It should come as no surprise to anybody that knows me that I got this game. I've been a diehard fan since the very first one, so of course I was going to.

Assasin's Creed Syndicate had it rough, having to follow last year's Assasin's Creed Unity. Which I fully acknowledge had many faults and rather deserved its criticisms. (Even if I did not experience the technical glitches many did - in fact I think I experienced more in Syndicate, having fallen through the world a few times.) Which is quite a shame, as by most accounts Syndicate was a very good game.

This iteration of the franchise introduced quite a few new mechanics that felt refreshing and were just really fun to use. I loved racing through the streets of London on a carriage and loved even more zipping across its skyline with the grappling hook. It made traversing the map, in all directions, fun and a lot easier than before. After as many games as there have been, there really weren't good ways to make scaling a building with your hands interesting anymore.. this addressed that rather nicely I believe. Add to that moving cranes and other industrial era scenery, and it did feel different enough.

Combat changed yet again, and I wasn't too crazy about it at first. While the customization that Unity introduced for armor and weapons was still around, albeit slimmed down a bit, actual combat actions seemed slimmed too far. At least it felt harder than it has been, but counter attacks still solve most everything. But I really just missed being able to run through the streets extending my hidden blade repeatedly and all the other fun flourishes drawing weapons randomly did. Ubisoft really dropped the ball in not letting us use the cane sword as a freaking cane! Seriously, why couldn't we do that?!

Story is where I think Assasin's Creed Syndicate was the weakest. Jacob and Evie were great characters, and just having a main game in the series feature rather prominently a female character was fantastic. I used her quite a lot for side missions because of her enhanced stealth abilities. But what they were fighting for didn't seem to matter much. There were elements there, like what their father did to be so well respected or why Henry was the only operative in London and who were the others that the Fryes left at the beginning, that framed the game that were honestly a lot more interesting to me. "Let's just go find a piece of Eden" sums up the plot too well. At least some of the Templars they made were interesting, and I did really enjoy meeting and working with actual historical figures. Dickens was pretty funny and I just rather liked Bell. Finally, although not as much as what I would have liked, Ubisoft did pull through with improving the modern day story relative to Unity. There still needs to be a whole lot more of it for me.

Overall, I think Ubisoft improved tremendously with this year's Assasin's Creed game. It was a good game again. It may not make up for their previous missteps for some and I understand that. For me, the shameless fanboy, it was enough heh.

~|ET|~