You don't play Assassin's Creed games because the combat is good - it's just ok, not for the story because frankly it's crap and not because of parkour or freerunning because it's just holding the right trigger and pushing the left stick forward.

You play them because the world is immersive and captivating. The open world here is honestly more interactive and interesting than what Rockstar Games offered in GTAV.

• You can buy and rebuild stores and landmarks that bring revenue.

• You can hire members of the Courtesans, Thieves and Mercenaries, the 3 friendly factions in the game. A group of Courtesans create a "crowd" in which you can hide or they can lure guards away without much noise. Thieves attack and lure away guards in a more aggressive and quicker way. Mercenaries will simply help you take on you enemies.

• The city has several Towers where the antagonist faction resides, destroying one will rid a city area off of their "influence" and the city streets will have rebellious citizens who openly critisize every passing guard and will slow down guards that are chasing you.

• Destroying a tower isn't a side quest, it's part of the open world, it requires you to infiltrate a restricted area, assassinate an officer without alerting him (because then he will flee), and afterwards climb a tower and set it on fire.

Most of the enjoyment from this game I got from roaming the open world, buying properties and liberating areas because it made the areas more active and living with all the citizens that appear. It felt that what I was doing made a difference as opposed to watching a cutscene where I'm told that "The last assassination really hurt our enemies!" or something like that.

There are a few additions compared to AC2, you can hire Assassins and use them in combat but it ultimately didn't change much.

The story missions are mostly linear and boring, Ubisoft wasn't able to utilize their beatiful, living and breathing open world in story missions, though it must be a pretty difficult task.

The story itself, I just didn't care. I didn't care in AC2 and here it's even more bland.

All in all, it's better than what came before, because of more activity in the open world. Yes, it's mostly ticking the items on the list: climb a tower, synchronize, burn the tower, buy property, rince repeat. Ubi games have been critisized for sharing this design model but I have to say, it's pretty entertaining. Don't know why but it just is. But i can totally understand why some people hate it.

This AC entry is a direct sequel to Assassin's Creed II, so the MC is yet again Ezio on a journey in Renaissance Italy. Set primarily in Rome, the game refines the series’ formula by introducing squad-based mechanics, Ezio can recruit and train fellow assassins, adding a new strategic layer to missions. I enjoyed this mechanic very much, especially since it felt like the perfect fit for the lore of the game, taking into account the first title that we are introduced by an order and it's members.

The city of Rome is richly detailed and massive, offering numerous side quests, collectibles, and territory control mechanics, and I think this one strikes a good balance in side-content, especially compared to the more modern titles, which are longer than they should be, for no good reason. The combat is more fluid and aggressive, and the story balances historical intrigue with the series’ sci-fi narrative arc.

While not a radical departure from its predecessor, Brotherhood stands out for its polished gameplay, meaningful progression systems, and surprisingly robust multiplayer mode—a first for the franchise, it even added a multiplayer mode, which fit perfectly into the proposal of this title, was quite nice but not really my thing. This is a refined and content-rich sequel that expands on AC II’s strengths without losing its narrative momentum.

I don't owe the second game so I just skipped to Brotherhood and for me Brotherhood takes the style, feeling and interesting parts of the first game and just tops them. The visuals are beautiful, the controls are much, much more easy, even if that might be that I get used to them.The character of Ezio for me is much better than Altair's, even if his arc ain't as big or nice as Altair's.

My biggest problem with the first game was that the objectives were pretty much the same. Here some missions might have a similar style, but they always change and they always are different and I really enjoyed that. It made the game much more easy and fun to play. Also I really liked how they incorporated the stealth technic too. Certain missions had to be made stealth, but it wasn't like tremendously hard. It would always give you just enough help to go pass them.

The first seven sequences also went by really smoothly, but I do think that the last two were kinda rushed and the time moved way too fast. Still I get why they would do that for the story, but it didn't go as smooth as with the story before. Also I really liked how the Desmond story is just in the start and the end, because in the first time it was kinda boring going from Assassin to just walking through a lab.

Now the story was pretty simple and forward, but it didn't mind me. The villain in the end did get kinda over the top, but he still did feel kinda threatening. The ending leaves you with a really big cliffhanger, just like in the first and I get why they do that (to sell the next one too), but I would prefer if it felt more complete as a game on its own rather than feel like a part of a universe.

Overall I really enjoyed Brotherhood, more than I expected, and I would really recommend it. I did get lost at first, because I hadn't played 2, but it does give you a "What happened in the previous episode" so to catch on. Really excited to play Revelations.