Assassin's Creed Syndicate (PS4, XB1, PC)

[cdj]

The Assassin’s Creed Syndicate story throws you into the dawn of the modern era during the Industrial Revolution. You play Jacob Frye, a gangster assassin fighting for justice on behalf of London’s enslaved working class. Watch as Jacob rallies his gang to break the corrupt stranglehold on London and bring the working class a brighter future.

- GameSpot with early details on improvements and changes coming to the game. The game will feature vehicles that can be hi-jacked GTA-style as well as an Arkham-esque rope launcher. Development is being led by Ubisoft Quebec.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate launches October 23. Amazon already has the standard and Gold Editions available for pre-order.

[SCClassof93]

More class warfare story lines this may be the first one I pass on.

[SmoothPancakes]

I'll still give it a whirl. While there have been a couple games that were definitely not up to the top quality expected of Assassin's Creed, I'll keep rolling with the series until they produce a real bomb. This is one of the only couple series that I still buy every single release that comes out, so I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt.

#TheScriptIsDead

[CLW]

[bdoughty]

[jaymo76]

Man... I still haven't finished Unity. I need to get a move on. I really wish this series would go back to the Black Flag approach with movement via the ocean. That was so much fun. I still play from time to time.

[SmoothPancakes]

Yeah, I was rolling through Unity last January, then I got the flu around Super Bowl weekend, followed by taking it up the ass from mother nature in the form of snow storms and subzero temperatures that kept me busy digging out cars and shoveling the sidewalk while trying to get to work in between, and I never picked it back up.

I think I was probably 70% through the story when I stopped. I know I had gotten pretty far into the story and was approaching the later stages of the game. Need to find time to go back and finish it.

[souljahbill]

I've beaten:
Assassins Creed
Assassins Creed II
Assassins Creed Brotherhood
Assassins Creed Revelations
Assassins Creed III
Assassins Creed Liberation (which I love because it's set in my hometown of New Orleans and Aveline is just as bad ass as the dudes)
Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag (I also beat the Freedom Cry DLC)
Assassins Creed Rouge

Assassins Creed Unity is the only game I haven't played and beaten because I still rock last-gen hardware

[Rudy]

Sounds like nothing ground breaking here. Disappointed to hear combat was simplified. I would have liked to see more advanced combat.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/games/20...loody-average/

[CLW]

I just cannot get into this series. Its on my rental list but if I never get around to it no loss for me. - Reviews have been mostly positive sitting around an 80 overall so sounds like if you are a fan of this series it's definitely worth the pick up.

[SmoothPancakes]

Yeah, I really enjoy the Assassin's Creed series, but this one I'm hanging back on. With Halo 5, Fallout 4, WWE 2K16, Star Wars Battlefront, Black Ops 3 and Just Cause 3 coming coming out over the next month and a half, AC Syndicate has to get pushed to the side until probably at least January 1st. It just doesn't seem like it's worth a day one purchase this year. That, and I STILL have to finish Unity.

[jaymo76]

Yeah, I really enjoy the Assassin's Creed series, but this one I'm hanging back on. With Halo 5, Fallout 4, WWE 2K16, Star Wars Battlefront, Black Ops 3 and Just Cause 3 coming coming out over the next month and a half, AC Syndicate has to get pushed to the side until probably at least January 1st. It just doesn't seem like it's worth a day one purchase this year. That, and I STILL have to finish Unity.

My wife asked me if I wanted this game for xmas... and I said "I don't know." It looks, feels, sounds and plays like Unity. The graphics are not great based on the streams I have watched. They are rushing these games out. Slow down; take 3-4 years and blow us out of the water (aka lots of different locales, modes of tranport and unique combat (feudal Japan, Egypt's Nile Delta, etc.).

[CLW]

My wife asked me if I wanted this game for xmas... and I said "I don't know." It looks, feels, sounds and plays like Unity. The graphics are not great based on the streams I have watched. They are rushing these games out. Slow down; take 3-4 years and blow us out of the water (aka lots of different locales, modes of tranport and unique combat (feudal Japan, Egypt's Nile Delta, etc.).

They won't stop cranking them out every year unless/until they don't sell millions of copies.

[JBHuskers]

I still haven't played any of them

[souljahbill]

I still haven't played any of them

LOL!

Assassin's Creed was my 2nd favorite new IP of the last generation behind Mass Effect.

[steelerfan]

I still haven't played any of them

[bdoughty]

I played a few of them but the combat is not my cup of tea. The parkour is a bit too simple, especially compared to Dying Light. Plus it is made by Ubisoft. Fuck Ubisoft.

[SmoothPancakes]

My wife asked me if I wanted this game for xmas... and I said "I don't know." It looks, feels, sounds and plays like Unity. The graphics are not great based on the streams I have watched. They are rushing these games out. Slow down; take 3-4 years and blow us out of the water (aka lots of different locales, modes of tranport and unique combat (feudal Japan, Egypt's Nile Delta, etc.).

Yeah, they had a good thing going early on, but now they're just trying to pump out a new game every year, and recently, it's become multiple new games a year with AC 3 and AC 3: Liberation in 2012, Unity and Rogue in 2014, Syndicate and Chronicles: China this year.

They apparently already have announced or are working on AC Chronicles: India for sometime in 2016, plus whatever main AC game they release next fall.

They are getting to the point of trying to do too much each year to cash in on the popularity of the franchise, and in the process they are damaging that popularity by putting out subpar products.

They won't stop cranking them out every year unless/until they don't sell millions of copies.

Well, with the quality of the series gradually weakening primarily due to them constantly trying to crank out 1-2 new games every year, it won't be long before that happens.

[Rudy]

Black Flag was a lot of fun but the combat was overly simple for a game that has a lot of it. After playing Mordor which had all kinds of things you could do a simple hit and counter combination just doesn't cut it imo.

[SmoothPancakes]

So, after getting $25 from Xbox Live Rewards celebrating their 5th anniversary, and getting another $25 for Xbox Live from my sister for Christmas, I had $50 sitting around waiting to be spent on my account. Taking advantage of the two week mega sale that Xbox Live had at the end of December/beginning of January, I could have either gotten Fallout 4 (plus buy the season pass separately at full price) for $80, or I could get AC Syndicate Gold (the season pass and all released DLC to that point) for $60. Pretty damn easy call for me, $60 for everything related to AC Syndicate without having to spend another dime on DLC for it. So I bought the game a couple days after Christmas.

I'm only on sequence 4, pretty early on in the story, but that's because I've been so busy doing side quests. Syndicate is really fun. You have territory takeovers to try and "reclaim" London from the Templars. Each region of the city is further split into small sections. So to take over Whitechapel, the starting area, you have to liberate child workers, you have to take over a Blighter (enemy gang) stronghold, you have to kill a Templar agent and you have to capture a bounty hunt (dead or alive). And then once you've "captured" all the subsections of the region, you unlock a gang war against the controlling Gang Leader of the region. Win the gang war, and that section/region of the city is yours.

The number of activities changes depending on the region. Some have more bounty hunts, others have more gang strongholds or child liberations. There are 7 regions in the game. Whitechapel (starting area), City of London, The Strand, Westminster, The River Thames, Southwark and Lambeth. Each have their own gang leaders, each have their own activities. There are also the usual collectibles, chests, pressed flowers, helix glitches, illustrations, locked (gold) chests, vintage beer bottles, Secrets of London and Royal Correspondence.

Having two characters also is a nice change. Being able to change between Jacob and Evie Frye and build their skills up helps to change the pace of the game. Jacob is your hands-on, physical basher type character (with brass knuckles being his preferred weapon). Evie meanwhile is your true silent assassin, with stealth being her primary focus and being able to disappear right under the noses of the enemy. For her, cane-swords and kukris work well. You can also upgrade a lot. Thanks to being able to craft weapons and outfits, you can upgrade your weapons, assassin gauntlets, firearms, capes, belts, outfits, colors and gear and tool upgrades, improving your weapons and abilities and making you a stronger killing machine as the game goes on.

They also changed it to where you, your allies and your enemies now have shown levels. You start level 1 and can work up to level 10. The various regions have suggested levels before you try to conquer them, as you will face tougher, higher level enemies. Westminster has a suggested level of 9, City of London has a suggested level of 6, Lambeth has a suggested level of 3, etc. It sort of gives you a warning if you're about to get in over your head early on while your characters are still low level and weak.

There are also plenty of ways to get around. Unlike Unity, where you had to literally run every single place, you now have multiple options. You can drive a horse and cart (or you can hitch a ride and let your allies drive it), you can jump on any one of numerous trains that chug along throughout the map, or you can go down to The River Thames and sit there hopping from steamboat to steamboat. The River Thames is a mass of activity with steamboats chugging all over the place. You almost feel like you're playing a human version of frogger trying to get from one side of the river to the other by doing nothing but jumping from boat to boat.

Edit - Doh! I almost forgot! The Rooks! Jacob starts his own gang, The Rooks, to take on the Blighters. You can buy gang upgrades (increase the level of your gang members to levels 5, 7 and 9, when you order them to fight, they'll open conflict with a volley fire, you can make their volley fire more accurate and effective, at one point in the upgrades you can unlock the ability to have a full carriage of 5 Rooks come to your aid. You can also weaken the Blighters, bribe police, unlock shop discounts and increase your income in your train safe to help you gain more money.

You can also recruit random Rooks on the street to join and fight by your side. If I'm in a tough area, I'll run up to a couple Rooks on the street, recruit them to join me and then with 5 Rooks joining me, go charging in and just mow down enemies. When I got my Rooks to level 9 and got their gun volleys leveled up, holy shit is it hilarious to order my Rooks to attack a Blighter, and watch them all draw like a firing squad and just unload on that poor bastard. At this point, rarely does a Blighter survive the firing squad at the beginning of conflicts.

So even thought I've only made it to Sequence 4 and have sort of stalled on the storyline because I've been running around like a headless chicken doing side quests, Syndicate so far is a blast! This may finish in my top 3 Assassin's Creed games by the time I get done with it.