Assassins Creed Syndicate Review (PC) - Hungry Geeks

The Assassins Creed series has always managed to capture imagination by highlighting death-defying stunt and mind-boggling mysteries, mixing in a pinch of history for good measure. They do this every year. At first, nobody bothered to shout at them, because why stop a good game, right? However, the years were unkind to the franchise, grinding them to a halt with each year being a hit or miss attempt. This year’s contender is sadly, a miss. I played Assassins Creed Syndicate on PC and contrary to what others might be saying that this is a good PC port, I found out otherwise.

Story (Templars vs. Assassins)

AC Syndicate is a new angle on a tried and tested (tired) formula. The game is set during the Victorian Era, marking the Industrial Revolution. London is filled with Steam Engines and the incredibly high smoke stacks. With this advancement comes child labor problems, pollution, and density. In the midst of this technological madness, the player takes control of the Frye twins, Assassins raised from birth, as they embark on a journey to take down the dastardly Templars that helm the capital city of the world. Their adventure takes them into the political machineries of the city and the corruption that envelops it. Since they’re assassins, they just stab, plunge, and jab their way through every problem conceivable. And they do it with flair.

And you get to meet Charles Darwin!

How It Plays

You control an Assassin, you climb buildings and trees, and kill people with a hidden wrist blade. Yup, if you’ve played all other Assassin’s Creed since its conception, the process remains the same. Similar to its earlier brethren, the developers decided to spice things up by introducing new yet sometimes shaky features and by removing some of the best ones.

London is one of the best cities recreated in the AC series.

Syndicate can be taken as a bit of an RPG as it employs the use of a very limited skill tree with the requirement to gain experience points in order to progress. Experience points are rewarded whenever missions are accomplished and thugs are downed. There’s a semblance of progression here, but instead of having two unique trees for the twins, you get only one plus three unique skills for each of them. It’s a missed opportunity as two unique trees for two contrasting approaches can, in theory, improve the game’s replayability.

Aside from managing the skills, the game also tackles a bit of economics. The player can craft and buy tools from different peddlers across the city. Opening crates provide a number of materials which can be crafted into more hardy and powerful equipment.

The grappling mechanics work.

As London’s streets are far and wide, transportation and the usual flashy parkour of scaling brick walls are not be enough. They are tedious and slow, but flashy. Syndicate now encourages the use of two different navigational tools: the grappling hook and horses (neigh!) The Grappling Hook can be acquired a bit earlier in the game and allows the player to quickly ascend rooftops and across wide avenues. The horses and their carriages can be stolen to easily go across the vast expanse of Imperial London. The two new methods are mostly done for convenience, but the grappling hook opens more windows for assassination and tactical approaches.

No, there’s no multiplayer.

Gang Mechanics

Mob fights are part of being an Assassin.

Aside from doing things that Assassins do, taking and maintaining control of the streets of London goes in parallel with the game’s main objective. Jacob Frye establishes the “Rooks” by the time he sets foot in London and as a gang manager, taking and fighting for territory is important.

Several missions span the entire map of London which the player can just go to to trigger the event. Each skirmish differs in nature and upon accomplishing them, nets the capture of the territory and a favor boost to a certain Assassin-ally. Once the favor bar is filled, a unique item can be unlock for use for either/both characters.

Some sidequests include “escorting” a mob boss as a known Assassin on the loose. Nobody bothers to check.

The gang can also be upgraded. Similar to the progression tree, the player can decide which qualities and perks to acquire in exchange for materials and cash.

Combat

The twins have no differences in terms of combat. They handle like gods of war in the middle of fights. Again, we see a retooled combat mechanic that ditches the almighty counterattack scheme, favoring an offensive approach. The player can make use of three different responses: attack, stun, and evade. Attack is straightforward bashing, stun effectively removes enemy blocking, while evading enemy attacks opens them for a counter. Depending on the skill build, the player can favor going mano-a-mano or one-hit silent assassinations.

The player can also equip a variety of tools to utilize in their fight for London. Available armaments include a walking cane, knuckles, kukris, and revolvers. Each weapon can be upgraded and differs in damage and speed.

This guy should be a boss. Thankfully, he looks around corners like an ordinary grunt.

The AI
The game, in nature, should be hard. But there’s an obvious lack of brain in Syndicates digital denizens. I initially found myself grinning over the lack of AI, thereafter lamenting and crying at the corner after several hours with it. The thugs and goons usually run aloof after finding a murdered friend. The people of London can evoke only two emotions: fear and apathy. It makes the game easy and predictable, removing the challenge or the feeling of joy in accomplishing something noteworthy. It’s been like this since the early days, but lamentable that we see no improvement on this side of the AC games.

Graphics

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate looks good. I can give it that. From the lighting, down to the draw distance, everything is in the right place for an open-world game. Nighttime looks great too!

But there’re no colorful palettes to be found. Instead we’re subjected to hours of staring at red brick walls, people in black dresses, and clones. Even major characters with names have copy-pasted appearances similar to the regular Joe.

Should You Get It?

Not all bugs break the game.

Again, contrary to what others say, this is not a fine PC port. I’ve had several accounts from different people playing on PC that had problems such as crashing and carriage horses going wild. I also experienced a 2-hour playthrough were everything I did wasn’t saved. It’s way better than what Unity was but it doesn’t change the fact that it still performs like flea-ridden dog.

Syndicate also has problems with its identity. It’s an open-world game that tries to have a piece of everything else that’s good and mainstream. In consequence, we get a game that loses its appeal: its world. The digital London recreated by the developers is beautiful and has that feeling of grandeur, but its doesn’t even try to convince the player to dive into it and relish the black-colored canals and slime. Unlike open-world games like Witcher 3, MGS V, and GTA V, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate feels like a brainless simulation. The denizens act like nothing after stealing a horse-carriage from them, which at that time is equivalent to a car. They don’t even bother to steal it back from you. The guards and thugs are knobs, being alert after finding a corpse, then reverting back to the usual after mere minutes. There’s no feeling of consequence. If you get caught, you just hide and that’s it. It is without a doubt fake but it should at least try to make it feel real, right?

Carriage riding is fun at first, but the cracks show once you get all too familiar with it.

As bad as it might be, aside from the city of London, I like the grappling hook. It makes things faster given the setting of far and wide boroughs. Other than that, I really wanted to just beeline and finish the monotonous experience.

How ’bout “NO”?

Or maybe I’m just tired of playing Assassin’s Creed games. As an answer to the question, “Should You Buy It?”, I would recommend to pass it up unless you’re an incredible fan of the series or have yet to play an Assassin’s Creed. The fatigue might have crept up on me as I’m just too familiar with whatever the game has to offer. As a game, it’s a good one through and through. But with the title attached, it’s just not that good.

Helix can also be acquired by collecting a limited number of them in-game.

Oh, and include the microtransactions in the game. It’s optional, but why the heck would you do this? For ~~incompetent~~ impatient players to play the game better or faster?

Assassins Creed Syndicate Review