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Assassin's Creed Syndicate |OT| Once more unto the glitch

Six days ago I had no interest in this game. Today I love it. Just enough collectibles and upgrades so as not to be overwhelming, but to make me think "it all looks fun and I want to do all of it."

I think it looks incredible. And the ambient music is great too. Characters are good, maybe aside from Jacob who's kind of an ass.

So glad this game is good.
 

moojito

Member
Watched the giant bomb quick look of this. Looks really good! Might pick it up to tide me over until fallout 4 comes out.
 

gossi

Member
Hmm...was not anticipating the positive reactions.

Is there anything of note that is required to know from Unity/Rogue that carries over in terms of plot progression? Never played either of them.

Nope. The present day plot is all short stoppable cut scenes. It's basically stand alone.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Good grace this game is fucking awesome.

I literally wanted nothing to do with it not even 3 days ago. I was 100% done with the franchise, and truth be told barely watched anything in regards to this game, because let's face it....It was supposed to be complete crap. Not even a week and a half ago, I was pondering if this was the one game that was supposed to be a technical mess, that some critics were hinting about. I was slightly angry at the thought that such a great era for a AC game would be wasted on what was destined to be another Unity level fuck up. I was expecting this game to be forgotten on release...the utter lack of hype was simply hilarious.

How the fuck could I be so wrong? Syndicate is fantastic. The only jank that actually bothered me was a carriage running over a cop, with the other cop that was with him going into full investigative mode "What happened here?" Dude got ran over! You were 3 feet away. Everything else is quality. I haven't gotten hooked on an AC story like this, since II. The villains are literally mustache twirling. There's a steampunkette ocutist femme fatale. You got Charles Dickens and goddamn Inspector Abberline in your team. Your base is on a goddamn train. It's gloriously addicting. The level of interest I have, reminds me of when I watched Ezio plow through the assholes who took out his family. That was great. THIS is great.

It also helps that Jacob and Evie are legit cool characters. Altair was. Ezio was. Connor was fucking boring and grimdark as all hell. I can't remember anything about him except for vague flashes of the childhood. Edward Kenway was funny...but not very memorable either. I remember the other pirates better. He was there. But Jacon and Evie? They are hilarious. One-liners up the ass with these two. It's very superficial sure, but man at least these two feel alive.

And good lord, finally the gameplay doesn't feel like a chore anymore. I liked Black Flag I really did, but it was nuggets of great fun in between tons of shit that made me shrug my shoulders and power through it to get to the fun parts again. Most of it was good to great but man, I was really afraid that it might be fatigue setting in...that maybe the series couldn't recapture that sense of addictiveness and wonder again. Nope. Just needed London and fun side content. I am having a goddamn BLAST just looking for chests, making my way through fight clubs and going on hunts...

Game is right up there with ACII, Brotherhood and Black Flag.
 

ColEx

Member
I hope this isn't just a one off game for these characters, would love them to carry on to the next game or two.
 

B-Dex

Member
The scenes outside the animus are total cringe. I'm supposed to believe the storyteller for this one is flying an invisible magic drone? And how does Ubi nail the setting and atmosphere in their historical periods but then fallback on hilariously trite stereotypical tropes for everything outside of them? Is the female character based off of Angelina Jolie from Hackers in the early 90s? They need to drop outside of the animus completely it's terrible.
 

hollomat

Banned
How do I switch to Evie? The tutorial said something about going to the map, but I can't figure it out. I'm on Xbox One.
 

SpotAnime

Member
This soundtrack by Austin Wintory is so, so good. I haven't picked up the game yet but listening on it's own, it's fantasic. I love that it's dominated by string and woodwind instruments.

The entire soundtrack is up on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu6_FOgZp3eheTtQv0UQ7B4nZukeC1Hcs

And here's a great interview with Austin on the Ubi blog from this past August:

http://blog.ubi.com/grammy-austin-wintory-assassins-creed-syndicate/

UB: What are some of your favorite instruments to compose for, and were you able to use them in the soundtrack?

AW: I’m a bit of a sucker for string soloists, and I was delighted to work with two world-class musicians for those roles on this one: Sandy Cameron on violin and Tina Guo on cello. I also worked with a staggering group in London for the core ensemble work, consisting of strings and a few assorted winds, all beautifully captured at Abbey Road Studios. At the end of the day, though, I chose those instruments and performers not because I love them, but because they felt right for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. If it had seemed like something boldly brassy was the right idea, as in a score like The Banner Saga, I would have gone that route. So forgive me for dodging the question, but I love every instrument!

Emphasis is mine. sparenoexpense.gif
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
I'm loving this game.

It's like Ubi brought in real player mechanics designers for the first time ever. I've only had about a dozen "God damn it don't grab/perch/hang off that thing shit!" moments in my six hours of playtime, instead of the usual dozen every 5 minutes in every previous game.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
People like to forget that Ubisoft is still plenty capable of making some killer games. Speaking of which, I have high hopes for The Division, For Honor and Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Absolutely. And despite it getting knocked here for quite a bit [hur hurr tower climbing amirite], Far Cry is a great franchise as well.

Can't wait what they'll do with Watchdogs, that IP has crazy potential, fixing the first one's problems shouldn't be that hard now that they have the basic foundation.


[To be fair, Division is a Massive Entertainment game]
 

Camisado

Member
Is anyone else having problems with where completely standard enemies are taking over 50 hits to kill in combat? Watching Jacob hacking away endlessly with his blade to only get killed by a single three hit combo string is getting monotonous, very fast.
 

Basketball

Member
Is anyone else having problems with where completely standard enemies are taking over 50 hits to kill in combat? Watching Jacob hacking away endlessly with his blade to only get killed by a single three hit combo string is getting monotonous, very fast.
Enemies have a level system

Higher health, more damage
Depends on the area
 

Camisado

Member
Enemies have a level system

Higher health, more damage

Yeah, but the difference between me at level 5 and them at level 7 seems insane. I've been upgrading my weapons and stuff along the way as well but for some reason I'm just not keeping up with regular level street thugs. Maybe I'm missing a patch or something lol
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Yeah, but the difference between me at level 5 and them at level 7 seems insane. I've been upgrading my weapons and stuff along the way as well but for some reason I'm just not keeping up with regular level street thugs. Maybe I'm missing a patch or something lol

No, the difference is pretty bizarre sometimes.

I'm currently level 4 and I got completely ganked by two level 5 policemen, they took an unbelievable amount of hits and in the end I still died [even after using 2 medicine].

I'm not sure what causes it though, but it definately feels like the stats are way off sometimes.
 

Camisado

Member
No, the difference is pretty bizarre sometimes.

I'm currently level 4 and I got completely ganked by two level 5 policemen, they took an unbelievable amount of hits and in the end I still died [even after using 2 medicine].

I'm not sure what causes it though, but it definitely feels like the stats are way off sometimes.

I've been mainlining the plot to try and unlock as may of the systems as possible but I think I'll probably just bum around in London for a bit to try and get some more skills and levels. Other than that though I am enjoying the game, much better than Unity and as a Local I'm fascinated by the portrayal of London and it's landmarks (as well as which bits of London they essentially fully cut out to make the major landmarks close enough together for this type of game)
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
When the streets got foggy at night, with the lamps and all. Holy shit. I feel like pulling out a sawcleaver and find the cleric beast or some shit haha.
 

Lucreto

Member
Glad to see people enjoying the game especially all the hate it was getting in that Redditor thread.

I know a lot of people who thought the same and are eating so much crow that it is on the endangered species list.
 
Good grace this game is fucking awesome.

I literally wanted nothing to do with it not even 3 days ago. I was 100% done with the franchise, and truth be told barely watched anything in regards to this game, because let's face it....It was supposed to be complete crap. Not even a week and a half ago, I was pondering if this was the one game that was supposed to be a technical mess, that some critics were hinting about. I was slightly angry at the thought that such a great era for a AC game would be wasted on what was destined to be another Unity level fuck up. I was expecting this game to be forgotten on release...the utter lack of hype was simply hilarious.

How the fuck could I be so wrong? Syndicate is fantastic. The only jank that actually bothered me was a carriage running over a cop, with the other cop that was with him going into full investigative mode "What happened here?" Dude got ran over! You were 3 feet away. Everything else is quality. I haven't gotten hooked on an AC story like this, since II. The villains are literally mustache twirling. There's a steampunkette ocutist femme fatale. You got Charles Dickens and goddamn Inspector Abberline in your team. Your base is on a goddamn train. It's gloriously addicting. The level of interest I have, reminds me of when I watched Ezio plow through the assholes who took out his family. That was great. THIS is great.

It also helps that Jacob and Evie are legit cool characters. Altair was. Ezio was. Connor was fucking boring and grimdark as all hell. I can't remember anything about him except for vague flashes of the childhood. Edward Kenway was funny...but not very memorable either. I remember the other pirates better. He was there. But Jacon and Evie? They are hilarious. One-liners up the ass with these two. It's very superficial sure, but man at least these two feel alive.

And good lord, finally the gameplay doesn't feel like a chore anymore. I liked Black Flag I really did, but it was nuggets of great fun in between tons of shit that made me shrug my shoulders and power through it to get to the fun parts again. Most of it was good to great but man, I was really afraid that it might be fatigue setting in...that maybe the series couldn't recapture that sense of addictiveness and wonder again. Nope. Just needed London and fun side content. I am having a goddamn BLAST just looking for chests, making my way through fight clubs and going on hunts...

Game is right up there with ACII, Brotherhood and Black Flag.

Couldn't have said it better myself. It's definitely the most I've enjoyed an Assassin's Creed game since II, which was the only one I ever actually completed. I think this may also have the best setting since Brotherhood. I was totally gonna ignore this game and now I can't stop thinking about playing it. Fuggin' crazy!
 

DrBo42

Member
Detection is really fucking dumb in this game. It's bad enough to warrant a full point loss on review scale. You can be performing completely low-profile actions like WALKING and still draw attention outside a restricted area with enemy gangs. Couple that with near instant detection after killing someone with a hidden blade also in low-profile. Unacceptable. I have no idea what they were thinking here.
 
Can anyone whose playing confirm whether they've gotten rid of blood splatter? Replaying Unity on the PC at the moment and when you attack enemies it stains the clothes and the blood splatters onto the environment in a relatively dynamic way. Seems like blood has been completely removed in this outside of the new, weird comic book stains.
 

DrBo42

Member
Can anyone whose playing confirm whether they've gotten rid of blood splatter? Replaying Unity on the PC at the moment and when you attack enemies it stains the clothes and the blood splatters onto the environment in a relatively dynamic way. Seems like blood has been completely removed in this outside of the new, weird comic book stains.

It's gone from what I've played. Definitely not on clothes. I'll find an alley to confirm.

Edit: Yeah it's gone.
 
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