Priced at 320 Microsoft points or the format equivalent, each character has ‘unique taunts, weapons and stylised assassination moves’ for you to play around with online. The pack arrives December 13th, just in time for Christmas

This new trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations will catch you up on what has happened in the past three titles without you having to play them and obviously they are full of spoilers. A “previously on” if you will.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations is coming very, very soon. It is released worldwide tomorrow.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The trailer shows in game play and is narrated to give it that overall movie trailer feeling.

Expect murder, deceit and a satisfying experience.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Florentine assassin will make use of various weapons including a Longsword, Crossbow, Hidden gun and, of course, his iconic Hidden Blade, when the game is released in Europe on February 3rd 2012.

Olivier Comte, Senior Vice President at NAMCO BANDAI Partners said:

Ezio has captured the imaginations of millions of fans around the world, and it will be very exciting to see how his lightning fast moves stand up to the mighty swordplay of SoulCalibur’s finest.

You can watch Ezio in action over at GameTrailers, here.

Details have also been announced of the Collector’s “Book Box” Edition, which will include :

• High quality art book
• Original soundtrack CD
• Making-of DVD
• DLC card for Black Knight and Paladin armour sets
• Original artwork and letter on parchment paper, signed by the Project Soul team

And, as a pre-order bonus, Dampierre from SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny will be available as a playable character.

The image is likely to be a fake created by the source however Soul Calibur is a series known for including special characters such as Darth Vader, Spawn, even Dante was supposed to be included in Soul Calibur 3.

There is no proof bar the below image nor has there been confirmation, if the game follows in the footsteps of the previous games in the series Ezio will likely be a console exclusive meaning either Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 players will get someone else? Who could it be?

If you still want the 3D experience but lack the funds for a 3DTV you can always use “TriOviz Inficolor” glasses for the 3D effect.

You’ll be able to experience the life of an assassin in 3D (sort of) from November 15.

Revelations is a fitting name for the game that will end the two story-lines that have built the game up to what it is now; Altair and Ezio.

The trailer ends with details on the GAME exclusive Assassin’s Creed: Revelations “Special Edition” which includes:

• Standard box with exclusive artwork.
• Single player theme soundtrack.
• Ezio Ultimate Armor (in single player).
• 1 exclusive character from Assassin’s Creed Revelations (in multiplayer).
• 1 multiplayer character from Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood revamped in Constantinople theme.

The game releases worldwide November 15th.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m not complaining, the man knows his voice better than the back of his hand although out of everyone in the game, The Penguin would’ve been the last on my list. Nolan’s appearance was confirmed today by CVG during an interview with Dax Ginn of Rocksteady. You can check out the interview here.

Hopefully this means we can see some better quality adaptations of games in the cinema. Personally I relish the chance of seeing an Assassin’s Creed movie.

It might be best to finish Assassin’s Creed II first of all for those who haven’t as the game picks up right where that game left off and although it does give a quick recap, you don’t get the full experience than if you played through II.  You carry on the story as Ezio Auditore, the main hero of the second game and after acquiring the Apple of Eden from Rodrigo Borgia in II, life for the Auditore family and friends seems to be good.  That is until an attack on the Monteriggioni Villa occurs and the Apple of Eden that Ezio trusted his Uncle Mario with gets stolen by Borgia’s son, Cesare who is the main villain in the game.  Due to certain circumstances, Ezio travels to Rome to take back the Apple of Eden and to bring down the power the Borgia has over the capital city.  Old faces make a return here such as Ezio’s good friend, Leonardo Da Vinci who is perhaps a minor part here in comparison to the major one he played in AC II.

As with the rest of the series, you also play as Desmond Miles, Ezio’s descendant who along with his rag-tag team have escaped from the clutches of Abstergo and have found shelter in a very familiar area and continue their research of Ezio and co via the Animus, a device that allows the user to relive memories as one’s ancestor.  There is not much within this part of the game apart from exploring said area for artifacts but let’s just say that if you thought the ending to the 2^nd game was weird, the ending to Brotherhood is probably even more confusing that I hope gets explained when Assassin’s Creed III comes around.  While the continuing story of Desmond and Ezio isn’t a bad one, it is not as thorough as the 2^nd one as it just seems at times you are out to kill some targets for the hell of it and don’t have a meaning like they did in II.  There are some memorable moments throughout the story such as the aforementioned ending that make the experience worthwhile at the end of the day.

While the continuing story of Desmond and Ezio isn’t a bad one, it is not as thorough as the 2nd one.

If you played the previous games in the series, you will know the main gameplay mechanics already and they are not much different in this.  Ezio can traverse Rome finding viewpoints, Borgia flags and feathers but also go on a variety of missions such as tailing someone, sneaking into certain locations without getting caught and of course, having to assassinate certain targets.  While some of these missions you can get through without much of a problem, some of the more difficult missions are when you pretty much have to strictly follow the guidelines and not get caught or kill anyone etc or else you will become desynchronised.  There are a variety of side missions also including flashback missions that see Ezio back in his Florence days falling for a girl known as Cristina and while they are not necessary to complete, they are a pleasant little sidestep to the main story and might give you a little more understanding to the overall character of Ezio.

There are a pack of side missions you do for Leonardo da Vinci that require you to destroy war machines he helped make for the Borgia that are exciting to play through as the end parts when you get control of these machines are pretty much different to what you experience in the rest of the game.  As before, you can obtain certain upgrades from Leonardo da Vinci but this time you have to pay rather than get codex pages.

Those of you who enjoyed the renovating aspect of Assassin’s Creed II would be happen to know it makes a return here but on a much grander scale.  Before, you only had to renovate the Monteriggioni Villa area but this time you are tasked with renovating the city of Rome itself, whether it is a blacksmith’s shop, a bank or a broken aquaduct. There are many buildings in need of repair throughout Rome and you will need plenty of florins in order to renovate them all but like before, you will receive a certain amount of florins depending on how much you have restored Rome.  So the more you renovate, the more you get in your bank that Ezio can deposit from to help here repair more buildings.

These shops also have shop quests for you to tackle that require Ezio to come back with a certain number of items in order to unlock new items whether it is a new sword from the blacksmith or a treasure map of the Vatican from the Art merchant.  This part was unnecessary I believe since it was hard to find the items they required and would have easily spent a couple of hours just getting a couple of the items let alone all of them but for completionists, it might be up your street though.

However in order to renovate areas of Rome, you will have to rid that area of Borgia influence as the shops and buildings are locked out from being renovated until you get rid of it.  This comes in the form of the Borgia towers, which are towers that oversee areas that are restricted to Ezio but he has to sneak his way in and assassinate the captain that overruns the area.  This has to be done before the tower can be climbed and then ignited once you reach the top.  These towers also are viewpoints so if you want to view the whole map, best to synchronise before you ignite.

Wait, online? Yes!

The tombs make a welcome return in Brotherhood, as they were some of the more enjoyable parts in Assassin’s Creed II.  This time around, they are known as the Lairs of Romulus, that are associated with the Followers of Romulus that are a group of new enemies Ezio encounters in Brotherhood that  are beastly, fur-clad zealots.  Other than these lairs and a mission introducing you to them early in the game, they are not incorporated into the main story, which is a shame but guess they aren’t that integral to the main story anyway.  Once again, you traverse these tombs fighting the followers and picking up treasure along the way and obtain a scroll of Romulus that helps you get one step closer to obtaining the Romulus treasure.  It follows the same format in II that got you the Armour of Altair but when it is done as well as it was in II,  there is nothing to complain about.

One of the new aspects in Brotherhood is associated with the name of the game and that is recruiting a brotherhood of assassins to help you along the way to taken down the Borgia Empire.  It is introduced to the player several hours into the game and while it is a nice little addition, it is not essential in the overall story arc, as they don’t be part of some sort of big war or whatnot between the Borgia and the Brotherhood, which would have been very cool in my opinion.  However, they are very useful in helping Ezio progress through certain missions that might require the use of them in order to obtain full synchronisation.  In order to recruit assassins, you will have to search for them on the map and help them fight out soldiers before they become part of your group.  A good point to add is that the more Borgia towers you’ve destroyed at this part of the game, the more assassins you can recruit.

You can send these assassins out on missions throughout Europe that help them rank up to becoming fully-fledged assassins.  This is all done via text screens and It is always great to see the mission succeed and seeing your assassins rank up and giving them more armour or a new weapon for them to use.  They can be called at any time to do your dirty work and kill certain targets and they are required in a few missions in the game so it is useful to have more assassins than a few so you have some to spare once you send some out for missions.

Assassin’s Creed isn’t the type of series that people would think would work with a multiplayer component latched onto it, as they felt it wouldn’t work within the game’s mechanics.  For those of you not sure on it, put your minds to rest, as the multiplayer is a fine addition to the series and is a good excuse to take a break from the single-player campaign.  Multiplayer holds up to a maximum of 8 players and while that doesn’t seem as grand as the 16 player maximum you see in other online games, what you get is a tightly-knit intense experience at the end of the day.  Multiplayer is spilt up into several modes like Wanted, which is the game’s name for Free-for-all that has you assigned to assassinating another target, which is of course another player but at the same time you have to evade players who are assigned to assassinating you.  These are played on a number of maps like districts of Rome and old locales you remember from AC II and beyond.  Points are rewarded not only by killing your assigned target but in the way you do it.  Example being that you will receive more points from killing someone from high above rather than running up to them and killing them from behind.

With a stellar single-player and a fun multiplayer to boot, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is another great addition to the Assassin’s Creed series.

It might not sound much on paper but what makes it exciting to play is the fact that the map is littered with people who look similar to your target and only with the help of the indicator, which only gives you the general direction of where your target may be that you can find them more easily but they can disguise themselves as someone else therefore escape from your clutches if you manage to assassinate the wrong person. Disguise is one of the powers that you obtain as you rank up in multiplayer and you will obtain more such as the pistol or being able to use eagle vision to spot your target easily. Nothing is more intense when you assassinate someone in a cool way only for it to happen to you just a few seconds later due to the fact you gave yourself away.  It is really a game of hide-and-seek at the end of the day but a great one at that.  With new modes and maps being added, expect to come back to this every now and again to see what’s new on the table.

While the game offers much variety and is very fun to play, it is not perfect since it has its problems.  The controls are not always your friend in that they can be a bit too sensitive at times when you are rapidly traversing the tombs or buildings of Rome and you can easily fall off or fail a mission because of it.  There are a few graphical glitches that occur in that certain textures don’t load up immediately especially after renovating buildings but it isn’t disastrous and it’s a minor nuisance at best.  Finally, as stated before some of the missions can be a bit difficult thanks to the controls and the guidelines you have to follow but these problems don’t detract a lot from the brilliance of the overall game.

Let’s face facts: exploring the different cities in Assassin’s Creed II was a visual delight, as each city you explored had its own identity unlike the first game where the three main cities looked quite similar.  While Brotherhood only has the one city along with a few other areas in certain parts of the game, you will not be disappointed for long, as Rome is massive and is gleaming with fine, intricate detail that is even more splendid when you realise that some of the locations are from real-life counterparts such as the Castel Sant’Angelo.  The Assassin’s Creed series has been renowned for its graphical quality with fluid animation when it comes to the parkour and the vibrant colourful settings you explore throughout the series and nothing much has changed here although there may be a hiccup or two along the way but these are not game-breaking and don’t take way the fact that this is still a dazzling looking game.

The music and sound quality in Brotherhood is the same top standard you seen throughout the series.  While I experienced the game in English, it shows how much work Ubisoft put into this game when there is an opition to play the game using Italian dialogue rather than English so you can have a more authentic experience this way.  Each character is voiced in a believable way and therefore makes hearing the game that much sweeter.  The lavish score you come to see from this series is back and manages to convey what is occurring on the screen perfectly.  It could be intense running away from guards and just hearing that orchestra kick in at the right moment and just hearing the sounds of crows and people talking as you traverse Rome just makes the world you explore that more believable.  The whole graphical and sound production is done brilliantly and there is not much to fault about either of them.

With a stellar single-player and a fun multiplayer to boot, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is another great addition to the Assassin’s Creed series.  While the story isn’t always exciting, the ending is mad confusing and the controls aren’t always precise, the rest of this package more than makes up for it as the world you explore is full of things to do and with added DLC to boot in the future for the multiplayer, you should be coming back to the Brotherhood for a good long time.

Thanks to Ubisoft for providing us with a promotional copy for review.