[section_title title=Gameplay]
GAMEPLAY
Case – BitFenix Shinobi XL
Motherboard – MSI Z87-MPOWER MAX CPU – Intel i7 4770K
RAM – Kingston Beast Series 16GB 2133mhz DDR3
GPU – OcUK GeForce GTX 970 4096MB GDDR5
PSU – Corsair TX850 850W
CPU Cooler – Corsair Hydro Series H100i All-In-One
SSD – OCZ Vertex 4 256GB
HDD – Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Internal
The combat has changed from the previous game I played in the series (Rogue), and it was a little strange at first. After playing for a little while though I got used to it, and it felt like I was playing something like Shadow of Mordor, mostly because of how many hits it takes to take down certain enemies. This is mostly because areas throughout the map are all filled with enemies with different levels, so if you end up in the wrong end of town, trust me, you will have your ass kicked if you get in a fight. It forces the player to clear certain areas of the map before progressing to the other areas, which is a good way to structure the game because it means you aren’t just overloaded with a big vast map, you have some sense of where you’re going and what you’re doing. The map is sectioned into boroughs which are controlled by different bosses from the same gang called the Blighters, they are a Templar controlled gang ran by a mastermind Templar called Crawford Starrick.
I will admit at first when I began playing this game, I felt a little bereft of the ships, it felt like something was missing in a way. After a while though you get used to getting back to the way Assassin’s Creed used to be, except you don’t ride horses any longer, now you have a horse and carriage, Cinderella style… A cool thing about the carriages is that you can go to the top of the carriage and then shoot from the top of it or do a Jack Sparrow and jump from the carriage onto a building to get away from someone. The Rope Launcher is a good addition to the game and means you can go to a building across the street easily when you need to be stealthy, or if you need to climb a very tall building, that thing can be a life saver for time. The climbing and free running at times feels a little unresponsive sometimes and it’s a little strange because before it’s always felt fluid to me in previous titles in the series; maybe it’s just me getting used to a new way of playing, though it only happens some of the time.
With Syndicate they went ahead and changed the way the game plays with enemies – you’re no longer a superman with a hidden blade. You will have to level up and you will have a skills tree that you will be able to pick and choose what works for you throughout the game, something else like the fighting and taking over boroughs that felt a bit like Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. The inventory system works in a way that instead of having to go to a vendor to get new weapons and outfits, etc, you can simply do it in the menus without having to visit anyone. This feels both good and bad, because while it’s much easier and quicker to do, I felt a lot less immersed in the game for that.
I feel VERY aggrieved at the fact that Ubisoft decided to take it upon themselves to remove the multiplayer from this title. Assassin’s Creed’s multiplayer became a tradition for every release for me, I always played the multiplayer and had a blast killing fellow players in stealthy ways. Removing it was a mistake, I’m sure a lot of gamers on both PC and console feel the same, while the excuse is that Ubisoft said they wanted to concentrate their efforts on the single player campaign. This does open up Ubisoft to possibly add the multiplayer at a later date like Rockstar did with GTA V, it will give players a bit of time to finish the game then move onto the multiplayer should they choose to. Microtransactions have been added to this title, and all content can be unlocked through microtransactions, which isn’t god awful, some people do just want to play the game with all the content already there for them.
