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Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (aka The London One)

Started by Noodle Lizard, June 13, 2015, 07:29:10 AM

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Noodle Lizard

To replace the appallingly-spelled previous thread from yonks back.

Here, they've released some gameplay: https://youtu.be/hKR42Ci000k

Shit.

Jerzy Bondov

Yep I think I've finished with these now. Didn't think Unity was as bad as people made out but it was very samey. They had a good chance to reinvent it a bit with the Hitman-style assassination missions, but they blew it by marking up all the different ways you could go in before you'd even had a go yourself. Loved the first couple and the residual love kept me going a while but I've had enough now. Wasn't even that fussed by the ship stuff in Black Flag that everybody loved so much.

Thursday

I think I would be out, but running along Victorian rooftoops does have an appeal. Unity was fine though, I agree. I got it after there'd been a few patches and didn't have any major issues. It was a delight to just walk around in, and it was nice that they'd finally made some steps towards making it the historical Hitman game everyone thought it would be all those years ago.

Jerzy Bondov

I'd be more up for the Victoriana stuff if we hadn't had Bloodborne and The Order this year, both of which were more enjoyable than any recent Creed entry. The Order had the cinematic, twisty story and detailed, expensive visuals that Assassin's Creed aspires to, with plenty of hand-holding gameplay but with a lot more polish and none of the thankless busywork. Bloodborne had the hardcore, work-this-lot-out-for-yourself-mate attitude that I think AC could learn a lot from, where you are rewarded for exploring an intricate world on your own steam, not checking off markers on a map. I see Assassin's Creed as falling somewhat clumsily between these approaches, trying to be everything for everyone at once. But that's why it sells so fuck knows what I'm talking about.

Noodle Lizard

The Order is for cunts, though.  "Imagine it's Victorian London, but also ZOMBIES LOL!"

I've never played it.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I played a bit of the third game and found it rather boring. There was a pretty good plot twist around the point I gave up, but the game itself was surprisingly dull to play. Yer Dishonoreds, Batman: Arkhams and Hitmanses[nb]Blood Money, anyway. I've not played any others in the series.[/nb] all do similar stuff but, for whatever reason, are more enjoyable.

Thursday

#6
I think the 3rd is generally considered the worst game after the original at this point.

Noodle Lizard

Yeah, AC3 is no good really.  AC2 and Brotherhood are easily the best, and really not much was added since that makes any subsequent ones worth investigating too much.  Black Flag was fun, I suppose.

Egyptian Feast

I'm playing Rogue at the moment, which I highly recommend for the lead character's outrageous Irish accent. It's one of the worst I've ever heard, up there with the likes of Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own or Kevin Spacey & Linda Fiorentino in Ordinary Decent Criminal. He can't even pronounce Galway properly. As a result, I can't take him seriously at all, but it's good for cheap laughs and there's plenty of stuff to do, so I'm enjoying it.

Harpo Speaks

Syndicate looks fun, but I haven't played any since 2 (though I have Black Flag on the 360 hard drive to get to). It's a shame Ubisoft feel the need to release one of these every single year, surely heading for audience burnout like that, particularly of the quality is sub par. Better to take some extra development time, with the added bonus of building audience anticipation again.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Harpo Speaks on June 23, 2015, 02:26:48 PM
Syndicate looks fun, but I haven't played any since 2 (though I have Black Flag on the 360 hard drive to get to). It's a shame Ubisoft feel the need to release one of these every single year, surely heading for audience burnout like that, particularly of the quality is sub par. Better to take some extra development time, with the added bonus of building audience anticipation again.

Standard practice for publishers to bring out titles with that kind of regularity and its part and parcel of their business plan. There's no guarantee that taking longer will make them more money and ultimately, they will be guided by sales. Ubisoft has had problems with other IPs like Spinter Cell (Blacklist significantly underperformed, IIRC, for instance) whereas AC is money in the bank. Unity was relatively poorly received, but that didn't seem to hurt sales in any meaningful way and if the next one is a good 'un, all will be forgiven

biggytitbo

Just got round to playing this now, the story is fluff with a few fun diversions and a fair bit of repetition as always, but man the world is a thing of beauty. There might be more technically advanced games now but few look as frequently beautiful as this does, the grand vistas of victorian london, the foggy rooftops, the smokestacks, the thames, the incredible lighting at dusk and dawn, the rain, the streetlamps at night, its pretty much consistently jaw dropping. I could just spend hours exploring this world and not even bother with the game.

biggytitbo

There's also a character in this called John the Tosser, which is good.


And a special level where you pass through a time glitch and end up in WW1 London hunting down spies for Winston Churchill.

Thursday

Aye and it was great that as I recall, they just hid that in there, didn't make a big thing of promoting it, didn't make it some pre-order DLC bonus. You just stumble across and there's a fair chance you could get through the game without seeing it.

Kelvin

That sounds great. Did they change the look of the city during that level?

biggytitbo

They add Tower bridge (which wasnt built when the main game is set), where most of the action centers, and soldiers, blimps, tanks etc. The streets are largely the same though, as are the NPCs who still appear to be in Victorian dress.


There's also a Jack the Ripper DLC which I haven't played yet, but have high hopes for, especially if they get the locales accurately recreated.

Waking Life

I think you'll be disappointed by the Ripper DLC. Some of it is quite fun in terms of contextualising things like the Saucy Jack stuff, but I didn't really like the 'storyline' they took. They do try to take a different approach with the gameplay too, which doesn't quite come off either.

I agree on the city being a good Victorian London simulator, but I had issues with the geographical representation of Whitechapel even before the DLC. I have no doubt it has changed massively since 1888, but the Dorset Street section is the only bit where it feels close to Ripper London.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Waking Life on November 26, 2017, 07:11:33 PM
I think you'll be disappointed by the Ripper DLC. Some of it is quite fun in terms of contextualising things like the Saucy Jack stuff, but I didn't really like the 'storyline' they took. They do try to take a different approach with the gameplay too, which doesn't quite come off either.


Is it like the detective missions in the main game, which are a nice idea but never quite come off. There is quite a cool Spring heeled jack mission earlier in the game though, which i thought worked quite nicely.

Noodle Lizard

Yeah, the Ripper DLC is kind of pants - if for no other reason than he's famously only attributed to five very specific and intricate murders, and in here you have him aggressively and carelessly killing hundreds of anonymous bods (oftentimes under the player's control).  It basically needn't have been his name they used for all the similarities it has to the real case, which is a shame, since the physical world they'd set up would be a perfect place to accommodate a good Ripper game.

Waking Life

Quote from: biggytitbo on November 26, 2017, 08:03:44 PM

Is it like the detective missions in the main game, which are a nice idea but never quite come off. There is quite a cool Spring heeled jack mission earlier in the game though, which i thought worked quite nicely.

Yes, they build upon that (a bit), but throw in a new gameplay element too and diversify the combat approach. I suppose it's a credit to them for trying to go for a slightly different approach to the DLC, but it felt like a missed opportunity in the way they handled the idea.

Linked to this, Assassins Creed games in general are bad for oversimplifing (and often glamorising) prostitution. Syndicate is probably the first one to hint at the underlying misery and poverty, but still largely portrays it as a profession; working in comfortable bordellos as part of a de facto sisterhood gang. Arguably it fits neatly with the equally simplistic Templar vs Assassin framework that the games are designed around, but it feels a bit off in this context. Obviously there were brothels, but the vast majority of prostitutes in Whitechapel during the period were utterly destitute, drunk and homeless (Mary Kelly being slightly better off with the rented room). I can see why they were keen to do Jack the Ripper due to the setting and the masonic backdrop, but it doesn't quite fit.

Noodle Lizard

Dunno if it's worth starting a new thread, but I rented Origins recently (the new one set in Egypt) and it's remarkable how different it feels.  Probably the biggest reinvention since Brotherhood, a lot more RPG elements (though I dunno if you could call it an RPG) and the combat is more akin to something like Dark Souls than the smooth button-mashing exercise of previous games.  It actually really put me off at first, but once I started to get the hang of it I saw a lot of potential - especially once I started exploring other areas.  I feel like it'd be more of a time commitment than I have resources for at the moment, though, so I only played for a day or two.

Still, interested to know what you cunts think.  Seems to be pretty universally liked.

Thursday

I ordered it over the weekend, because of how good the reviews are, even though I was sceptical. I keep getting pulled back into this series, despite thinking the latest one will be my last. The gap has helped this year for sure.

biggytitbo

What puts me off about Origins is the setting, whilst Egypt obviously has its share of iconic monuments, it lacks the verticality that is the trademark of the series. One of the best things about syndicate is whizzing up and down all the tall building with the grappling hook and then skipping across the roof tops, it's all very satisfying on a visceral level.

Noodle Lizard

#23
Quote from: biggytitbo on November 27, 2017, 07:15:47 AM
What puts me off about Origins is the setting, whilst Egypt obviously has its share of iconic monuments, it lacks the verticality that is the trademark of the series. One of the best things about syndicate is whizzing up and down all the tall building with the grappling hook and then skipping across the roof tops, it's all very satisfying on a visceral level.

Yeah, it's sort of different in many ways.  There is plenty of climbing to be done, though I guess the "veritcality" comes more from natural sources like mountains and trees than buildings.  Victorian London definitely appeals more to my aesthetic, but Origins makes up for it in sheer scope.  I wish they hadn't shat the bed so much with AC3, as there was a lot of potential with those environments (cities and rural areas).

I really wasn't won over by the first hour or two of gameplay, largely because I expected it to play like a typical AC game (they're not known for rocking the boat) and was therefore unaware of things like the more "physical" combat and leveling-up.  I guess Syndicate has a leveling system too, but you're rarely exposed to scenarios out of your range, whereas in Origins you can be piss-arsing about in the open when you suddenly get twatted by a seemingly invincible grunt, or gathering thereof, and there are some proper cunty animals hanging around as well (a crocodile the size of a fucking London bus).

I'll say this, though: as far as I can tell, there is no Mummy in Origins.  That's a big negative point.

Thursday

#24
Origins came today today, and I'm into it so far, I'm all for the changes, parkour has become old hat, so I'm into a slightly different feel (then again one of the first missions has me hiding in long grass and whistling to attract enemies, so some things stay the same.)

Seems like it might even have taken some lessons from Breath of the Wild in not over filling the map with icons and letting you discover things.

Mobius

I'm playing Origins. Can anyone tell me why I can only 'takedown' enemies and not assassinate or murder them from stealth please?

biggytitbo

Finished Syndicate, probably my favourite of the ones I've played, remains fun even when it starts to get a bit repetitive towards the end. The addition of the Just Cause like grappling hook makes all the difference in terms of this feeling more satisfying to play over other entries. Will try the jack the ripper dlc now, and completing it also unlocks some Queen Victoria missions.

biggytitbo


Kelvin

Yeah, bit much to have some bollocks on his shield.