I purchased my Collector's Edition at a local Best Buy but decided to write a review here.
I have a couple of hours worth of the game, so I can not properly critique the game aside from stating that it holds true to the traditional game mechanics and controls with some exciting new elements added all taking place within the vast and beautiful city of Rome. It has a decently intriguing story with a well written dialogue. I felt more of an addictive sense of urgency from the ACII story line that kept me really hooked, although Brotherhood is good, I can easily put it down. At least for now, maybe the excitement will build? The game thus far presents the feeling of being a massive add on to its predecessor rather then being a full fledged sequel, which was expected by most, I believe.
I have only played one round of multiplayer, so I'll reserve my judgment. I do look forward to exploring it more. However, I do dislike that you can't have a friend playing on the same console, though it makes sense considering the stealthy game play, it's still a bummer.
The primary focus of this review is regarding the contents of the Collector's Edition. The Jack In The Box (Doctor) is made of hard and rubbery plastic. The paint job is very bland with no highlights or shading and lacks precision in some places. There is even a patch of noticeable clear glue on his face where it must have dripped down when they attached his hat. That's Chinese quality for you. Despite that, its not a horrible collectable (it has a simplistic charm) and it does pop up very quickly when you unlock it. The Art Book is very small, not even the size of an XBox game case. The pictures are gorgeous, however tiny, containing mostly landscapes and different groups of people, but not all of them. The Map is made from the same material as XBox game manuals, small and folded up. It's certainly not intended for reference, just decoration. The backside has the same picture as the game case with printed signatures from the more prominent Ubisoft team members who worked on the game. The Special DVD is not very expansive, there are a couple of short summaries about story and production (not a "making") of the game, handful of promotional trailers, a brief black and white comic preview and a six song soundtrack you can listen to if you play the game or download it. The special additional single player content and multiplayer character (Officer) were a nice bonus.
Personally, I am a little disappointed, but I don`t regret my purchase. I would advise waiting for a better deal on the price for both the game itself and the Collector's Edition. Ultimately, it depends on how much you love the series (and collectables) to determine whether it's worth the extra $40. Hope this helps! Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Collector's Edition
It took a while for me to get into this game. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Assassin's Creed fan and I've been following all the news for this game ever since January when the first news broke out. The game feels like an expansion of ACII and Ezio's story is much much slower and less climactic than Assassin's Creed II. Other than the attack on Monteriggioni in the beginning, the game's progression is rather bland and it lacks the sense of purpose that other AC games have had. You'll spend a lot of time doing missions without really understanding or even caring how it pertains to the overall story, however, the ending of Brotherhood made everything worth while and it'll leave you begging for more. Rome is massive, but I did miss exploring different cities--I kind of felt like I was stuck in one place instead of exploring an immersive world. You do get to play as Desmond in the present much more as well as explore small outside areas of Rome but nothing to the scale of previous AC games. The additional game play content not related to the story is massive. I beat this game only to figure out that I completed just 25% of what's available; you'll definitely get your money's worth. Overall I really enjoyed playing this game and if you're an Assassin's Creed fan, you'll definitely not want to miss out on this addition to the story.
Now to the collectibles! The jack-in-the box was a really cool idea in concept, but Ubisoft cheaped out and used Chinese labour to build it. It smells like cheap plastic and it's just not what I was expecting--the paint job is not very detailed and it weighs a little more than the cardboard box it came in. The jack-in-the-box's poor build quality is making me not want to buy another collector's edition of any AC game in the future. As for the art book, it isn't as expansive as you'd imagine; a Google image search for "Assassin's Creed Brotherhood art" will probably give you all the images available in the book. The piece I was most excited about was the behind the scenes DVD...what a huge disappointment. From the title "behind the scenes" I was expecting something at least a half hour long explaining how the story developed, production details and other interesting things that go into making a game as great as Assassin's Creed but what I got was a half-assed video of the same 3 developers talking about the game in a general manner; as if they had read a 3 paragraph article about the game and were told to talk about the article. I think the DVD was a little over 5 minutes long--I mean my god, bloggers have gone into more details then the DVD did!
Overall, I thought the game was excellent; not necessarily something that should have warranted a full fledged $60 release, but maybe a $30 add-on to AC 2. I feel like the extra content (the other 75% of the game I didn't finish by the time I completed the main story) was just tacked on in an effort to artificially make the game longer. The extra $40 for the cheap collectibles is just...not...worth it to be honest. I work in Graphic Design and I hear a lot from other designers about the costs of mass produced works and it literally must have cost about $6 per unit extra to make the collectibles. This doesn't warrant a $40 extra charge. If the jack-in-the-box was made of wood or maybe even tin and the attention to detail given...DETAIL then maybe $40 would have been justified but a plastic box, a 5 minute exclusive DVD with Youtube videos stuffed in there to make it seem longer, a soundtrack with 6 songs, an artbook that's actually a book and not a booklet just doesn't make this worth it. - Assassins Creed - Awesomeness - Ezio - Ubisoft'
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