Upgrading Montereggioni was a lot more interesting and dynamic than upgrading a handful of stores around Rome. Every building constructed, shop upgraded really seemed like it brought something new, treasures and citizens, while upgrading shops in Rome was pretty lame.

Combat was greatly improved with AC:B, it played better and more fluently, didn’t feel as “scripted”, better AI, better animations only thing I wasn’t crazy about was ranged attacks, as they took the fun of it if you decided to use them freely. I also really enjoyed having different types of weapons to play with, I particularly liked dual-hand swords.

Graphics were definitely a lot better too, great texture work and level design, characters looked a lot more realistic and animations were way better, lighting was great too.

The story is what really fell short imo, while in AC2 we got to know Ezio, and his background and how the Assassins guild worked as whole as well as the efforts put into finding the Apple and bringing down the corrupt templars was really great and at the same time, training Desmond to become the assassin he was meant to be while running away from that bald doctor was a good fun too, all the secondary characters we’re decent as well. Oh, almost forgot about Da Vinci, his part was great and having him create some new tools (more importantly dual blades) was very cool.

AC:B story is something else entirely, first of all, how did Rodrigo Borgia survive? I had never seen Ezio fail to kill someone and he kills him exactly the same way as he kills everyone else… The whole things just felt rushed and was more like “oh, let’s wait until I get a chance to kill him” rather than an actual story. Desmond’s tale was even worse and that last bit at the Coliseum… I won’t comment on that.

I didn’t like the Romulan temples a bit and they made me miss the churches, the platforming was weak and easy, no stealth kills as those wolf-hooded enemies always knew were you were and the prize at the end didn’t feel anywhere as worthwhile as altair’s armor.

Da Vinci’s part was lame, and after you got all the upgrades he would still sit there and say “Not now Ezio, I don’t have anything new for you” and never again appear, this felt really rushed imo.

Rome, however big it was, felt like more of the same and repetitive at times, while I loved the diversity of all Italian cities in AC2.

Finally, your fellow Assassins, why do we need them anyway? Even thought I enjoyed sending them out on missions and using them to fight, they were utterly useless. If you felt like it, you could finish the game without having even one at your side and theoretically you needed to have them by your side, what’s up with that? This really felt like a stunt by the end of the game, it didn’t bring anything important to gameplay or the story.

While I won’t deny AC:B has improvements (graphics and combat) all the things that made the other games great (story, level design, assassinations) felt like a big step back.

Honestly, I do hope they fix it for AC:R because I really like this franchise and I can see a lot of potential going on here. Oh yeah, Altair > Ezio.