The Frye twins are the assassins at the heart of Ubisoft's latest trawl through the memory banks and I decided that Evie was best-suited to the task at hand. I can send one of two playable characters onto Jack's trail. It's a sham of some sort, he reckons, and he asks me to investigate.
The 'orrible bastard (that's Jack, not Chuck) is terrorising the population, leaping from buildings and threatening them with his clawed, clammy hands and staring from the darkness with eyes like red-hot coals. This may well be my favourite Assassin's Creed game.Ĭharles Dickens has asked me to investigate a figure from Victorian folklore, Spring-heeled Jack. Some of that enthusiasm has been dampened as familiar AAA open world problems popped up across the map like fungi, but a spark still remains. There are moments when there's no room for recovery when a stealth mission goes awry, and if the game wants you in a fistfight, you'd better have those knuckle dusters at the ready because you've little say in the matter.After initial investigations revealed a port worth playing and a game that ignited unexpected enthusiasm, I've spent just over forty hours playing Assassin's Creed Syndicate. The game occasionally enforces a specific style of play, rather than letting fans to develop their own preferences over time. And yet some of the missions are restrictive. There's a good balance between cloak and dagger stealth missions, aerodynamic free-running across London's most iconic landmarks, and opportunities to get your hands dirty in street brawls. It's a more stable offering than Unity ever was with engaging protagonists, a monster of a city to get lost in, and some shrewd tweaks to the time-tested formula.
#Assassins creed syndicate pc review series
When you take the reins of a horse-drawn vehicle, Assassin's Creed suddenly becomes Grand Theft Auto with a Victorian twist and sets itself apart from its series brethren.Īssassin's Creed Syndicate is an acrobatic leap in the right direction for the series. There are adrenaline-soaked set pieces based around them, but you'll also find them up and down London - ripe for jacking when you need to make a swift getaway or travel somewhere quickly. He's more at home cracking skulls at close quarters than carrying out the kind of stealthy kills Assassin's Creed was founded on, yet his hands-on approach to brawling addresses some of the series' long-standing complaints.Ĭarriages have more than a bit part to play in Syndicate. Jacob is a wise-cracking rogue with a twinkle in his eye and ambitions to become a leader in London's gang scene and liberate the city from Templar control. This London-set adventure atones for Unity's technical cock-ups as well as its creative failings by offering players a behemoth of a city to parkour their way around, varied missions to tackle and a smooth, glitch-free experience. The best thing about the siblings is how well they complement each other, both in terms of their personalities and the balanced styles of play they bring to the table. Half an hour with twin protagonists Jacob and Evie Frye and you'll have forgotten all about whatshisname from Unity, if you hadn't already. None of this would be worth a shilling without compelling characters to carry the story and, fortunately, Syndicate has those too.