Hi, another lie from me. This is not the correct posting date, and this is not the Halloween post; I sat down to write about my spooky Hallows Eve, but realized very quickly that...I don't care. I actually don't want to talk about Halloween at all, because something much more relevant has taken my interest:
Let's talk about why my Assassin's Creed Syndicate review won't be here for a long time. And, in the process, I'll be giving my current thoughts on the game that have brought me to this moment.
The Good
To be clear, I do enjoy the gameplay of Syndicate. This title has a bunch of mechanics that all play into the experience of taking London back from the cruel grip of the Templar Order. Different mission types that vary wildly in objectives and optimal paths, a focus on upgrading your skills and your gang to show the Assassins' growing influence, and a very methodical path to beating the Templars through simply exploring the map.
As for the characters of Jacob and Evie Frye, I've grown to like them and their new allies. Their banter is realistic and hilarious, only heightened by the presence of a "straight man" in most of these encounters to balance out the tone. Their motivations are drawing them in starkly different directions, and seeing how they navigate these changes is interesting.
I also love the train; having a mobile base that traverses much of the world map without stopping means that you can get to places otherwise out of your depth just by riding the train to a close-enough point of egress. However, that is currently counteracted by the presence of the Thame. I'll get into that soon, as we transition to the stuff I don't quite like.
The (Kinda) Bad
Let's start with the Thames: a massive river cutting London in half, the crossing of which is a massive pain in the ass. Jumping across floating barges is interesting, but not fun. It's a cool thing, yet I take no pleasure in doing it when paired with Unity's messed-up parkour mechanics that will stop me from making jumps that it deems unsafe - regardless of whether I know I can make them.
Then we have the changes to parkour that Ubisoft made after Unity. The game retains the bulk of Unity's parkour, but this dev team had the balls to then change a good chunk of the controls for said parkour. In what I can only assume was an attempt to make the game more logical, they shattered my muscle memory and forced me to rethink how I approached parkour again after just having spent the entire game prior getting into my new flow state. And I hate to say it, but this game to game paradigm shift in controls has killed my enthusiasm for learning the new way when I could just as easily go back to a game whose mechanics I already had a grip on.
The next thing - and this is entirely subjective and unfair because I have had less issue with this in previous games - is that I don't have any emotional connection to Syndicate's story. Evie and Jacob are good characters, but their sudden and inexplicable decision to leave their mentor (and parental figure) behind in order to liberate a city that they've possibly never seen is absolutely unhinged. The only "turning point" that we have to explain this is Evie's discovery of another Piece of Eden being in London, and Jacob's desire to free people under the thumb of the Templars. Why would they do this now, rather than years ago? Why would their mentor not realize their plan and either follow them to London or try to stop them? Why does the prologue of this game feel like a half-assed attempt to just get the quirky twins to London so they can do British-isms and play the fun map that Ubisoft built? Because it likely is. Now, to the game's credit, the prologue missions are fun, and they do a great job of showcasing all that the game has to offer in a very short span of time. But the actual reasoning and logic behind Point A leading to Point C is getting wasted on me, because I feel like Point B was lost somewhere in transit.
The weirdness I felt in the prologue crept into every mission I did after that, and despite trying a wide variety of content in the early game (levels 1-5), I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't actually doing anything. Like each mission was a soulless attempt to shove content in and out of my brain as fast as possible, as if the soot-covered fabric of industrial London had begun to rub off on me and took some of my initial optimism with it. Assassin's Creed: Syndicate has, on paper, a really good lineup: diverse missions, engaging side mechanics, a well-structured plan of action, and fun characters to tie it all together. But in practice, the game simply feels lacking in some central way that I can't quite pin down. In the place of a beating heart, all I feel is a dull thump every now and again as Syndicate struggles to keep me engaged. Which leads us to my conclusion - at least for now.
The Ugly
I will not be releasing a complete review of AC: Syndicate anytime soon. I have no desire to rush through this game, and though I may eventually drop a full review, I just can't push myself to play a game that I am not enjoying. That is both a waste of my time, and a waste of yours. In the meantime, my next post will be about how I started playing Skyrim again on my PC, and what ungodly self-loathing I must contain to put myself through the bug-fixing nightmare again. Have a great day, and I'll see you next time!
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