Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate – Standard Edition – PlayStation 4

So what did they do right.
• Multiple ways to engage a mission, i.e. stealth or brute force. And this time the stealth version works! (sorry Unity)
• Play as either male or female character outside the main missions. For some reason, I found Evie easier to control.
• Return of the hidden blade. Now players can sneak up behind baddies and stab them in the back!
• Grappling hook. Taking a play from the batman series it makes traveling around London fast and fun. Easily transitioning from rooftop to rooftop, and nothing like dropping a smoke bomb and escaping a group of enemies.
• Different activities. This is really an open world game. There are so many activities to do including: Fight Club, carriage racing, cargo stealing, cargo escorting, and intercepting thieves.
• Horse carriages to drive around.
• Outstanding graphics and visuals. The amount of detail put into this game just amazes me. The splash of a puddle while running down the street, listening to a barber shop quartet, a gazebo band play, workers push around barrels as they toil the day away, kids playing ball, cats wondering the allies, day night cycles, weather cycles. Gone are the days of AC1’s NPC rubbing his shoulder and grumbling.
• No more companion app!
• Better mission checkpoints in case you fail during a mission. No more restarting from the beginning.

Things to improve:
• Better controls when hijacking a carriage. Many times I had to hijack a carriage only to jump off the carriage instead. Bad design using the same button form hijack and jump off.
• Better integration of the Animus and Templar storyline. Aside from a brief cinematic at the beginning and end, the game had no relation to any of the AC games.
• The main story line was very disjointed, switching between the two heroes made me stop caring after about the 4th mission.
• Better fast travel to the hideout. Hunting all over the map for the train icon is frustrating. There should have been a better way to get the hideout on the main map.
• Better way to exit the train. Seriously, trying to get off the train hideout is near impossible aside from going to the back and jumping off.
• Combat could use some improvement. It felt a button mash fest, as countering an enemy’s advance never seemed to be timed right.

Overall, this is a great game if you like open world activity games. It is more of an evolution than a revolution from prior games in the series. I definitely received my moneys worth out of the game.

I wish they’d do something "NEW" with the AC games. The stories are all the same now and the same old game play is just… well, old.
To be honest it needed a make over, reborn into something new. Many of my friends have pointed out the same thing, we’re really just paying a year for a story that keeps getting worse.
Use to Templar’s really seemed like a threat, you really felt a since of danger. A clock ticking down, but now it’s like they are just whining children you just knock over with a flick to the head. I’ve always been able to move fast though the games, but there’s so many things the new games are missing.

Hell I even miss the begging woman in AC 1 who just would not give up, and you had to kill them then run like hell for the hills.
And when was the last AC game where you would kill normal town people because you got pissed about a mission or something.

The other reason was the industrial revolution and the adaption of guns. Black Flag, 3 and Rogue use of guns was great! But that was all flintlock. Now with the industrial revolution and the technology I was very hesitant that guns would ruin Syndicate. I was very wrong. Now there are plenty of Templars with guns and it can get annoying at times trying to beat your way out of a failed sneak, but it’s not horrible.

Now the story is pretty good, like all Creeds, and to me it was better than Black Flag, Rogue and Unity. I fell in love with 19th century London. The sneaking is pretty lackluster compared to previous games but isn’t anything to complain about. The movement and climbing had been getting better and has been polished up. Unity had problems but syndicate just seemed like I didn’t have as many problems with ramdomly jumping or climbing to a spot I had no intention of going to (you will still have problems). With that said it still has its problems, just not nearly as much. With Ubisoft taking the year 2016 off, hopefully they can clean this up even more.

Now my favorite parts were the train to ride around the map, the river Thames in the middle of the city was a nice little district that can be fun to swim or jump across. The rope gun is a fantastic addition to the francise! It is my favorite piece of technology in all the games! It’s an amazing new and very fun way to get across the landscape. The game looks beautiful! It really seems like you are in London in 1868 (if I actually knew how that was).

But the best part of this great game is Jacob and Evie Frye. These twins make the story and game one of the best experiences since AC2 and Ezio. They couldn’t be more opposite. If you want to just beat your way through, then Jacob is your man. If stealth and planning your attack is your Forte, then Evie is the girl to do it. The story breaks off and uses them both pretty equally. I love beating my way through the gang battles, but I seemed to gravitate towards Evie. Her skill tree is a pure stealth and makes the game so much fun! And Evie just made it a little easier to be stealthy because this game doesn’t have much stealth to begin with.

Syndicate has its flaws like most assassins creed games do. However, syndicate just seemed like a breath of fresh air like Black Flag. The positives more than out way the negatives (which are few and far between). Unity made me weary of buying syndicate when it came out and I’m kicking myself for not buying this sooner. This game is for the AC player and for someone who is new to the Creed. This game isn’t game of the year quality, but in my mind it deserves five stars, as the last 2 games (Unity and Rogue) only deserved 4 at best.