Have you ever eaten a Pot Noodle? Well, if you haven't I will try to describe the whole experience for you. You have gone shopping, you are not entirely hungry but could use something & you are on a budget. Slowly you traverse the isle filled with pasta, noodles & other low cost food stuffs. Nope, nothing really jumps out at you, but wait what's this - a Pot Noodle - Bombay Bad Boy, that sounds fun. Check the price, it's on special - yoink! After paying for it you go home, boil the kettle & just add water. It tastes good enough at the time but then you finish it & feel empty & disappointed inside. It was so cheap what did you expect? You decide not to have one ever again until of course you do, generally with the same results.
That is in nutshell how I feel about Assassin Creed Syndicate & to a degree the series. I continue to buy & play each of the games, some better that others but with the exception of Black Flag & the first two games in the series I am always left feeling unsatisfied. For some reason I continue to play each one of them that gets released. Maybe I should give up on the series but I can't help myself I always get drawn toward it & generally get left disappointed.
The game is set in London 1868, the industrial revolution is in full swing. Unfortunately the Templar's have all but taken over London & there is no one to help save the city. Henry Green seems to be the only Assassin in the City, he asks for help from the Brotherhood but receives none. I have a small problem here, London is seen at that time to be hugely important but yet the Brotherhood could not muster together anyone to help them? That to me is a bit odd no matter what the state of the Brotherhood some effort should have been made to free the city right?
Enter Jacob & Evie Frye, the brother & sister duo, they see how bad London is & want to free it from oppression. George Westhouse who seems to be their senior says that it is too hard a task, to be patient & wait. Of course, wait while the Templar's get stronger in London that will make it a lot easier to take them down. Jacob & Evie decide to take on the task but they are not alone in their fight. They have many historical figures who are willing to help along with a street gang they form called the Rooks.
The main thorn in your side is Crawford Starrick, the Grand Master Templar. He loves the sound of his own voice & clearly likes the Conor McGreggor - check out his hair. Evie & Jacob's mission is to take down Starrick & all his head people along with freeing London.
As in previous games you are another faceless person in the real world who this time you do not get to control at all. I know people complained about Desmond Miles in the earlier games but I always liked the character. You were invested in a someone outside of the Animus & this made you more aware of what you were fighting for rather than just being in what felt like another simulation.
Graphically speaking the game looks good & London feels alive. There is a lot happening around you; people talking to each other, the Thames is filled with ships carrying all kinds of goods, the trains looks impressive & running on top of them is great fun. While it looks great there always felt like there was something missing. Perhaps it is because I grew up in London, admittedly it was not in 1868. I just did not get that excited when I climbed landmarks like; Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Nelson's Column & being honest I would have expected to, they seemed almost too small. That being said the game as whole looked good.
The music is composed by Austin Wintory & Tripod. Tripod take care of most of the lyrical performances, which sound like old style pub songs mixed with a dash of comedy. My favorite songs they perform are; 'The Late Pearl Attaway', 'Jokes Jokes Jokes' 'Tale of Twopenny'. Austin Wintory composes some good tracks that heavily features strings of all shapes & sizes. Some of my favorite pieces are 'Top Hats & Sword Canes', 'Men Have Become Monsters', 'A Gauntlet Scherzo' & 'Hooded Allegro Vivace'.
While I enjoyed some of the score the person who stole the show was Bear McCreary. He composed the music for the add on Jack The Ripper. The music is intense, pulse pounding & feels more dramatic than the score for the main game. I can't pick a favorite piece as I enjoyed all of it. At the end I was left wondering how different the overall game would have sounded if he had composed the score for the entire game.
On to the gameplay itself, let's start with combat. For the most part the combat was fluid & easy to get used to. The system is definitely more refined than in previous games, this especially noticeable once you start upgrading each of Evie's & Jacob's skills. Counter attacking opponents feels more straight forward & helps in keeping your combat counter high during fights, this results in awesome finishing moves.
Like in previous titles in the series you have an arsenal at your disposal, the latest addition is the grapple hook. When I was using it I was reminded of the grapple hook HG Wells uses in Warehouse 13 & how cool it was. I had a love/hate relationship for it, it was a great way to get around but almost made it too easy & took away from the parkour elements that I enjoyed from the earlier games in the series.
Just like previous games there are things to upgrade, the primary & most important ones being for Jacob & Evie. The skill trees are broken into brawler, stealth & miscellaneous, for Jacob I focused on the brawler skill & for Evie Stealth as this naturally suits each of them. Outside of this you can upgrade your train hideout by completing missions & upgrade the Rooks to make them more effective along with granting you certain bonuses in game.
The main mission assassinations were often really good, you were given choices as to how to kill your mark. Often you could seek the help of someone close by who could get you close to the target or steal a key to access an area or throw caution to the wind run in there & just kill them outright. I generally mixed between stealing a key or just using a hidden blade to take them down. The downside to assassinations is the long drawn out death scenes. The victim tells you that you are wrong they are right & you are not seeing the big picture. Please Ubisoft I am begging you stop doing this, it was interesting in the early games but now it is just boring & over used.
The differences between Evie & Jacob are vast. Jacob is a go in guns blazing & hope for the best kind of character where as Evie is about thought, stealth & all good things assassins aspire to be. When using Evie she moves gracefully, her attacks feel more precise & again just feels more like an assassin should. Then there is Jacob who runs like he has full nappy but rather than change it keeps on going. He is a brawler & very rough round the edges, while I know this is intentional it just does not feel right. When I look at Jacob I think of that Father Ted quote, "Dougal, how did you get into the church in the first place? Was it, like collect 12 crisp packets & become a priest?" I wonder the same thing about Jacob. When it comes down to it feels like he is an assassin because his dad & sister are. I think the game would have played out better had it focused on Evie & had Jacob as minor character.
There are some great characters in the game that really add to the gameplay such as, Alexander Graham Bell who you have great interactions with & is a very likable character. Charles Dickens was another great character & his ghost hunting/disproving missions where really fun. Lydia Frye is a character that you can play during a World War I sequence, while I liked her character the missions were not very exciting especially if you consider those in Assassins Creed Unity. Crawford Starrick left me feeling deflated, he was not a great villain, spent too much time yammering on & generally did not ever move out of his study. He reminded me of an 80's/90's villain but instead giving cheesy dialogue it was just plain old bad & the climax with him was, well meh.
So after 30+ hours of gameplay how would I rate Assassins Creed Syndicate, thumbs up, thumbs down or just meh? I have to say guys I have to give it a 'Meh' rating. The combat was good, some good story & some great characters. That all being said a lot of the story was dull & some characters just did not hit their mark. When Ubisoft releases another assassins Creed game will I buy it? Yes. Perhaps I am just junkie or maybe I feel if I run at a wall enough times that eventually the outcome will be different.
