Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Xbox One

This is a love/hate relationship I have with this game, just like all the AC games.

The positive – no screen tearing like I’ve had in other installments of this game. Video is fluid and smooth. Buttons are (mostly) responsive as well – fighting and such goes smoothly, and doing combos and switching between buttons doesn’t cause issues like I had in some other earlier versions of the games.

I love the rope launcher – nothing like landing on some unsuspecting chap for an assassination and then "flying" back up to a roof and getting his buddy a few seconds later when he comes to investigate the body. This rope launcher makes it a LOT easier to do multiple assassinations of targets near each other without getting spotted or setting off their alarms.

I also love the new "berserk" darts, you can shoot them at a fire barrel where people are huddled for warmth, and one dart impacts the whole group around the barrel.

Not as much of a fan of the various stats on weapons though, damage, stun, "lethality" since it makes things a lot more muddled as far as deciding what to do.

Upgrade path is more complex now as well, which is a good thing, you really get to work towards different characteristics on each of the twins.

I also like getting the community involvement again, being able to get henchmen to follow and give directions to them. Very helpful in places where you want to draw attention somewhere to allow you to sneak in easier.

But as with every game, it’s a see saw of "Oh that was AWESOME!" to "Where’s the nearest heavy object I can throw through my LED TV?!?!?"

The controls – every single version of this game since the first I’ve played years ago has issues where the running tries to go somewhere you don’t want it to go. And it’s frustrating to suddenly find yourself stuck because of a chair. Or you got on the lip of a carriage and can’t get off of it to fight. The stupid little things like that which really ruin the immersion and mood for me. Like all of them, this one is chock full of junk like that. The Y button to "quick shoot" someone who is highlighted works sometimes, but in this one mission that’s what you really need to do, getting away in the back of a carriage, trying to quick shoot people chasing you and fighting hand to hand in the back of the carriage as enemies jump in. And the Y button doesn’t work at ALL on this mission, you have the enemy clearly highlighted, Y button does nothing. So you have to left trigger and aim like any distance weapon, which totally screws up the whole mission then. And for some reason while I’m in this situation it won’t let me press up to take a health drink. If I fall off the wagon suddenly the up button works, but then it’s desynchronized.

And there are the glitches – spend time worming your way slowly into a place to avoid detection, only to have the game lock, and kick you back to the Xbox One main menu.

Graphics look good, sound is good, I’m enjoying the story line so far, and changing from one assassin to another with different skill sets is interesting, but they’re not SO different that it’s like a whole different type of gameplay… So it becomes more of a change of pace, not a change of gameplay. But it’s still a nice touch.

No ships, so if you love the sailing, this won’t float your boat. But you do get to do demolition derby stile carriage fights as you kidnap people and try to get them out of the area.

All told, parts of this game are 5 star, solidly. But the normal annoyance with the controls really ruins that, so I’ll settle for a 3. But I’d still say if you enjoy AC, you have to get this one.

Edit – But the downside – again, it’s a matter of controls that just don’t work well . I tried a half dozen times to do the "A Spot of Tea" mission and finally quit playing, because you have to use the rope launcher to follow a cart from above – and since the glitchy controls half the time don’t give you a "target" to launch the rope at, I failed every single time. So I went to do other side missions, but this may be what makes me quit the game without finishing it, the frustration with idiotic problems like this that should not exist. Problem is I’ve already cleared out all the areas, and about all I have left other than the memory sequences are cargo and ship hijack missions, which are just repetitive activities. Odds are I’m now at the point where this will sit on a shelf until a few updates have come and gone to see if this works better at that point. This may not be a bad thing, with Fallout coming out shortly…

I think most of us feel pretty hesitant to buy another Assassin’s Creed game after the last disaster that is "Unity". I still remember the first few weeks, yes weeks, of single digit frames, week late patches, and game-breaking glitches that came out with the game. Luckily, those problems aren’t as apparent in Syndicate. Don’t get me wrong…this game has a couple of bugs here and there, but definitely not as bad as Unity and it’s actually playable.

I played this game for about 5 hours overnight and I just wanted to give you guys my thoughts on it so far.

Pros:
Twins- I’m loving the decision of dividing the main role into 2 people. Evie and Jacob are like polar opposites of each other and their sibling rivalry really keeps the story alive for me. I love that they both have their own skill trees; Evie takes a traditional assassin route, while Jacob is a brawler in the streets.

Victorian Industrial Revolution- With a new era comes with new characters, history, architecture, and technological advances. Historical characters like Charles Dickens and Alex Graham Bell are just a couple of historical characters that will appear in this game. This game has a fun and wittier side to it than most AC games, and I really like that about it. I LOVE the rope launcher; it is literally my favorite item in the entire franchise. It makes traversing the entire map really fun again and gives climbing a fresh new feel.

Cons:
Same problems as always- Controlling your character’s movements have become easier with each passing AC game, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. You still get moments where you hop on to the wrong ledge, or the character just doesn’t do what you want. Combat was pretty cool at first because of the new takedowns and skills. But, it does get boring sooner or later because of the repetitiveness. At some point, you just realize that you’re spamming the same buttons as you’re automatically killing enemies one after another.

That’s just my thoughts on the game so far, but there are a lot of things I didn’t touch on yet such as graphics and story. I just wanted to give you a brief overview and update it when I beat the game. So far though, I’d give it a 8/10. It’s not the best AC game I’ve played, but it’s certainly not the worst.

I have this game on PS4 .. this review is purely based on the game experience and not based on the system.
FYI ..Played about 3 hours last night ..
if you liked the way assassins creed 4 played .. you will definitely like this game ..
Unity was a failure, but there were many additions to the movement and combat system , that was not noticed because of the failures being more Frame drops and movement glitches .. to name a few

This game has taken all the positives from Unity and made it brilliant ..

Combat – The combat is top notch .. it has similarities with assassins creed 3 type of combat .. when fighting a group .. the enemies tend to block .. so it makes it very interesting ..its more like mad max kinda fighting and not Shadow Of morda r/ arkhum knight ..

You can either play this game stealthy as possible or you can just go around beating people ..

Movement – this is the best part of the game .. Unity brought in the move up and move down .. free run .. this has made it even better with no glitches and its very smooth .. you can press L1 and zip line across .. which i think is a very good addition to the already well done movement system .

Story – As said , i have only played about 3 hours .. most of which was free run around .. i believe the story is more like the Industrial Revolution , where the brother / sister fight on behalf of the oppressed working class.
Its very interesting so far .. and you get to play as both the characters right from the start .. and their combat and movement are not the same ..

Cons:
When you do a stealth take down .. its always the same .. there is no difference .. which gets boring pretty fast ..
combat is good .. but if you notice very clearly .. it is somewhat the same free flow punches ..

I would rate it 4 star for the cons .. but how could you not like the graphics .. which is as good and detailed as Arkhum Knight

other then that .. its a game… that is as good as AC4 , with combat system of AC3 and a gameplay mechanics of AC Unity .. Worth the 60 dollars ..