Gaming needs one thing and that is new ideas. The FPS genre has all but maxed out and sandbox games have become GTA and everyone else. The Assassin”s Creed franchise is just that. A third person adventure that is part stealth, part sandbox, part RPG, part combat, and all awesome. AC: Brotherhood is a continuation of the great AC2 and is much more than an expansion pack.

I am going to get this out of the way now. AC: Bros is AC 2.5. That being said, it is very, very good. In AC2, you were in Rome, sort of. It was basically a place to pass through and was nothing like we imagined. The reason for that was in AC: Bros, you spend the entire game in Rome and it is beautiful. All the landmarks are there and much more. The story continues from AC2, so either play that first or wikipedia the ending. It will help. The game offers all the things you would expect but on a grander scale. You no longer rebuild your family estate, you rebuild all of Rome. You can earn a ton of money for weapons and armor by restoring shut down shops, broken aqueducts, and even landmarks.

The missions are also more varied. Not to spoil the story at all, but there is a lot more vehicle centric missions this time around. A major disappointment for me in AC2 was the glider. We were teased with flying and did so for about 5 minutes. Now, we fly, we shoot, we dive bomb, etc. Keeping the title in mind, you will create your own mini army that can run missions for you abroad. This element is RPG like as you need to allocate points to build up your minions and there skills. It will come in handy as the game progresses. There are even more devastating weapons and the death animations have been ramped up. Combat is more fluid and the better you counter, the more one hit kills you can get. This is a great way to fight large groups and not lose armor and health.

I have only told you about some of the pieces of this awesome puzzle. For the first time in the series is a multiplayer which was a ton of fun. Think Splinter Cell but much more open and much less cheap. The single player campaign is at least 20 hrs and missions can be replayed for full sync (complete mission a specific way for a bonus). The game looks great, plays better, and continues an already great storyline. It is important for a franchise to take steps in the right direction and AC surely did. If you can get past the hurdle of playing as the same character and continuing a relatively old story, then you are set. I had zero problem returning to Rome and you will not either. I cannot wait until AC3, but until then, I will spend plenty of time with the Brotherhood.