The Assassins are back, but this time there are two of them. The twins Evie und Jacob Fry hit England’s capital London at the time of the Industrial Revolution. But has Ubisoft released a game that is at the same great level as the game we could enjoy with Ezio Auditore? Let’s find out.
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Slowly we get the feeling that Assassin’s Creed is a part of our live for the last 20 years. We think that it is important to keep in mind that the first Assassin’s Creed was relesed in 2007. Until then Ubisoft sold more than 75 million copies. That also means that I enjoyed year for year the fight against the Templars. The Crusades, Italy during the Renaissance, the American fight for Independence, Pirates in the Caribbean, the French Revolution, since eight years Ubisoft has managed to connect historically documented events or figures with the conflict between the Assassins and the Templars.
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In the most of the games we had the feeling that the cities has been more important than the protagonists because of the faithfully represented and impressive architecture. We had a lot of fun with the worlds of Assassin’s Creed. Unfortunately, there has been always too much to climb and we never get a great connection with the game’s combat system. We know that Ubisoft do not like to hear this, but for us it was the story that kept us playing. The gameplay-mechanics are very good and entertained us very well, but the most fun we had was with the Ezio-Trilogy. And then there was the most interesting, the part we played in the presence with Desmond Miles and the so-called race, which is also known as the ‘First Civilization’ in the series.
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What we like is and what we noticed is that Ubisoft knows the power of the series and they included a lot of features from previous episodes (which gamers liked) and also added some fresh mechanics in the latest game Syndicate. Ubisoft used as much as creativity as they have. This game is made by the studios in Montpellier and Annecy are also involved as Reflections and Ubi Monteal, but the main responsibility has the studio in Quebec. That means that you can enjoy on the way through the old London at the time of the industrial revolution accurately simulated attractions like Westminster, the Big Ben, the Tower of London, the Buckingham Palace or St. Paul’s Cathedral, which are located among the large big city. You also can meet well known characters like Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx or Charles Darwin. Player also get some missions from them. You also meet the then Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli or his rival William Gladstone, with whom he had a great duel in the fight for Downing Street 10. What we like is that Ubisoft has include all characters in a fictive story like in the previous games before. The main story is about the twins Evie and Jacob Frye which fights as Assassins not only against the social injustice. You also have to fight gangs that are controlling different districts of London. And yes, you also have to kill the grand master of the Templars but we do not want to tell you more at this point. You know that we do not like spoilers, so you have to find it out by yourself.
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Unfortunately, the most of the characters we meet in this game are just useful for a quick moment. We do not get to know them very well and they eventually get removed from the game. We also think that this is one reason why the story is very facile. We loved that Ezio fighted against a historical figure. The Pope was established as an antagonist in the Enzio trilogy, but in Syndicate it unfortunately only a fictional character. This gives us the feeling that Syndicate is a countless spin of in this game series in which they only replaced the enemies. This game series has lost a lot of its narrative charm. The presence-storyline and the battle between the Assassins and Templars also lost a lot of its quality. There are only a few interactions that starts some CG-Videos that tells us the story about Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane but what we like is that they using characters which we know since Assassin’s Creed 2. Unfortunately, we have to say that the story do not catch us emotionally.
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What we like is that we can play in Syndicate a female character. And Evie is not only a great Assassin. What we like is that she is not a sexobject in this game and has some great skills like her brother. Unfortunately, there are differences in the way you play Evie or her brother. On the one hand each character has his own skill tree and can be upgraded separately, but on the other hand there are a lot identical configuration options. The skillpoints you need to unlock new skills are the same and the results, too. There are only three exclusive abilities for each character but the results do not change anything on the gameplay-mechanics. What we like is that we can choose for a lot of missions which character we would like to play. Both can run with the same speed, can equally well cross obstacles and are equal good at climbing. What we like is the new rope, which can draw you in a high amount or let you cross canyons just in few seconds like Batman in Gotham City.
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Evie uses an elegant walking stick with a hidden blade and Jacob prefers a classic knuckle-duster to use them against enemies. But also in the cobat system there are no differences between the two characters. What we can say is that the games cobat system has a focus on fistfight. This was a big new feature in Rocksteady’s Batman that was released in 2009. Unfortunately, this battlesystem takes a step back because it does not the tactical use of for example conters like the games before. That means that Syndicate’s battlesystem lost his potentials and has not the great dynamic like previous games before. That also means that if you achieve a special point of skilling you just only hit the fight button as much and as fast as you can. There are not a lot of fights in which you get the great Batman-Combat-Feeling. We also noticed that unfortunately tha animations are not the best one, too. On the other hand the brutality of the battles is so intense staged as never before in the series.
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Like in every Assassin’s Creed game before the sounds and animations are great. We not only used you speakers to test the game’s sound. We also used our Logitech G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Surround Gaming-Headset that has played the sounds really great. For more about the Headset take a look at jadoRendr’s REVIEW or rake a look at the official homepage HERE.
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There are some quality problems in this game. Unfortunately, the AI is not so good as the one from previous games. We can accept enemies that are getting confused because we Escape with the help of the cable, but if we can kill three enemies on dirrerent positions without that the others notice this, we realize that the requirement how good a player is has reached in Syndicate compared to its previous games a new low level. On the other side, if you slide on a rope to assault an enemie, or let enemies attack each other with the help of a special arrow, or escape out of the view of an approaching guard in the last second, Syndicate starts to become an original Assassin’s Creed game. In addition to that, missions that you have to complete under a tight time limit or missions for example you have to kill some snipers before they can kill their tareget are very exciting. These are the moments we had a lot of fun to be the killer that strikes his enemies down out of nowhere. Because of some new skills, new gagdets and the sneak featrure the game creates a great and entertaining dynamic.
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London is the biggest city of the whole series that has been created. Unfortunately, in most moments the city feels a little bit lost of civilisation. There are only a few scripted szenes a some carriages driving around. We can not ecplain why Unbisoft decided to take out the population. We would understand this if the game would run much better without it, but this is not the case.
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From time to time there are moments that entertained us a lot and from time to time there are also moments that that fascinated us. Unfortunately, vthis game has just very few of this moments. We think that this gaming series is a standart with its story, quality, cities, gameplay elements and features for a lot of other games that has been released after the first Assassin’s Creed. So we start to ask ourselfs, what the problem is that the last games are not at the same high level like previous Assassin’s Creed games. Is the reason that they want to release a new Assassin’s Creed game every year? Are there steakholders that has to much influence on the creative side of this company? This would be really sad, because on the first look is Syndicate as good and as bad as the other games of this series, but has so much potentials that it could be the best one. Unfortunately, Ubisoft do not used them.
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What we like is that there are in addition to the main quests al lot to do. All-in-all, this game includes more than 40 hours of gameplay. We can confirm that 50 precent of this are the hours you need for the main quests. You can do some carriage races and participate in some illegal fights to have more ingame money and to collect some XP. You can use this money and some captured raw materials to get new equipment. This equipment includes not only visual changes. It also changes you skills stealth and other skills. Players can use their headquater to command their gangs and get some bonuses for raw materials which changes the games balance. You can achieve a good reputation by investing money. After this, enemy gangs do not have longer any opportunity to mob you. We also recommend to bribe the police. You can also set a level for the gang’s new recruits, giving them new battl-bonuses and do a lot more.
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You not only have a strong antagonist in this game. The ‘Blighters’-Gang controls many parts of the city. If you accept this task and try to drive them out of the neighborhood. This is a great feature in addition to the rest mechanics and you can use it especially in the first hours of the game to get a lot of money and XP quickly. This also allows you to get new and additional skills. We had a lot of fun to be a bounty hunter. In this missions we have to or should deliver a gangster boss ideally alive to the police. It was great to hunt the Templars. In this missions you have to kill the leader (as a secondary target in a certain way). Other missions are to liberate children from factories and clear gang’ headquaters.
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Unfortunately, we have to say that Syndicate is not the best Assassin’s Creed we played. On the one hand, if you just take a look at the basics it is not worse than others than other games. The climbing works very well and in both directions (up and down) faster than before. You play in a jistorical large city, you see not only some great simulated sights and meet weull known characters. Not only your character, but also your gang can be skilled and the best thing, you can play with a very attractive woman. With the help of the cable and the carriages Ubisoft included more oportunities to move. Unfortunately, the studio offers a lot of features but did not see the potential to connect them among each other. Syndicates offers the biggest city that has been realized ever, but we never had the feeling of beeing there because of the low number of details and density of population. This game has the potentials to be the best Assassin’s Creed they have released ever. Unfortunately, Ubisoft did not take the chance. If you take all the great moments that we had with this game you could compare Syndicate with AC Brotherhood or AC Black Flag. We think that Ubisoft should take all the feedbacks and work on the next one, but this next game should be not released in 2016. We think that if they take the time their need, they could release the best Assassin’s Creed they ever done.
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