Does GAF have a thread for selling codes? I just got a 970 which comes free with AC:S or Rainbow 6, since I'm nearly finished AC on PS4 and have no intention of playing R6, I wouldn't mind hooking someone up.
Did they change it from Unity? In Unity it's great- the color and type of icon tells you what you need to do. So you can play totally hudless and still know what the objectives are.
For the first time in the series Unity really nailed being able play Hud-less (icon consistency, use of high ground to find nearby objectives, audio cues in the world for different collectible types, one button interface toggle when you really need it, etc) and I'm going to be really disappointed if Syndicate really took a step back.
Don't really remember Unity to be honest. So far it seems like you have these zones that you need to "conquer" and you do that by completing quests. So you navigate to the marker (usually a gold icon on the map I believe) and once you get to the area the quest just might start.
But if you have the stuff hidden, there's no notification pop up that you've even entered the area, or what you're supposed to be doing. It looks like you see it from the Options menu, but again, you have to go into it and that essentially stops the gameplay flow, you could even say it breaks the immersion.
I think some button prompts will pop up for combat and things like that, I heard some chime when I was near a chest. So my main complaint would just be the quest tracking at the moment, but I've only played a few hours and I'm trying to limit what's displayed by the HUD.
There's also no button toggle (that I could find) for the HUD. So they took that out for seemingly no reason.
that was Minerva right? Not Juno? She looked different then last time I remember.
I'm pretty happy they didn't do another "Sage" thing. And it looks like Rebecca won't join us for next year's. Also that was real dumb of Hastings to say "kill them all" and then let the one new chick do most of the work.
Also that the one new chick is actually Galina Voronina(Sp?), who's basically what if Desmond was a woman, Russian, and had even less of a personality. (She's also what amounts to a super Assassin thanks to the Animus)
that was Minerva right? Not Juno? She looked different then last time I remember.
I'm pretty happy they didn't do another "Sage" thing. And it looks like Rebecca won't join us for next year's. Also that was real dumb of Hastings to say "kill them all" and then let the one new chick do most of the work.
As mentioned, it's Juno. You see her looking exactly the same when you play the WW1 missions.
The only time Minerva comes up in the game is by finding her armor (AEGIS). Which is really awesome, even if it feels totally out of place during the last battle.
The real world stuff was a bit silly - there's only 3 people there, just shoot 'em! - but Hastings' is not the "kill" guy, (he's made that clear many times, and you even get to see him take the stun gun in an earlier video)
Galina is okay, but (a) she's crazy, so no personality really needed and (b) isn't she from the comic which they've already done a terrible job of continuing from anyway?
I would agree the initiate stuff is tired and we should probably go back to a playable modern day character. Not much at stake when the present is all cutscenes; at least 4 gave you some conspiracy puzzles in FPS mode. And the new girl is just kinda "outa nowhere". I did enjoy the Assassin intel though, carries over the Project Legacy stuff well.
Galina is okay, but (a) she's crazy, so no personality really needed and (b) isn't she from the comic which they've already done a terrible job of continuing from anyway?
Finally have time so I'm going to write up my full impressions.
- Syndicate starts off with a bang and ends with a fizzle. The first half of the game is incredibly promising but it feels like Ubi ran out of ideas for the back end. This goes for the black boxes as well. Also, what's with Evie only getting one black box, and a shitty one at that? In addition, Evie's role is often reduced to cleaning up Jacob's messes (there are like three missions specifically dealing with this) so that sucks.
- However, the secret area does redeem the back end a tad. It unlocks after Sequence 6 so I encourage it to be played when you're getting tired of the slog that is sequences 7/8/9. The area is a bit repetitive itself but there's enough unique stuff added in that it's fun, plus the protagonist is cool as hell.
- I'm done with the gear system. It didn't work in Unity and it works only slightly better here. At least the gear UI is better than whatever the fuck Unity was trying to do. Back to the drawing board please.
- Starrick doesn't get nearly enough screen time, which is a shame since the story becomes 10x more interesting whenever he's on screen. Story as a whole is better than Unity's but still isn't great. In particular,
there is no payoff for the twins disobeying the council and going to London in the first place, which really bothered me. This does have the positive effect of not having the council on screen constantly, which was awful in Unity.
Alexander Graham Bell isn't used nearly enough, which surprised me since I was prepared to complain about him being shoehorned in. Bell's actually an interesting character and I wish he had more missions. Same goes for the train lady. Instead, Dickens and Marx get all of the historical figure missions.
- Zipline is great and a much needed addition. London as a whole is much more interesting than Paris, even though it suffers from asset reuse (I swear to God all of the factories look exactly the same). Thames is super cool (love playing Frogger with the boats), and Westminster is a treat.
- Speaking of asset reuse, what is up with there only being four gang models? This even applies to your own gang. I understand wanting to have easily distinguishable archetypes, but this goes a step too far. This may sound like a minor complaint, but trust me it is not.
- The gang stuff is admittedly great. Brings back that Brotherhood vibe of having an army at your beck and call. The side missions are much improved when you have the gang at your back, especially once the cart ability is unlocked.
- Would have liked to see more to distinguish the twins besides the handful of exclusive skills and the cape/belt divide. I purposely had them use different weapons for this reason.
- The same jank that seems to be permanently attached to this series is still here. On the positive side, L1 to enter windows is a godsend, and I like the cover system change. However, stealth is fundamentally broken and needs a complete revamp. Controls are still stiff and inaccurate. Fuck tailing missions, which have so much potential but simply do not work with the existing systems. I have a hard time complaining about the combat because it seems on par in quality with most of the major Western action games.
Syndicate is worth your time if you wanted to like Unity but had problems with the surface features. If you don't like AC Syndicate isn't the game that will draw you back in since the franchise's problems still exist.
- Syndicate starts off with a bang and ends with a fizzle. The first half of the game is incredibly promising but it feels like Ubi ran out of ideas for the back end. This goes for the black boxes as well. Also, what's with Evie only getting one black box, and a shitty one at that?
I do agree it ends with a bit of a fizzle. To go into specifics,
Starrick has this weird unexplained wall power, but then it's just "yay! we won! smiles all around!" and the inconclusive cutscene in modern times. To be honest it gives that Brotherhood/Revelations feel where they clearly know where they are going but couldn't afford to parcel out more than a couple of plot points until then.
I also loved the new "area", not very much scripting there, clearly feels like they just got SG or somebody to build it, but just the sheer experience was worth it. MUCHHH better than the Helix Rifts from Unity.
In particular,
there is no payoff for the twins disobeying the council and going to London in the first place, which really bothered me.
I was under the impression that Starrick had wiped out the Assassin presence in London proper, and the forces you come from are just fringe English folks. There's no council to stop you because all that's left is the old cautious folks who didn't want to die venturing into the city. Sorta like in AC3 with the old man.
Bell does weirdly disappear despite being the obvious Davinci at first. Dickens and Marx were both tedious to me, but wasn't one of those just DLC?
The same jank that seems to be permanently attached to this series is still here. On the positive side, L1 to enter windows is a godsend, and I like the cover system change. However, stealth is fundamentally broken and needs a complete revamp. Controls are still stiff and inaccurate. Fuck tailing missions, which have so much potential but simply do not work with the existing systems. I have a hard time complaining about the combat because it seems on par in quality with most of the major Western action games.
L1 was in Unity, but it was functionally useless because it didn't work from all four angles and you could more easily just climb in anyway. This time they have moved the general climbing controls to less easily let you through windows and made L1 more flexible, so it comes off much better.
Combat is definitely better but it's not on par with the Batman/Mordor level yet. Mordor in particular figured out how to build an entire tech tree almost entirely out of combat improvements, and the near death system is something AC could have used since the very beginning.
Controls don't bother me so much, but I do believe they'd be better off with MGSV level snappiness and aborted animations. The stealth is still mildly ridiculous - just one step into a red zone with somebody seeing you is enough to sett off red alert, as you may have noticed in the Palace. I also feel that the series still has a lot to learn from Hitman about building assassination missions...
Well I'm about three hours in and just about to do sequence 4. I haven't played an AC game since Revelations but it still feels just as janky as Revelations did. Your character is always getting stuck on something or your grappling hook either won't lock on to something you want or when it does lock on, its to a building or roof you weren't targeting.
I really like Evie. She is very charismatic and her quest to find the piece of eden and her backstory is really interesting. I cannot stand Jacob. He's not cool or interesting or charismatic in any way. Just annoying and gives off a dudebro vibe. I mean, how can an assassin not give a shit about the piece of eden? Isn't that what the whole entire game is based around? Why is he so focused on killing templars. Killing templars won't matter if they have the piece of eden dummy so listen to your sister and help her get the piece of eden. So frustrating that they made him like this when he could've been an actually interesting character. It is early though so maybe he changes? Probably not though knowing how these AC games work a little. Once they establish the character, that is the character and there's no deviation from that.
Gameplay is definitely different from the last AC game I played which was basically the counter into multi kill system. That system was way too easy to master so now they have the Batman combat with some light rpg mechanics. You level up and pick skills and there is a crafting system in place. I usually like the Batman combat but it feels wierd here, I think the animations are a bit to quick and not as fluid as something as you would find in a Batman game. Maybe if they had more than 9 months to make these games, it might actually look fluid and fun to play. I also don't think the leveling and crafting system ad much to the game. With some of the skills in the perk tree, what is the point of crafting better weapons and armor? Seems kind of pointless. I'm also disappointed that Jacob and Evie play exactly the same. I think it would have been better if they were different with different abilities kind of like how the story is playing out (they both seem to have different interests currently). Jacob could be more agressive playstyle where you just kill everyone and Evie could be more stealthy.
Speaking of stealth, it still doesn't work right after all these games. Why can't they make the stealth better? If your in a restricted area and you get seen, why is it so easy to get out of the alert state? All you have to do is break line of sight, which is really easy to do, and wait for a couple of seconds and the alert is gone and they go back into the normal routes. This just needs to be completely reworked though I think the last known location mechanic is a step in the right direction.
So far, I'd say its decent and I like Evie and running around London so I'm not disappointed that I got it. I like it better than Revelations so far which is the last AC game I've played. Tried to play AC3 but those first 4 hours or so are such a chore. Really, really slow start. Maybe I'll go back to it after this since I have no idea what's going on in the present day stuff and where the hell Desmond is.
I do agree it ends with a bit of a fizzle. To go into specifics,
Starrick has this weird unexplained wall power, but then it's just "yay! we won! smiles all around!" and the inconclusive cutscene in modern times. To be honest it gives that Brotherhood/Revelations feel where they clearly know where they are going but couldn't afford to parcel out more than a couple of plot points until then.
I also loved the new "area", not very much scripting there, clearly feels like they just got SG or somebody to build it, but just the sheer experience was worth it. MUCHHH better than the Helix Rifts from Unity.
Well,
I was under the impression that Starrick had wiped out the Assassin presence in London proper, and the forces you come from are just fringe English folks. There's no council to stop you because all that's left is the old cautious folks who didn't want to die venturing into the city. Sorta like in AC3 with the old man.
Bell does weirdly disappear despite being the obvious Davinci at first. Dickens and Marx were both tedious to me, but wasn't one of those just DLC?
L1 was in Unity, but it was functionally useless because it didn't work from all four angles and you could more easily just climb in anyway. This time they have moved the general climbing controls to less easily let you through windows and made L1 more flexible, so it comes off much better.
Combat is definitely better but it's not on par with the Batman/Mordor level yet. Mordor in particular figured out how to build an entire tech tree almost entirely out of combat improvements, and the near death system is something AC could have used since the very beginning.
Controls don't bother me so much, but I do believe they'd be better off with MGSV level snappiness and aborted animations. The stealth is still mildly ridiculous - just one step into a red zone with somebody seeing you is enough to sett off red alert, as you may have noticed in the Palace. I also feel that the series still has a lot to learn from Hitman about building assassination missions...
My god, putting on music/a podcast and just zoning out while collecting all the crab in an area is an excellent way to wind down. It's incredibly passive, but just engaging enough. Luckily no aspect of this game is overly difficult.
The plat is mine! Really tempted to grind out the perks since most are nearly done. Except multi-counter kills and counters hot and road rage. Tedious luck involved for all of those makes me not want to.
You can do multi-counter in low level Fight Clubs (it takes a bit). Get a lot of people in that weird "dizzy" state and wait for more than 1 to hit.
For Counter shot, I found a video that you can do it in the "Change of Plans" mission. There are snipers at the beginning. I equipped the lvl 1 pistol and just played with countershot with them. You get 4/5 per run with 3 snipers, maybe more depending on luck.
So I got back to Unity today after like a year as I never finished it, thought it couldn't have been that bad. And dear God this game was hot garbage !
The combat is so slow and painful, it is unnecessarily hard and they just spam enemies at you. Syndicate pared back on animations for the sake of gameplay and that was the right call since the animation in Unity even if more advanced makes everything so slow and delayed and the shit framerate only makes it worse, and it ends up looking worse and less fluid because you get obstructed everywhere. Even the level design for assassinations are quite shit, with targets inside a room surrounded by a fuck ton of guards and not many entry points.
Playing that Marie Levesque assassination only confirms all my worst thoughts about that game. I am battling the controls and the characters half of the time, my characters in Syndicate do what I want when I want for the most part.
It is, considering this is the first game since 2 that has no online trophies. I platinumed all the games except liberation. Didn't and probably won't buy Syndicate. I am just too jaded to the franchise now, and unless I see huge changes or a setting that really interests me I won't bite.
So I got back to Unity today after like a year as I never finished it, thought it couldn't have been that bad. And dear God this game was hot garbage !
The combat is so slow and painful, it is unnecessarily hard terrible and they just spam enemies at you. Syndicate pared back on animations for the sakd of gameplay and that was the right call since the animation in Unity even if more advanced makes everything so slow and delayed and the shit framerate only makes it worse, and it ends up looking worse and less fluid because you get obstructed everywhere. Even the level design for assassinations are quite shit, with targets inside a room surrounded by a fuck ton of guards and not many entry points.
Playing that Marie Levesque assassination only confirms all my worst thoughts about that game. I am battling the controls and the characters half of the time, my characters in Syndicate do what I want when I want for the most part.
How do I download an online back up save and use it (ps4?)
Im in a mission where I killed the guy I was supposed to tackle so now Im just in an endless loop where the mission starts and immediately desyncs before I can pause it or anything. Loads that checkpoint, and repeats the desync.
Early in development I can't help but feel like Jacob was planned to be a bit more like a traditional assassin, his outfit(the one that was changed to gunslinger), screams "traditional VicLondon assassin" instead of "rebellious Gangleader/VicLondon assassin." He also wears that outfit in a shit ton of concept art.
Oh well, I like the dude as he is now. I want that outfit tho.
what the fuck is up with not being able to turn off the ugly circle in stealth mode without turning off the alert indicators as well. I should be able to turn off each element seperately!
Crossing Eden, I want more of that concept art! Holy goodness, that's beautiful.
In the middle of Sequence 7, just got all my Gang Upgrades. Feeeels good man! Game continues to offer a plethora of awesome activities, and I haven't even touched the Marx/Dickens side stuff. These end of sequence assassinations remind me of Hitman in some great ways. Been loving so much of it!
Early in development I can't help but feel like Jacob was planned to be a bit more like a traditional assassin, his outfit(the one that was changed to gunslinger), screams "traditional VicLondon assassin" instead of "rebellious Gangleader/VicLondon assassin." He also wears that outfit in a shit ton of concept art.
Oh well, I like the dude as he is now. I want that outfit tho.
You should definitely check out Titan Book AC artbooks as not only is there always a wealth of world and character design art work in their there's also so insight into the design process as well.
Yep if you look at the early costume designs for Evie (it's in the artbook and I think Kotaku might have posted them a while back) the ones with here hood down see clearly has blonde hair.
Edit: Bit of a rough off screen image that Kotaku had up a while back but you get the idea.
I've had an hilarious glitch where nobody showed up in a cutscene and items were floating around in invisible ghost hands (For what I saw, Evie must have gotten stuck on a door for, and then Jacob, followed by Henry, couldn't get past her), but that's been about it in my experience. I think there is a optional side-mission that is glitched on both consoles, but haven't I reached it yet.
That concept art is delicious. I love Jacob's outfit there, and Evie in a top-hat? Goddamnit, we could have had it all.
So I got back to Unity today after like a year as I never finished it, thought it couldn't have been that bad. And dear God this game was hot garbage !
The combat is so slow and painful, it is unnecessarily hard and they just spam enemies at you. Syndicate pared back on animations for the sake of gameplay and that was the right call since the animation in Unity even if more advanced makes everything so slow and delayed and the shit framerate only makes it worse, and it ends up looking worse and less fluid because you get obstructed everywhere. Even the level design for assassinations are quite shit, with targets inside a room surrounded by a fuck ton of guards and not many entry points.
Playing that Marie Levesque assassination only confirms all my worst thoughts about that game. I am battling the controls and the characters half of the time, my characters in Syndicate do what I want when I want for the most part.
I think that's largely due to many people (myself included) not getting far enough to even critique the core game because there was so much other bullshit.
