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Assassins Creed Syndicate

    • 773 posts
    October 24, 2015 4:52 PM EDT
    Well. We don't have a thread on this, so why not?

    Seriously though, I looked at a couple of reviews for this and it looks great. I really enjoyed Black Flag and this looks just as good, plus I love the moody, gritty Victorian London setting.

    I'm thinking of picking it up, although I'm a bit cautious because Fallout 4 is out in a couple of weeks and I don't really have time to be playing two games (barely have time to play one to be honest)

    Anyone getting or already got this one? Thoughts?
  • Tim
    • 92 posts
    October 24, 2015 6:57 PM EDT

    Oh wow....I completely forgot about this game. I own every Assassin's Creed game, so I'll probably get it at some point. From the review I read, it seems that there aren't a ton of glitches, which is good of course. It does seem like it's close to Unity though, not that this is surprising. Personally I didn't really enjoy Unity very much. The combat was brutal (or maybe I was just really bad at it) and the lack of ability to block ranged attacks made me want to kill myself at times lol. The whole sneaking ability thing didn't work for me, I could be instantly detected by a guy facing the other way from me on top of a building....lol. But apparently the story ending for Syndicate is really bad.....most reviews won't say things like that, but this one (IGN) specifically mentioned it. I really hated Unity's ending too, and I haven't played the game since I beat it. It completely killed it for me (same for Mad Max, actually).

    So I'll probably wait until after FO4, maybe when the price has dropped a bit and any bugs ironed out. Knowing that the ending is bad will let me get over it faster, too :P

    • 1913 posts
    October 24, 2015 10:11 PM EDT

    I am playing Syndicate right now and am enjoying every minute of it.

    I'm only in sequence 4 right now which is a couple missions out of the tutorial, I'm not that far really. But I will try to explain how this game works.

    Imagine if Unity was old school assassin's creed... That's probably the best way to describe it. Everything from the minor details like being able to run around in the loading screen is back, to major things like the combat is much more aggressive again.

    But, for much more clearer detail, I shall start with characters:

    The Frye Twins. they were a worry to me, I was scared that their personalities were going to be just stereotypical, the brutish idiot who just wants to fight and the always serious by the books one, I thought I'd hate every minute they are on screen... I am so glad I was wrong. While yes, Jacob is always looking for a fight, it's cause he knows most Templars haven't been in a straight up fight before and if they have it wasn't a fair fight. With his strength and combat knowledge, he knows he can defeat them, he can take back what was taken and rise as a leader to these people and let them realize that they own the city, not the Templars. He also is a kind person and always refers to women (at least from what I've seen) as Ma'am or Miss or My lady, he never is overly flirtatious or trying to charm them like Ezio, he is a true gentleman... despite his rugged looks...

    Evie on the other hand while is focused on her job, cares a lot about her friends and family and god help any man or woman crazy enough to hurt them. She is focused on obtaining the precursor artifacts and unlocking their secrets, keeping them out of the hands of the Templars, much like her late father had taught her.

    Whenever these two are together, they play off each other perfectly. Whether it's sibling rivalry where they challenge each other to races, Evie always trying to remind Jacob she's older, Jacob teasing her cause he thinks she has a crush, the dynamic works and their lines always bring a smile on my face and keep me invested.

    Villains:

    The main baddy here is a man named Crawford Starrick, and by god he is menacing and threatening. Just.  by watching and listening to him you can see this is a true dictator, a man that has metaphorically the world in his hands, all of London is within his grasp and he has managed to not only keep the assassins in London on the brink of extinction, but has also started expanding his reach farther across the borders. Each time you listen to him, you can just get absence of pure evil and how he enjoys the power he has and how he believes he is leading these people to a great empire under his control. Hands down, best main buddy since I'd say Caesare or Rodrigo.

    London: London is beautiful and I believe the largest area in an AC game to date, and I'm not just talking in how large the map is, the heights that you can go to in this game are insane, you can really get a good grasp of how large everything is just by climbing a tower and looking around.

    Music: Lovely, it's a beautiful mix or original and remixed music from past games, my favorite track is the remixed version of "Family" from AC2, really fits this dark and dreary landscape.

    Bugs: Not many I've seen, and those I have seen are minor (NPC's spawn a few inches above ground and float, Ragdoll physics freak out and break, pop in textures). Far better than Unity, to this day Unity is a broken buggy mess.

    The combat is much more fast paced and fun. It is a strange mix of the past games and the Arkham series beat'em up system, that I feel works well and gets the job done. Some of the new kill animations are just insane, particularly one with Evie against a wall or ledge... Jesus they are vicious. And you can now dodge bullets. When an enemy aims at you a cursor will pop on your head to press the shoot button. If you have ammo you will quickfire shoot your gun or throw a knife to interrupt or if you don't have ammo, you'll dodge the bullet.

    Overall, I'd highly recommend this game, at least a rental, it more than makes up for Unity's flops and it a welcome return to the AC I used to know. (oh, and collect all the pressed flowers, I won't spoil, but something happens)

  • Tim
    • 92 posts
    October 24, 2015 11:04 PM EDT

    Well, if you can dodge bullets, I'm buying it :P

    One weird thing from Unity was that you weren't able to just drop from the edge of a building. Is that back in Syndicate? Instead I think you held a button to slowly descend.

    • 72 posts
    October 24, 2015 11:06 PM EDT

    My lady

    Tips fedora

    • 622 posts
    October 24, 2015 11:11 PM EDT

    Got it pre-ordered but gotta wait till pay day to grab it... Sigh 

    • 1913 posts
    October 24, 2015 11:43 PM EDT

    You can grip the side of a ledge with B on Xbox, by mashing that you go down slowly. When you hold RT and B you scale down much faster, that was also in Unity.

  • Tim
    • 92 posts
    October 24, 2015 11:49 PM EDT

    Huh, alright. So just tapping B won't make you completely let go?

    • 641 posts
    October 25, 2015 10:08 AM EDT

    I've fallen off Assassins Creed hard ever since Brotherhood, not sure that even a good game could get me back on board now.

  • October 25, 2015 10:11 AM EDT

    Dude Brotherhood was the shiiiiit! Revelations was so bad compared to it that I ragequit the series. It totally ruined Ezio by making us use his grandpa version :/

    • 641 posts
    October 25, 2015 12:51 PM EDT

    Yeah I mean every game after Bortherhood

    • 1913 posts
    October 25, 2015 4:03 PM EDT
    No, it forces you to grab onto the object under the current object... That's been a feature since Black Flag... I think even AC3.
    • 1913 posts
    October 25, 2015 4:10 PM EDT
    Am I the only one who liked Revelations? It did well by making it a send off, Ezio training the new assassins, knowing when his time as an assassin is over, finally getting a peaceful life at the end.

    It made me care about Ezio cause he sounded like a man been through a lot and felt his duty was to continue despite knowing his body couldn't... He was actually bloody interesting! I remember more about him in that game than the others cause it actually had depth and meaning... Besides him being a ladies man, a troublemaker, and his family was killed... What else did we know about him? Nothing.actually, I take that back, we did learn something about him... He knew how to speak French... Very poorly...
    • 1913 posts
    October 25, 2015 4:11 PM EDT
    Now the templar and assassin or modern sections of Revelations are a completely different story, those were horrible
    • 1217 posts
    October 25, 2015 4:16 PM EDT
    I thoroughly enjoyed each AC game through Black Flag, but stopped playing after that. I didn't like the Desmond finale, or the modern day story in Black Flag. But it was really the story I enjoyed. The gameplay has felt samey for a long time, which is part of why I skipped Unity and Syndicate. For now, I'm content to wait and see if they make a good movie.
    • 342 posts
    October 26, 2015 5:47 AM EDT

    I have the game and haven't been able to open the box yet, the last two weeks have been nothing but cramming everything into finishing up my first year of uni, I am excited to play though and its the first thing I have marked down to do on my break at the end of this week. The few reviews I've allowed myself to read have given it mixed but mostly cautious positive feedback, I'm glad that they'll be bringing back some of the more classic pieces about the series though. And though I think I'll fall into the minority on this I'll miss the co-op bits, it was fun to play with others if even a little unrealistic.

    hopefully I can have a better response and my own review of the game in a couple of days.

    • 1913 posts
    October 26, 2015 6:30 AM EDT
    I was going to make a review of my own, but I will just wait for yours.
    • 342 posts
    November 2, 2015 9:56 AM EST

    Okay so I've now had a full day to play and it has been great.

    Things I've liked

    • the music has to be one of the most beautiful pieces I've heard in a long time, each piece of music matches its settings wonderfully.
    • the city layout is fun and exciting to run around on with a massive reduction in world interior spaces the loading times have been fast and the fluid of running is maintained when your not constantly colliding with random pieces of furniture.
    • having 2 protagonists to play as, would seem like a bad thing but they each have their own personality and fighting style while retaining some similarities so you aren't going to have much trouble swapping between them
    • combat is fast, fun, interesting and quite often brutal if you find yourself going up against opponents that are stronger then you without the element of surprise. deaths are no longer just contextual for the enemies but also for you which changes up the standard rag doll collapse.
    • the return of the whistle and the ability to pick up bodies makes for a happy assassin, no longer must we wait in vain for the guards to come to us but we can draw them in.
    • the kidnap feature is a great addition not only does it allow you to remove your target from the main area but helps with taking down those roof snipers that have a bad habit of falling off the roof after you stab them (so inconsiderate of them)
    • finally not having outside game influences affecting game play i.e app and web site tie ins, although personally i experienced little to no problems with these features myself i know that they affected the playability of a great many people so its nice to see the game go back to its roots of a single player game.

    there are many other great features to the game, it is a remarkable improvement over unity (i still liked that one) and i hope that its the return of good AC games in the future.

    (come on who hasn't always wanted to have a shoot out on top of a train? :P)

    • 1441 posts
    November 2, 2015 11:06 AM EST

    Yup, that was a good game, I also like Embers, the short movie they made as an epilogue to his story.