from the demo, it seemed like a solid game. Let’s not forget Assassin’s Creed is a successful franchise. Top selling game for PS3 in 2007 and definitely a best seller for the 2009 holiday season. Anyway, moving on…
I had a chance to try out the new “Wanted” mode for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and I really liked the multiplayer mode! Wanted mode is FFA with a twist.
You start by choosing your character. Then you get to select from a few skill sets, none of which were unique to any characters. That kind of surprised me there as I expected different characters to have different abilities. You can change your skills after every death.
In a regular FFA, you try to kill everybody. Over in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, you are given a target (another human player) and you can only kill your target. I’m really in favour of this idea. No more kill steal, no more lucky multiple frags. It removes some of the annoyances of FFA. If you kill the wrong person, you lose your target and you bum around for the next few seconds while the computer finds your next target. So yes, every attempt counts.
And every move counts too. Stealth is very critical. Make an action that does not blend with the crowd (ie run, or even climb walls) and you will alert your prey of your presence. Oh, and your predator too. Yup, as you are hunting for your kill, other human players are also trying to get you. You really do not want to make questionable moves.
I really like how the game scoring system works too. You get bonus points for the quality of your kill. Silent or aerial assassination all gives bonus points. A kill is worth 100 points, a silent kill an additional 200 points. Yes. So kill quality matters a lot. This is not your average point and shoot game. You also score points for losing your attacker or humiliating him (by killing him. Press “O” as he is about to strike).
I apologize as I cannot describe the game well in words. But in this game, there really is no “rest time”. Your killer could be any random dude trolling the streets. You really got to keep your eyes peeled for your attacker all the time while trying to hunt your target. You are an assassin. A very lonely assassin in a very dangerous world. The adrenaline rush is exhilarating.
I’ll make my first prediction now. This could very well be the number 1 game this holiday season.
