Assassin's Creed Syndicate Reviews
The bugs still remain but Syndicate is saved by a wonderfully vivid London, despite everything else feeling dated.
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate has an interesting setting, iconic characters and solid gameplay. It is, however, not the game that it could've been, due to a missing wow factor and some unfortunate glitches.
It'll do nothing to shake the series' reputation for check-box collectibles and all-too-familiar mission types, but Assassin's Creed: Syndicate plays to the structural strengths of a terrific Victorian London setting, enjoyable characters, and a few smart, iterative design changes.
So yeah… Assassin's Creed Syndicate is actually good. Took 'em long enough.
After spending over 35 hours exploring the nooks and cranny of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, I'm saddened to report that my initial findings still ring true. What I had hoped would be a return to everything great about Assassin's Creed has failed to really pull me in. It isn't a terrible game by any means, and I'd rank it much higher on the totem pole than the previous installment, Assassin's Creed Unity. But that doesn't change the fact that Ubisoft's latest assassin-centered story is only a few shades above mediocre.
Ultimately, Syndicate comes off as another Assassin's Creed game with a handful of improvements. London is beautiful if a bit laborious to travel around, and the missions are repetitive, but this doesn't make Syndicate bad by any stretch of the imagination. It's still a good game, it just hasn't made a significant step up over the previous instalment. If you are a fan of Assassin's Creed, or you think you might be, then Syndicate comes as recommended as any other AC. It likely won't convert people who dislike the series, but it won't lose any who are still interested in it, either.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate gets more right than it gets wrong, but in trying to amend some of the sins of the series, it exacerbates the issues instead of offering a cure. Despite that rather lengthy list of cons at the bottom of my review, one thing's for sure: Assassin's Creed Syndicate is still a hell of a lot of fun.
Fantastic setting makes up for lackluster gameplay.
On the whole Syndicate is entertaining and good at providing an enjoyable time while you thoughtlessly grind away at the completion meter, checking off lists of items and missions as you go along.
There is promise, but it wasn't quite executed to it's full potential.
Syndicate is another Assassin's Creed. Its characters and setting are likeable, it's not a technical mess, and it has some fun new features, which certainly puts it in the upper tier of the franchise since Brotherhood. This is another pseudo-historical playground, another set of Templars to stab, and another checklist of collectables to grab. It's a solid entry in a series that's been far too prolific, and while Syndicate is good, it's tough to be excited about it.
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is a solid entry in the series, with a great setting and two likable protagonists. It gets its badass female character just right, and it nails the fun with carriages and zip lines. The Victorian London cityscape offers a huge gameplay map, but many ways to get around easily. The amount of fun, if mindless, gameplay Syndicate offers bumps up the score quite a bit.
[W]e're back to tightly packed cities and crowds for two years running now, like we've warped all the way back to the Assassin's Creed II trilogy. And no matter how pretty the games get and how tight the mechanics are, it never feels fresh anymore.
One of the more poignant moments in Syndicate is a scene where Crawford Starrick is solemnly playing piano. At the conclusion of the slow, heartfelt song, he earnestly sings "In such a moment, I but ask that you'll remember me. That you'll remember me." We remember you, Assassin's Creed. And now, we have hope for what else you can do.
Brace yourself for what's coming, Ubisoft naysayers: Assassin's Creed Syndicate is a good game. While it still suffers from frustrating movement mechanics, as well as an underdeveloped narrative, the core experience being offered is downright fun.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate makes some strides forward with more substantial side quests and interesting story missions, even if the plot itself doesn't really go anywhere. Exploring this recreation of London is a marvel, but the repetitive cycle of taking territory and gathering pointless collectibles quickly wears thin, while gameplay pillars in stealth and combat still feel lacking. It's the most modern Assassin's Creed has been, but the Industrial Revolution doesn't quite bring the series into a new age.
The environment, the gameplay, the characters, this game has certainly enough assets to present that would make this game a good purchase. It's problems aren't that much of a problem, in fact they aren't game-breaking at all. The game does reward you, especially with a certain secret area that takes you in for a spin on World War I, putting you in the shoes of Jacob's granddaughter, Lydia Frye, which fans could take as a hint towards the franchise's future direction. Definitely this game is one that you can buy and add to your collection or not but the experience would still be that of what you can expect from an Assassin's Creed game.
Ubisoft took considerable flak from last year's release of 'Assassin's Creed: Unity', which had some good ideas but suffered from a collection of design and testing problems. To their credit, they appear to have taken it as a learning experience, as 'Syndicate' emerges as one of the strongest 'Assassin's Creeds' in recent memory.
Head and shoulders above last year's version, Syndicate has refined the Assassin's Creed experience, but essentially it's another familiar entry to the series with several polished elements.
Overall the story is okay, the present day parts are really starting to drag the game down though. I liked the present day sections in the earlier Assassin's Creed games, but recently they have started to become boring and uninteresting. It just takes you out of the game when these parts play throughout the main story. They really need to make the present day storyline interesting again.