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So, I've spent some time playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I had read the reviews from IGN and from reading that I was off put before I even popped the game into my PS3. However, it turns out ING just decided to complain about things that are trivial. Let's start shall we?

Story

Now, for those of you who haven't played AC2 you're going to become lost on some of the finer details, but overall the story is easy to pick up, and for it's purposes, idepth enough. Not as good as AC2's story when it comes to Ezio, but I like how you get to see more of Desmond and the other modern assassins in this. Now, I've heard complaints that Ezio lacks growth as a character to this, but, what these people have forgotten is that Brotherhood is a direct continuation of the story of AC2, so really there shouldn't be much growth character wise since Ezio has already achieved that. I did however, enjoy the fact that Claudia provided some growth, and at times humour through out the story.

Gameplay

Now this is where ACB really shines. The gameplay has been completely revamped from the older Assassin's Creeds. No longer am I fighting to a predictable rhythm where the sole way to kill a guard is to counter kill. The ability to string kills together moving from one guard to the next makes fights faster and more entertaining. WHile some might find this system lend the game to be "easier" the AI has been upgraded and will strike without much warning, so just as you're about to kill a pesky guard someone behind you might have the good idea to attack, thus ending you're kill streak and possibly causing you more problems than you'd like, especially if you run into guards with heavy weapons.

Another interesting new feature is the economy. It's a lot easier to earn money now, but that doesn't mean you'll be getting the best of everything, a few of the best things require you to obtain special trade items and they're not all easy to find. But, having the ability to fix up and buy shops, aqueducts and some famous landmarks such as the Pantheon made me motivated to run around doing the whole load of sidequests just to kill time so I could have enough money to pay for it all.

Speaking of side quests there's a lot of them, and I mean A LOT. From Assassination Contracts, Templar Agents, variours guild quests and even supressed memories of a young Ezio. Not to mention The Lairs of Romulus. Now, these are a real treat. They're all unique and not so much on puzzle solving than simply getting through them. There's also the Borgia towers which you get to burn so that you can liberate Rome from Borgia influence, and once you get through enough core memories you can start recruiting assassins. One for every tower you destroy for a total of 12. It's true that the assassins are only there for the sole purpose of a side quest, and acumulate to nothing more than that, but man is it ever fun to upgrade them simply to see them kill your enemies for you. Some might see as calling for assassin's to help you in a fight something like a crutch, but really you're the one who presses the button so it's up to you, you don't have to call them, but like I said, it's fun.

Graphics

Rome is amazingly well put together. I've really only experienced minor glitches and nothing that hurts the graphics in anyway. The textures seem to have gone up a notch from AC2 which is nice. Really not much to say here.

Comments

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is starting to really show what this franchise can achieve at it's full potential. Brootherhood slowed things down a little in terms of free running and horse riding (but I never used a horse much anyway so that doesn't matter), but in some ways it was necesary just so you could navigate Rome a little easier. I'm interested to see what AC3 is going to be like because the story is really intriguing and I'd love to know where it's going to go.

Overall: 8.9/10