Just to point out, I'm talking about the PS4 version.
The sellers here in the middle east are selling it super early for ridiculous prices. Being an AC fan since the days of AC2, I rushed and paid the extra money to play it as soon as possible. (This happened with MGSV: The Phantom Pain and pretty much all big releases).
I was really surprised by how bad and ''old'' it looked when compared with last year's AC: Unity. Unity sucked, I'll admit that much, but you absolutely can't deny how beautiful it looked. It felt like a painting in motion. Facial animation was amazing and I especially liked the way they animated the hair (-that red head I forgot the name of-'s hair).
As for mechanics, scaling buildings was pretty fluent and you rarely reached a point where Arno just stopped and couldn't climb or move forward. He was also capable of leaping from a very high building to a shorter, much further one, making the game flow much better than ever. I expected only greatness from Syndicate, even though I haven't followed its news as sincerely as I had hoped (busy college life).
So it came as a shock to me when I started it up 2 days ago and realized how bad it was. First of all, a sort of disclaimer: I don't care for graphics as much as I do gameplay. But I simply can't ignore how ugly the game looks, especially after being treated to the beauty that was Unity last year. So without further delay, let's begin the criticism. The ''painting in motion'' graphical style of Unity is swapped for a very dull looking world that will instantly remind you of Watch Dogs. But I get it, this is a different, more modern setting, so maybe this was intentional. Moving on.
Graphics are a serious let down. Granted this is still one of the better looking PS4 games, but when compared to Unity, it feels like such a copout.
Lip synching is almost non existent, instead characters will just flap their mouths when talking. Light reflects off of faces in a very muddy, pixelated way that makes characters look like plastic. The amazing hair details that were present in Unity are swapped for what looks like plain paper. Where is the graphical fidelity delivered by Unity, a game 1 year older? I know I've probably said the word ''graphics'' a dozen times already, but I can't help but point it out. When you play ANY game, you expect its sequel to improve on its aspects, not scrap them all in favor of cheaper, more productive methods.
So going into Syndicate expecting something better, or at least rivaling Unity, I was surprised and disappointed to find that the opposite happened. Aside from the graphical downgrade, I also noticed some severe gameplay downgrades too. But before that, a major WARNING to all of you disappointed by Unity's technical problems: Syndicate is a broken mess! Throughout the 10 hours I've put into the game so far, I've experienced these technical issues:
-In the first hour of gameplay, right after I was put into the open world, I was greeted with a group of a dozen civilians floating in the middle of the air. They disappeared a few seconds later. I didn't think much of it; it's a glitch, it happens.
-One of the earliest cut scenes broke on me. Without spoiling anything, both Jacob and Evie enter a train, with Jacob carrying a grappling gun. Suddenly both him and Evie disappear, with only the gun remaining, flailing around as dialog continued to play. I had to exit and re-open the game for the cut scene to play right. This happened with 2 cut scenes so far. Note that I'm only 10 hours into the game and I barely scratched the surface. If it's as bad now, imaging how it will be 20 or 30 hours down the road.
-The game's frame rate is atrocious. Not as bad as Unity's, at least not so far, but it doesn't make it any better.
-The game froze on me twice. Once when I was in the open world, and another time during a cut scene.
---I realize that 2 patches are supposed to come out on day one, 3 days from now, probably to iron out the mess that is Syndicate right now. But even still, both patches amount to a total of 1 GB, so what the hell is that even supposed to fix? It took a multitude of patches, the biggest of which was over 6 GB in size to make Unity playable. So I imagine we'll be stuck with this broken game for quite some time.
Aside from technical issues, let's delve into the mechanics. The game doesn't flow nearly as good as Unity. For some reason you can't jump from building to building unless they were a few meters close to one another. Running around on roofs you will be annoyed with a run-and-stop-and-run rhythm, because your so called ''assassins'' were probably not taught to jump across long distances. This is really frustrating.
Putting it in simpler words: -In AC Unity: You're on a roof and there's a building in the distance you wish to reach. You run and jump across roofs, no matter how far or impossible it may seem, in one fast paced series of fluid movements.
-In AC Syndicate: You're on a roof and there's a building in the distance you wish to reach. You run and reach the end of the roof, expecting your character to fluently jump to the adjacent but far one, but instead he/she stutters and stops. You press the damn R2 button and keep pressing X, but you soon realize that you just can't do far jumps in this depressing game. Instead, you're forced to climb down to the street, move towards your desired building and climb. You see where I'm going with this? It breaks the flow of a game that's supposed to be fast paced.
Yeah, they introduced the grappling hook as a means to make traveling faster, probably as a last resort because they knew how sloppy and broken the rhythm of the game was. But even that doesn't work properly. You can't aim the hook. You want to grapple it to a building in the distance? Well you better pray to God it doesn't grapple onto irrelevant crap, like the various poles or fences around it. I've put in around 10 hours into the game, and I know it isn't enough to warrant a full review, but it was enough for me to know what I had gotten myself into. Sadly the one feeling I have towards it is pure disappointment.
Extra notes:
-I initially liked the concept of having 2, completely switchable characters. It immediately reminded me of GTA5. I expected each character to give me a different feel of gameplay. For example Jacob would be more of a brawler, with slower movements but deadlier attacks. He'll have a different set of weapons and upgrades accessible ONLY by him. On the other hand, Evie would be the stealthier one, with very fast reflexes and high speed parkour, albeit a more fragile body and a smaller health bar. That's what I expected at least. I know, silly me. This is Ubisoft after all. Instead, we got literally the same character under 2 different skins: A male one and a female one. They both play EXACTLY the same. Sure, Evie is labeled as the stealthier one in the story, but in gameplay she plays exactly like Jacob. They even have the exact same set of upgrades and both can wield the exact same weapons. So what is the point of giving us 2 characters if they're not going to utilize the possibilities? It feels like they included Evie as a playable one just to appeal to a larger, female oriented audience. Who knows.
-The driving aspect is something that I actually like, for some weird reason. I didn't expect it to be this fun.
-I have to give it to the game: Despite its major shortcomings, so far I'm really digging Jacob and Evie. They have this cool quality to them, which is something I haven't seen in AC since Ezio.
----I wasn't planning on posting this so early, but I was too frustrated at the game that I eventually rage quit and rushed over here to post a review/warning.
If you're a major and loyal fan of the series, like me, then I doubt what I wrote will change your mind about buying it. However, if you're a passer by who enjoys some AC every now and then, this is seriously not the game for you. Go buy AC4, or hell buy Unity. It's fixed by now, it's far, FAR better looking, and the gameplay exceeds the mess we have in Syndicate.
EDIT: Something I forgot to mention is how massive the world is. This is the biggest AC has ever been, and the attention to architectural detail is astounding. 10 hours in and I can't even begin to fathom how I'll be able to explore the entirety of the map.
EDIT2: It seems some people are doubting whether or not I have the game. So here are 2 images of the disc, with a piece of paper having my user name and the date, as suggested by a skeptic user. Seriously, what would I gain by spending over 30 minutes typing this review if I never even had the game?
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd...._=1455255648_43776c0e0df098a2394b4e96f6e84a4a
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd...._=1452281372_e6436b1d16d242ce43ab273093b922cc
EDIT 3: I realize I posted this in the wrong place. People are attacking me from all sides. Some even called me out on not being a member of Reddit for long, as if it has ANYTHING to do with playing and reviewing a God damned game. Even after posting pictures of the disc, some still remain skeptic and are asking me to upload videos. All I did was state my opinion and list the experiences I had while playing it. But some of you are so far up Ubisoft's ass that you can't take any sort of criticism. I will refrain from replying to anyone anymore. To those still calling me out, fuck you. To those who supported me and defended me against the multitude of attacks, thank you.
n reddit and on gaf these days (and it's not even out yet)
