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So, it's funny, my last post prior to the hiatus was about my tackling Assassin's Creed II, and now I'm talking about its sequel, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.  More specifically, I'm going to talk about its use of Facebook integration, and how this might end up becoming a game changer.  Plus, I'll go on about my recent splash into the multiplayer pool.

(As an aside, I'm picking this up about a day week month after I started writing it, citing AC:B as the culprit, and it's given me even more fuel.)

So, at this point, I'm apparently at 95 125 149 hours of game time in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, according to the way Raptr tracks time, and I still have not completed the single player campaign.  This also doesn't include the time spent playing the ARG on Facebook called Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy, which ties into the narrative of AC:B, but from the POV of the antagonists.  This has had the effect of making the game a little more immersive than one would normally find the game, as you can't really escape it when you're not at your console.

That said, the fact that I have played a lot of time also starts to creep into one's day to day perception as you start to see walls as potential climbing surfaces, and railings as things to creep along.  To be honest, I'm not sure if I should be amused by that, or terrified.

Anywho, Ubisoft have hit home with AC:B, and not just with the Facebook tie-in.  The multiplayer in AC:B is something that's truly astounding, as it (to a certain extent) reinvents the concept of multiplayer, at least as it pertains to console game.  The multiplayer in AC:B rewards patience and strategy, as opposed to speed and mayhem.  It's a quality over quantity game, and that has made it addictive to me, and has finally gotten me over my hesitance to play online.  (I have very mild agoraphobia* in real life, and it's inexplicably carried over to online life, despite the obvious absurdity of that.)

The best way to describe the multiplayer of AC:B is either full-contact tag, or lethal hide and seek.  Basically, you're assigned a target and you hunt that target through the streets of one of the maps.  The catch is the map is populated my multiple NPCs that share the exact same skin as your target, and you have to learn to identify the player from the bots.  It's as widely fun as it sounds, and it's what's jacked up those number of hours, on top of delaying my posting.

So, along with the AC:B multiplayer, I've also dipped my toes into multiplayer for the controversial shooter, 2010's rebooted shooter, Medal of Honor. The controversy around this game was that due to its setting of modern day Afghanistan, the opposing side to western soldiers was the Taliban, and players would then play out the part of Taliban fighters killing western troops.  While I'd applaud a game that seriously portrays the conflict in Afghanistan in way that brings it home to players, a glorified Counterstrike is not the way to do it.  Even the serious single player campaign is a nod into the somewhat more glamorous black-ops worlds, as opposed to the life of a normal soldier, which would be more educational.

That said, my experience with MoH's multiplayer is more of what I'd expected, as I was played off players who were far higher ranked than myself (usually around 17th+ level.)  It wasn't fun, and was terrifyingly chaotic, which oddly enough, is closer to what living through a real firefight would be like, I'd imagine.  I may try the other modes of conflict, but I suspect that it's just not for me.

(I also tried the multiplayer in NBA Jam, but my connection crapped out.)

So, as I explore multiplayer a bit more, expect more insight into it.

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* It's not the fear of wide-open spaces, so it's not the same absurdity you'd expect it to be.