Gaming: The Daily Creed 07: The brave (?) people of Rome

The Daily Creed is a series of (mostly) bitesize posts about my ongoing playthrough of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, sequel to what is still currently my fourth favourite game of 2009. The first post is here.

It seems that every person in this picture is looking at Ezio and thinking, "Yeah, I could probably take him." Except perhaps for the guards.

As with Assassin’s Creed 2, money isn’t hard to come by in the sequel. The economy essentially breaks once you’ve bought a few businesses, with large payments appearing in banks every twenty minutes. While there are others ways to earn money – finding florins in chests, looting corpses and picking pockets – there’s really little need to do so.

There are other reasons to pick pockets though. One is that each time you do so it raises your notoriety, so passing through a busy street is a good way to quickly build it up and ensure guards will always be looking for a fight. The other is that you get to see just how the citizens of Rome react.

When you are first taught to pick pockets you are told it’s best not to hang around for the victim to discover the crime. My opinion of what constitutes a good idea often seems to diverge from Ubisoft’s, so I decided to give it a try. I stood in the middle of a crowded street, held the X button and waited for my victims to walk by.

Some don’t notice until they’re far enough away. Some realised I did it and backed away fearfully. Some though, the real heroes, decided they couldn’t let my actions go by unpunished. With the guards in the game being so incompetent their only recourse is to enter a fistfight with this heavily armed, notorious killer, attempting to find an exposed place to strike him between the armour and half a dozen weapons.

Needles to say, it doesn’t go well for these brave souls and I soon had a trio of people groaning at my feet. I picked more pockets, started more fights, and before long there were about twenty men and women – Ezio doesn’t hold back with the headbutts once the fists start flying, regardless of gender – all on the ground, rolling back and forth in pain. Even then, with about two dozen bodies around me, the next person to take offence to my pickpocketing would still try his luck. Perhaps he thought I was tired out. Nope!

So here’s to the brave, stupid citizens of Rome. Salute!

Next on The Daily Creed: Brother and sisterhood.

Previously on the Daily Creed: Pavlovian Punching