THE HIDDEN BLADE OF THE FRANCHISE
Also for: Windows, Xbox One
Assassin's Creed is back with its ninth mainline entry, and it's the closest-to-modern historical setting yet. And finally, dare I say,
does Ubisoft craft an entry with assassin mechanics solid
enough to be enjoyed as a sandbox. Roaming Victorian-era London is fun, with
its industrialized, brick factory areas surrounding the Thames. And at a safe
distance from the rowdy working-class districts lie the castles and manors of the
posh west end.
With eight games behind me I assume the role without effort. I climb a towering factory chimney to get a viewpoint. Detecting a number of
gang hideouts and templar strongholds, I zipline across the buildings in quick
succession to deal with them in my own, more or less creative way. There's a silent war brewing in this proud city, and I'm the instigator. I almost
feel like a superhero in an unusually liberating open-world Assassin's Creed-experience.
The world is just about as immersive as ever. The streets are crowded with
ordinary citizens, horse carriages, gangsters and policemen. Children are used
as slave labor in factories. Boats are cruising down the polluted river,
unloading suspicious cargo at every pier. The bars are open all-night, and the
city is full of fun collectibles, mementos and historical sites. I can
interact with this remarkable city in so many ways.
The dynamic string soundtrack captures the air of cultural sophistication
surrounding the exciting era, when the British empire was close to its prime
in terms of power. Even gang members and dockworkers seem to have a great
sense of fashion. But the melodies sometimes also hint of something sinister; the corrupt puppeteers acting
behind the polished facade.
Your avatars this time around are the twins Jacob and Evie Frye. Yes, you
alter between protagonists, which is a series first. You level them up
individually and can switch freely between them, except for most of the main
missions that are character-specific. Altering back-and-forth between
character classes like this is a rare feature in a third-person adventure,
and it works surprisingly well.
That being said, not much separates the twins. Canonically, Jacob is prone
to fighting and Evie is a stealthier lass, but you can arm them and level
them up any way you prefer. They each have three unique high-level skills,
but none of them are gamechanging. Personality-wise, both are equally
rebellious, each in their own way, but Jacob is more hotheaded and Evie is
more thoughtful.
With the aid of the underdog Assassin brotherhood, they challenge the reign
of the tyrannical Templar Crawford Starrick. He is a memorable villain and a
gloomy chap, with an impressive, well-groomed moustache and immaculate
hairdo. A man of culture, who sees the true beauty in a cup of tea,
Starrick takes himself way too seriously. This means he's easily offended.
Don't interrupt his dreadful singing performances if you value your life.
Wrapped up in this fantastic setting, I finish a prolonged chain of side
activities, motivated not by story so much as good gameplay mechanics that,
for once, don't set me up to fail. In fact, they're good enough to let me
experiment a little, for instance by placing knocked-out enemies underneath
hanging crates, only to shoot the rope and crush anyone coming to investigate.
I can capture wanted criminals alive, take them hostage and walk around
pretending to be their fellow. When no-one's looking, I shove them into a
horse carriage, and drive them to the police station for a juicy reward.
This stuff takes place in a gang warfare "plotline" that's almost entirely
optional. It involves templar takedowns, bounty hunts, child liberation and
gang hideout takeovers. You can invest a lot of money in sabotaging enemy
supply lines and improving the strength of your own gang, the Rooks. Another
good use of money is new weaponry, outfits and upgrades for your different
satchels.
Your gang help out a great deal in combat, which is a frantic, violent affair
with blades flashing, guns blazing, hats flying left and right, and blood
splattering everywhere. Getting clobbered on the forehead by a baton-wielding
policeman never fails to make me laugh. Even as the execution comes down to
simple button-mashing, I never grow tired of the fighting because of how
entertaining it looks; it's flashy with an extra layer of slapstick on top.
The structure reminds me of the great enjoyment I got out of games like
Just Cause 2, Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor and
Mad Max, and I appreciate how most of it is optional. Mechanically, AC:
Syndicate isn't on the same level as the genre's best, but whilst playing, I
get a similar kind of entertainment out of it.
This comes as a surprise to me, because when AC-games attempted to give the
assassination gameplay free reins in the past, they messed it up. The series used to require some constraints and story elements to alleviate the
frustration of handling flimsy controls. Running around and parkouring used to
feel unreliable, and the combat either too unresponsive or too easy. With
Syndicate, Ubisoft finds the right balance between solid mechanics, difficulty
and character progression.
Low expectations don't hurt, of course. I didn't expect much of AC: Syndicate,
because it didn't get a whole lotta praise upon release, and the sales were
disappointing. Critics and players alike were getting burnt-out by the
concept This prompted Ubisoft to abandon the yearly release schedule and
make some drastic changes in design philosophy. It's a bit flummoxing, because
to me AC: Syndicate ranks as the series' absolute peak in terms of
straight-out assassination gameplay. (That being said, I enjoy the pirating
gameplay of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag even more.) Just
as they got it right, they abandoned ship. I'd say this entry is the most
underrated so far.
Just consider that early on, you get a grappling gun that allows you to
quickly scale vertical walls. Then you can shoot another rope to zipline across gaps to
distant buildings. (Don't ask where the protagonist keeps all the rope).
"Where does that leave the parkouring?", you might ask. Well, nothing stops
you from climbing manually, but the streets of London are wide, due to the
horse traffic, and crossing them by leaping isn't always possible. I think
many players are thankful for the grappling gun's quality-of-life improvement,
and will miss it in other entries.
That's not to say that Syndicate is anywhere near perfect. In stressful
situations, the horse controls feel like juggling wet soap bars, as you
fishtail to-and-fro across the streets. Also, the story and characters are
weak overall. AC-lorehounds (which I'm not) won't get much out of this entry.
This makes the systemic side content easier to enjoy, but it's hard to get
something profound out of the experience. It's shallow, but fun nonetheless.
And the futuristic, framing Abstergo storyline once again adds nothing. It's
reduced to a few cinematics interspersed over the main quest. At this point, a
newcomer to the franchise would probably wonder why it's even in the game.
Here's a two-sentence summary: An agent of the assassins contacts you and
tasks you with entering the Animus' VR-world to explore London in the
late-19th century. Your mission is to find "the Shroud of Eden" before the
Templars do.
It's frictionless to play, but the narrative does nothing to raise the stakes.
The main mission design, however, maintains the high standards set by Assassin's Creed: Unity. It provides you with a few optional methods to cheese the mission, approach
the target and perform the execution. It makes the gameplay feel engaging and
creatively stimulating. For instance, an early assassination mission allows
you to get close to a corrupt coroner by impersonating a dead corpse under a
blanket. Then, as he holds a lecture, you can surprise him and his shocked
audience by being more alive than expected.
The missions also reward planning and studying. Utilizing the Frye-twins'
Eagle Vision to track the guards, even through walls, you can determine when,
whom and how to strike. AC: Syndicate assembles the most handy assassin's
tools in one and the same game. Berserk darts hitting a fire generates a toxic
cloud that'll put entire groups of enemies into a frenzy. Knives and smoke
bombs are overpowered in the hands of an assassin thoughtful enough to make
full use of them.
A great number of decent side missions - provided by the usual "AC-parade" of
contemporary dignitaries like Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and a
young Arthur Conan Doyle - prolong the experience if you want more. A
few endgame missions, provided by a prolific side character I won't spoil,
extends the game even further. They're the toughest ones, and also quite
frustrating since they're strictly timed, but I finished them nonetheless.
Playing past the end credits is something I otherwise never do. This should
reveal how much I enjoyed the gameplay.
Even as the Abstergo storyline once again ends disappointing, I'm ranking
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate as a prime entry - probably third - in this highly
uneven franchise. I reckon the poor sales were a result of the predecessor's
bad reputation, rather than any fault of its own. I can understand that those
who take the ongoing narrative seriously didn't get their appetite sated - the story is really unengaging, even as the cutscenes are well-made, with
great voice performances from the cast.
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate rekindles my fading enthusiasm for the
series, much like ACII and ACIV: Black Flag did. Assassin's Creed: Origins, the next entry, is supposed to belong to the revolutionary ones. It steered
the series into the open-world RPG territory, and I'm in the camp that encourages
constant evolution. Judging by the gameplay improvements, the time for more
freedom and openness might've been ripe. Syndicate might have got most of the
traditional elements right, and if I desire more, this is probably the entry I'll revisit in the future - at least until further notice. I'm looking forward to see where they took it from here.
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