Reviews Thread

A number of reviews are claiming things like 'it's the best AC game in years' or 'finally the series is back on track' (not actual quotes, but you get the idea), which is bizarre since it's only been two years since AC4 and there's only been one main AC game between AC4 and Syndicate. Unity was apparently not great, but AC4 was a lot of fun and much better than AC3. Unless these reviewers mean the series hasn't been good since AC2, or Brotherhood, but I find it hard to believe Syndicate is as impressive as those games were when they came out.

@cameron: I always found it bizarre how everyone shat and still shits on AC3 but loves AC4 for all the things that were in AC3, mainly the ship combat. It just became the popular thing to do in the community/ industry and the consensus, even from people who hadn't played the game. Same with Unity. Now this year people are like 'back to form' as you say. I think the industry likes to create it's own narrative at times. Hype something up till it gets massive, then once it's big vie for blood, only to champion the return of the king. The same goes for Call of Duty. I can see the glowing 'back to what it does best' Black Ops III reviews now.

After watching the Quick Look I'm glad to say the male protag's accent doesn't bother me as much as they did in the marketing, they've seemed to have toned him down a bit in his 'apples and pears' rapscallion street Oliver Twist ways.

right?! alexa is so sharp and on point- it's fucking absurd they have to wade through that all the time.

Surprised by the reviews to be honest. I guess I know I truly don't care about a franchise anymore when I still don't care to play this even with good reviews.

After Unity, there is no way I'm picking this up. I've loved the series, it's premise is almost tailor made for my fiction interests and I've played every one so far ( even Liberation HD, which was better than Unity ) but Unity left me feeling burned.

Then again, Assassins Creed Unity got mostly favorable reviews as well. It wasn't until it was out that all the ugliness reared its head.

I really don't understand all the high praise this game is getting from critics. I haven't played past Brotherhood, and I just watched the Syndicate quick look. Syndicate looks exactly the same as the others. Assassin's Creed hasn't changed in years! Except if you count the few times you could steer a boat, I guess. And it's not just this game. I feel like all of Ubisoft's open world games are created by some factory at this point; the only difference being the color of paint used.

I'm glad that AC's back on track. If this release turned into another Unity, the franchise would have been done.

@atwa: did it? I remember there being something funky about the review embargo timing.

Anyway, fight capitalism by buying our annualized franchise...

if someone wants to pay me to say nice things about this game send me a pm

Played a bit of the new assasins creed game and so far my impressions of it have been surprisingly positive. Though I had to stop playing since my download of the game was still incomplete.

I wasn't ready for the past 2 assassin's creed games to release. this franchise is just a blur to me, but I hope it lives up to reasonable expectations of not being a buggy mess. I don't trust any of these reviews though.

IGN with the 8.2 WTF does that even mean, hey guys this isn't no 8.0 this is a :bigknob 8.2!!

It's a shame that people are tired of the series, l totally get it. l would be to if l played assassin's creed every year. l'm still genuinely excited to pick this up but that's probably because l've only ever played Brotherhood and Black Flag.

I'm taking the praise with a grain of salt. Having watched the quick look, read reviews I see very little change from the previous Ac games. (I've played them all except rogue). I might pick this up in the bargain bin next year as I still care for this franchise that has so much potential. After so many other great games this year I'll skip it for now. Unity and now Syndicate still look so static when it comes to enemies and gameplay, where is the emergent gameplay?. It can be unfair to expect that, but it's getting old by now how dumb the enemies are.

Always loved all the ACs. Can't wait for Nov 19! (PC :( )

Not to throw shade on this game without playing it, but the last time everyone liked an assassins creed game was black flag, and they were all blinded by the boats. Cool that its not completely fucked though.

Nice to know it doesn't completely suck but I'm still sick of this franchise and Fallout 4 is out soon.

On one hand I feel series fatigue but on the other I wouldn't mind something new to play until the next big release, and since I'm not super sold on Fallout 4 yet that might be a long wait. I remember having decent fun with Unity and Syndicate looks pretty identical except without the technical issues.

All the high scores means they got rid of tailing missions and feature a story written by actual human beings, right?

The Guardian reviews games?

The reviews sound a lot better than expected but the damage is already done, Ubisoft just seem determined to make mediocre games that could be and should be a lot better. I was really excited about other Ubisoft games like The Division but now I've just accepted that it will probably be broken.

@alwaysbebombing: I mean, not really of course, but still

Can anyone tell me exactly how much modern day stuff is in this? Is it possible to completely avoid it?

If I'm forced to play more than 10 minutes of modern day stuff I'm probably just going to turn the game off.

@49th: all the modern day stuff are short cutscenes and there isnt many of them.

I don't understand why that matters, why does it need to change to be considered good?

I skipped Unity because it looked like a boring, buggy and broken mess so I'm hoping it'll help in my enjoyment of Syndicate as I have less fatigue (only played 10 hours of Black Flag which seemed great but a mess on PC, so its been years since last played an AC game)

Bought it thanks to reviews and will be playing it tonight in hopes its decent.

@boboblaw: I was in the same boat, I've only played 3 of the previous titles, 1, 2, and Black Flag, so coming back into a city based one 8 years since the last one of this style that I've played is kind of refreshing, I have nit picks but I've been thoroughly enjoying it enough to not regret my purchase.

That feminist frequency article isn't a review of the game, but rather an examination of how women are characterized in the game. Which I think is perfectly valid, they just don't talk about the mechanics much at all except for the last paragraph. I don't know if it belongs alongside reviews that focus entirely on how the "game" bit is.

Like, if the game did a really good job of creating female characters and populating the world with female characters who aren't just objects but the gameplay demanded that you put bamboo shoots in your fingernails, would feminist frequency still say "Represents women as human beings?" I think they would, which is fine, someone should worry about how women are represented in games today (Kojima certainly doesn't), but it wouldn't do a good job of revealing that the game is physically painful to progress through.

It seems like a disservice to their audience, why not establish if a game treats women fairly at first, but also add in some discussion of whether or not the gameplay is any good. It's almost more sexist to assume women only care about how they're are represented in a game and not about whether or not the game is fun. I assume female gamers like both things. But they have to go to IGN or gamespot to learn about the rest of the game.

IGN's 100 point scale is so fucking stupid.

The game structure and missions certainly is a few steps up from the mess that was Unity but as far as gameplay and controls go this is the most janky and unresponsive parkour this series as ever featured. If you play this game be prepared to jump in the wrong direction and get stuck in geometry at least 50% of the times you try to move.

The comments for this video are fucking disgusting. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but holy-fucking-shit. "Gamers" are the most fucking irrational bunch of people on the entire planet.

Having to explain yourself to your own fanbase is messed up. There's integrity at Gamespot within a click-bait wrapper that a few people would rather draw attention to than the actual content.

@shindig: @babychoochoo:

Uhh, is that a regular feature of the site, or are they only doing that because of backlash? The video didn't come off as reactionary, rather just seemed like a regular sit down chat about the game.

@trilogy: It's a regular feature. Not sure for how long, but it's at least been a couple of months.

I don't know why they've started doing that feature. If the review itself doesn't explain why it got the score it got, that's kind of missing the point of the review isn't it?

@mrroach: Their reviews explain exactly why games get the score they do, but people either twist and cherrypick parts of the written review as a way to dismiss it or they don't read the review at all and just go straight to the arbitrary numerical value at the bottom. I feel like this feature was made mostly with those people in mind, but the sad part is those people aren't open to any sort of rational discussion. They made up their minds looooooong before the initial review ever hit. If you want proof, just read the comments.

On second though, no. Don't read the comments. Don't end up like me. Go do something fun instead.

@babychoochoo: Yeah, I phrased that poorly. I do think their reviews do a good job of justifying the score. The fact that they are doing that video series implies that they don't think that about their own content. Basically, it feels like it's giving the trolls credibility and attempting to appease them (which as you say is not likely to work). If they just framed that series as more discussion that didn't fit into the word count/format of the review, I would have no problem with it whatsoever.

I understand their reasoning and it's a valiant effort but one look at literally any GameSpot video comment section is enough to make anyone quickly realize this is wasted effort. To have a reviewer come on and not so much rationalize their review, but rather shed some light on where they're coming from in regards to the game is fairly interesting. So much of the time we only see the finished product whether it be an entire game or an article about it, so to have a peek behind the curtain - get into the headspace of a reviewer - is a real treat. It's just too bad that is completely wasted on the GameSpot crowd. There are some talented people working over there and man do I feel for them because their community is so incredibly toxic and infantile that any lesser person would probably quickly begin to hate their job.

@humanity: I feel like they messed up by calling these videos "Why this game got a ___ score". It's too bad all of the commenters at Gamespot just immediately dismiss any praise given to a game.

I enjoy listening to people talk about games outside of a review format. It's like when the bombcast talks about the games they have been playing.

I don't know if it's "gamers" or just gamespot fans, i had to completely leave that site as i couldn't stand the people commenting on shit.

:edit: I feel like crowd Ai used to be way better, when you killed somebody in the early games the crowds would go ape shit and you'd have to run away or just keep getting attacked by guards as your bounty would go up.

Man I would hate to be a game reviewer, having to deal with gamers. Gamers are just the worst with this whole "paid off" bullshit excuse they use any time a game they don't like gets a good score.

@mrroach: The fact they are doing this video series means nothing, really. They are just Quick Looks with a different title, plain and simple.

@oursin_360: Nah, I'd definitely say it's not just Gamespot fans. IGN readers seem just as upset over the IGN review as well. Also, there was a reddit thread on r/games that while arguably more civil than some other places seemed to have this sorta snobbish air about it that Syndicate doesn't the praise it's getting. Don't get me wrong, I exaggerate from time to time, but deep down I don't doubt most gamers are civil people. It's just that it reeeeeeeeeeeally irks me that the vocal minority is so vocal and so....insane.

I guess I'm also insane though considering I subject myself to reading that nonsense every time people are outraged over a review lol. It's not just the theories people come up, but the unyielding conviction with which they convey them that I just find fascinating.

Yep. The tendency among some "gamers" to jump straight to conspiracy theories when things happen that they don't like is insane. It's been like that for years, and I don't see it changing any time soon.

@brandondryrock: There totally are! Priests playing cricket too.

This is going to be a steam sale buy for me. After brotherhood I kinda lost my enthusiasm for the franchise. I couldn't care less about the lore off the game at this point and the historical setting alone just isn't cutting it anymore to make me pay full price. I'm glad they got their shit together again on the technical side with this one, although the PC port might still have the usual Ubisoft 'quirks'.

@eaxis: I cannot thank you enough for introducing videogamertv to me, best games media stuff ive seen.