Assassin's Creed Syndicate - Formerly 'Victory'

I should have my free copy on Thurs… will report!

I finished this up over the weekend, my verdict: it’s good. Solid, not a lot of surprises. One pretty good one that’s a kind of sub-AC campaign within the campaign, and since it may not be common knowledge I’ll leave it at that. Mechanics work like virtually all other games, with the welcome addition of the Batman grappling hook that lets you get around on the rooftops much faster. Just an absolute ton of side quests and collectibles that I imagine most will skip. But overall, glad I played it. Looking forward to the Jack the Ripper stuff.

Kind of annoyed there’s no pre-load.

Whew. RPS sez: “Runs beautifully, looks a treat.” That’s also running on a 2gb 960 card as well.

Pre-loading on uplay from GMG purchase. I’m a sucker for AC, so I’m disappointed to not see the season pass for sale separately anywhere. Only see it as part of the gold version.

It’s annoying only because for some reason this season pass has things in it that you can use right away. I think. If I recall. Which is alright since I won’t jump in right this minute, I guess.

Has AC DLC ever been worthwhile?

People actually seemed to enjoy the DLC for Unity - Kingsomething, with the new weapons a lot.

Oh the accents :\

oh blimey?

Ironic, because that one turned out to be free for everyone.

I’m playing on a laptop with a 960m 2gb, and have the settings set higher than the options screen shows capable. The video memory is almost to 3gb according to the screen, but so far the game is running pretty smooth. I mostly cranked up the details rather than the other effects, keeping shadows at medium, and the game looks and runs pretty nicely.

Can’t be worse than Black Flag, surely, with its plummy Welshman.

Cor blimey, mate. Whatever d’you mean?

Season pass now available on uplay.

Annnnnnnyway, I managed to get about 3 hours in last night, which is why I’m so bleary-eyed today.

I actually am liking the new combat mechanics–break defense, counter, and attack. It’s a bit different, but that’s OK. The game also seems to have solved the biggest problem that still exists in Unity, which is the “Help, my guy is snagged on this thing and can’t move.” When Unity first went up, that was an awful problem. They got it better, but it’s still there, too often. I haven’t accidentally been stopped dead in my tracks by the corner of a table yet in Syndicate.

So that’s all good.

Two personal taste things that are a bit thumbs-downey (but only mildly so): I always like my AC “Origin stories”. I guess we didn’t get one with Altair, but we did with Ezio, Connor, Edward, and Arno. When Syndicate starts, the twins are already part of the Brotherhood. Ah well. Not that big a deal.

The other thing is that there’s no time for a player to go “Whew. Good stopping point here.” in that first 2 hours or so in the game. Any AC player is used to the long prologue before the opening titles roll, and here you certainly get that…and then it feels like the game is still tugging you along “Don’t you dare quit for bed, yet, there’s still stuff you HAVE TO SEE FIRST!” Seriously UBI. Lemme breathe!

Thinking about the combat, one thing I miss from Unity is that combat was much more dangerous in that game than any other one before and (now) after. If you got into a fight with more than one person, the other could totally get behind you and insta-kill stab you in the back if you weren’t careful. You couldn’t just blindly block and get back to whaling on one guy at a time, but had to be aware of your surroundings. Once you’ve upgraded Jacob and Evie a bit, you’re back in Terminator territory, you’ll be pretty much unstoppable very early on.

Anyone else having a problem on the PC with fast travel? Every time I fast travel, between missions, it brings me to the train. This happens even when not fast traveling; I died in a boss gang fight, and when it reloads it starts to replay the pre-fight cut scene but then jumps me to the train. I can’t info on this anywhere.

I basically can’t remember how to play this, but bludgeoning my way forward and running in circles seems to do it. I do find my self prodding the controller reflexively for a combat roll, or dodge. It seems odd that assassins are so agile but so immobile in combat. It’s like Batman and Souls came along and showed everyone else some options for melee and AC had its systems already and by god it was going to use them.

Why does a Y with a filling timer show up on screen whenever someone’s aiming a gun at me? Pressing Y doesn’t do anything does it?

If you hit Y when the timer fills at exactly the right time, you’ll dodge the shot. If you’re in a crowd, it’ll hit someone else, as a bonus.