Gaming Altair You a New One: The Assassin's Creed Series

I'm thoroughly enjoying Syndicate. Black Flag is the only one in the series I've seen through to completion, and barring any major hiccups, this one is looking like it'll be the second. Jacob and Evie are fun characters to play with and the gameplay is solid. The hand-to-hand combat is actually pretty fun this time, and the franchise's signature traversal issues are significantly diminished by the new grapple gun, which makes getting around the world a heck of a lot easier. Big streets in between buildings don't cause you to have to return to ground level anymore, now you can just zip across and keep on going.

 

Only aspect that makes me wary of Black Flag is it's reputed reliance on follow-this-person-who-has-360-degree-vision-and-ESP-for-500m-without-being-seen missions, how bad are they?

 

I really didn't find that an issue. There are a fair number of tailing missions but the mechanics weren't that bad. I heard all the complaints, played it, and . . . never noticed any frustration at tailing missions.

 

Even if there is a frustrating tailing mission or two (I don't recall ever getting stymied by one), the game is just way too fun overall to be hindered by it. Black Flag is a fantastic game even if you're not a fan of the series (I don't consider myself one). It's an extremely fun pirate adventure on a gorgeous island that Ubisoft simply stuck the Assassin's Creed name on to make a few extra bucks. You're missing out if you don't experience Edward Kenway's story.

 

OK, at worst it'll be about £8 up in smoke if Black Flag's crap.

 

Trying to avoid spoilers for the game but does Syndicate have multiple game slots? That's what kept me from playing Unity because my brother always gets first dibs on Assassin's Creed games.

I was tempted to just replay all the missions in the progress tracker but that means I'd have to wait until he was done with the story to do anything and I still wouldn't get the joy of upgrading any weapons, getting new skills, completing side missions, etc. I swear if Ubisoft made Syndicate a one file game then they are essentially alienating several people as fans.

Do they even consider that there's more than one person in a house that might want to play the game?

 

The tailing missions were countless and incredibly annoying imo. But apart from that (which is probably the only flaw in the game), Black Flag is a solid, gripping experience. It's a beautiful pirate tale complete with great voice acting, excellent music, and heart-pounding naval combat.

It's probably the best pirate game ever made. Edward really isn't as much an Assassin as he is a pirate anyway, so it only feels like Assassin's Creed when he gets off his ship and into land.

 

Read on a review, without going into specifics, that Syndicate's ending is pretty terrible. That it basically renders mostly everything that went into the previous 15 or so hours meaningless. Well, that's almost how I felt when playing Black Flag, since I knew that the ***hole I was playing as got murdered before his time, his son turned into a more or less likeable dick (but a dick nonetheless), and his grandson, well...sorry Connor, you were a pretty decent guy with a near unpronounceable name, but you were no Ezio.

 

You know, every review I've read for Syndicate have praised the game but hated the final boss fight and the ending. Unity's last boss fight was also pretty lame.

 

Are you on Playstation or Xbox?

Because I know that on PS4, you can just make a new user, and you get a new savefile.

 

It's the same way on Xbox. New user = new game file.

 

PC. I guess that's a no then.

 

Beat it today. I had a ton of fun. They've really gotten the gameplay mechanics down -- much better combat than Unity, and the best stealth in a long time. The mechanics were just so good. And both main characters were home runs. Story was solid. I'd say it's the fourth- or fifth-best game in the franchise -- only II, Brotherhood, and Black Flag clearly top it.

 

ACII is confirmed as coming to Xbox One as part of the backwards compatability thing.

 

While that's pretty awesome, I unfortunately traded in my copy of AC2 a long time ago for Brotherhood.

 

At the rate things are going, I will probably end up just getting the Ezio and Americas trilogy collections, since the first one is still the only one I have.

 

I'd be skeptical of the Americas set unless you find it for incredibly, darn stupid cheap.

I believe that AC3 was largely a bust for most gamers and critics. Liberty, I read, is an awkward port from the Playstation handheld, with clunky console mechanics and somewhat poor visuals. Black Flag is the only one that seems to have been a real success.

 

Then again, I liked all 3, and consider AC3 the best in the series. Liberation is a strong game, with a compellling story. It's certainly better than either Unity or Rogue. As you said, Black Flag is strong too.

I'd recommend this set

 

Twenty or thirty dollars for three games is pretty cheap to me. Though I wish I would have not gotten Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and got the Ghost Recon trilogy collection instead, especially when I only got it because I thought there were more offline coop opportunities than Guerrilla mode.

 

Signor Ezio Auditore Da Firenze - and the world - would disagree in that regard. I found everything that followed the Ezio trilogy to be extremely weaksauce. Black Flag had its moments and it was awesome when it forgot it was an AC game. Once it remember, pace and fun screeched to a halt.

 

I don't know, I feel the stories of the Kenway trilogy (and Liberation) were much stronger than those of the Ezio trilogy, especially Brotherhood.

The games feel much more about the Assassins, and the Creed, and they also portray a more 'shades of grey' view on the Templars, which is more in line with AC1.

It feels like the Kenway trilogy is much more subversive to the Ezio trilogy, with more moral ambiguity. At least the way I see it.

AC2 and Brotherhood's stories were just about hunting targets for the most part, heading from one conspiracy to the next, with little regard for getting to know the targets much.

I'll admit that AC3 has a few weaker gameplay sections, like the early Connor ones, but it's mostly fine.

Unity however is just... no.

While the new parkour system was pretty solid (except for getting into windows), everything else was not.

 

I think the story of Ezio's family and his tragic romance with Cristina were rather captivating. The Ezio trilogy was perhaps more about personal retribution than the Creed, but revenge stories are classic.

 

So how would everyone rank Syndicate compared to other games in the series? (no spoilers please, or put them in the spoiler boxes) I've played III, Black Flag, and Rogue. I've been attempting to play Unity but thanks to Uplay continuously failing, I haven't been able to. I really enjoyed both III and Black Flag but found Rogue to be a little disappointing but still enjoyable enough for me to free-roam in. Story was a bit lackluster though.

 

Well, here's a ranking I posted a while ago, updated for Syndicate:

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood -- the perfect marriage of great story, gorgeous environment, and incredible gameplay
Assassin's Creed II -- top-notch story, incredible setting, only behind Brotherhood because of its gameplay advances
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag -- best writing in a long time, beautiful visuals, sailing, and series-best gameplay mechanics
Assassin's Creed -- still one of the best-looking games thanks to its gorgeous setting, and it best captures the sense of being an actual Assassin by making the assassinations such big setpieces, plus peak Vidic
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate -- fantastic gameplay, solid enough writing, with very fun dual protagonists
Assassin's Creed: Revelations -- the writing starts to weaken, but it's a great setting and the core gameplay is really well refined, with Ezio getting a great sendoff
Assassin's Creed III -- massively underrated, with a gorgeous, compelling setting, great gameplay aside from a few undercooked segments, and really good character writing despite weak plotting
Assassin's Creed: Rogue -- weak writing, lousy main character, failure to do much with the setting, but perfect gameplay
Assassin's Creed: Unity -- gorgeous graphics, but mediocre writing and gameplay that veers between good and "why the **** would they change what was working so well for this?"
Assassin's Creed: Liberation -- good writing, but a port with mediocre graphics and terribly boring gameplay

I'd call everything from III up good games. The top three games are indisputable all-time classics, and the line for greatness wavers somewhere between Black Flag and Revelations. So do give Syndicate a shot, and work your way backward if you can because there's a lot of good stuff there.

 

Completely agree with you on Rogue there. I love free-roaming but the story was massively disappointing. Very overrated. I'd like to play the Ezio games but I'm holding out in case there's a remake that makes it to PC. Maybe they should do that instead of making yet another game in the series in 2016.

I also really like III. I love the characters (especially Haytham) and the colonial America setting!