xtal said

Toger: How are you finding Brotherhood compared to AC2? I haven't opened up Brotherhood yet because, er... Dark Souls.

It's different yet similar:

There's still viewpoints to climb and activate, but the added "feature" is that most (if not all) are towers controlled by the Borgia so you're required to eliminate a high-ranking Borgia loyalist first. Once you've done that the tower becomes an assassin tower and you're able to renovate that section of Rome and install tailors, blacksmith, art merchant, etc. Renovations also include "faction" buildings where you can choose to install either courtesans, mercenaries or thieves; "buying" ruins or repairing broken aqueducts all of which generates money for your coffers.

The main assassin hideout is smaller so there isn't as much art to collect (boo). The shops surrounding the hideout have quests where you need to find rare items in order to get special weapons, armour or the best poison which requires your hunting down every single treasure chest (tedious). There's still feathers and flags to collect (It's never explained why Ezio still collects feathers as Maria is no longer catatonic).

I've had fun recruiting assassins and sending them out on jobs, plus they've been quite handy in ridding myself of the Borgia captains on several occasions.

Instead of assassin tombs to plunder Ezio infiltrates the "lair" of a secret sect called Romulus in order to find a key that will open the door to the sect's treasure. Those are fun as there's lots of climbing involved.

There's a  lot of timed chases (hate, hate, hate). And the follow missions still exist. There are times I despise that countdown clock that appears when your target is out of sight.

I haven't spent a lot of time finding the glyphs this time around; although I'll probably try to finish those off (there's only 10) before activating the last main storyline sequence.

The biggest difference I've found is that every mission has an added "do this in x minutes or kill with y weapon or do not lose x amount of health, etc" for 100% synchronization. I'm assuming the purpose was to make it more challenging than simply carrying out the mission which in some cases is difficult enough with the abundance of guards. You don't have to get the 100% to complete the mission, but it's annoying nonetheless.

Anyway, I enjoy the Ezio storyline and climbing the buildings. The rest is just icing - be it sweet or bitter - on the cake.

I actually just meant the main quest line. I no doubt could have finished it long ago ... but why do that when there's exploring to be done!

Toger, I've always hated the damn timed/chase side missions. Especially when a rambunctious passerby decides to jump in front of me and be an ass for no good reason, causing the target to be "lost." Infuriating. The best parts of the first two AC games were the wall-scaling and various stealth jobs.

AC2 is one of my favourite games of this generation, so I quite look forward to Brotherhood.

Anyone playing Guild Wars 2 yet? I've been trying to remind myself it exists every few weeks leading up to its release since we no longer have Lewis' articles flooding the front page.

Alas, it is here. I'd like to play it for a bit, but there's always the downside that MMOs have which is... it's an MMO. I can't explain it any better.

Sorry xtal, didn't notice your question because I've been too busy playing GW2

Lew offered to pre-order GW2 for me if I did him a few favours around his house-- how could I refuse?

Basically, GW2 is as good as a lot of people are making out -- my brother's fervour is well founded -- but more over, what makes it such an enjoyable experience for somebody like me who doesn't play MMOGs, hasn't played any MMOGs and wasn't going to play any MMOGs is that it feels very laid back and 'casual' for want of a better word. It's a nice game to dip in and get lost. There's a lot of things that fold into this feeling though so I'm going to just spill my thoughts here:

• There's no strictly defined roles for players (no pure trinity classes ie. no tanks, healers, ranged classes), classes are incredibly flexible with different gear (which is doled out very early on).
• All players can revive others so there's this lovely culture of passers by helping you to your feet if you got smashed.
• There's no preferred way of gaining XP so things like crafting and cooking are perfectly viable ways of leveling.
• Loot/drops and XP aren't shared so there's no rushing or competing for them. Sure you get medals depending on how you contributed to a given task but that's a personal thing and really quite rewarding when you get a gold.
• If you play with lower level friends you'll be de-leveled to make it fair and fun (and possible), the same goes for if you go back to an early area, you'll be de-leveled so you can take part in events without steamrolling the efforts of other players.
• Waypoints, once they're discovered, mean getting around the world is only ever a few clicks and copper coins away.
• There's no endless shopping list of quests to do or annoying treks back and forth from 'quest givers' (or even much talking with them), it's simply a case of exploring and bumping into dynamic events which can spiral off into all kinds of scenarios depending on how well the group of players in the area deal with it. As such it feels very hands on with few tedious formalities.
• The 'quests' or events themselves are numerous and really varied.
• The combat is very punchy and satisfying once you've got your noggin around the many, many abilities it's possible to wield.
• The world itself is beautiful and a joy to just bumble about in. There's a lot of stuff unmarked on your map so you come across all sorts of things on your travels.
• Underwater bits!
• PvP and epic WvW!
• (Optional) platforming bits with nice rewards!
• In fact, nearly everything is optional, that's what makes it so appealing.

There's a lot more that I'm failing to think of but I'm just getting all sorts of lovely vibes from it, it's such a forward-thinking, robust, beautiful and slick package. I can certainly see myself playing it for a long time to come. It's a game that doesn't hold your hand but is quick to cross it with rewards if you're prepared to just jump in and get involved. It's not fussy or impenetrable and, y'know, Harbour Master posted up a conversation between a few folks on Twitter talking about 'pressure/power gaming' culture and I think Guild Wars 2 manages to totally avoid all that because it's such a democratic and open experience. I always got the impression that you'd have to take all that stuff on the chin if you wanted to play an MMOG but apparently not. I'd love to play it with some fellow Tappers, it's got fun expansive co-op written all over it, in PvE, PvP and WvW.