And that’s all the murder mysteries done. The final one (as part of the video below) is a little… odd. Still lots to do!
The post Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (PS4) appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.
the site of uk.games.video.misc
Posted on Written by deKay
And that’s all the murder mysteries done. The final one (as part of the video below) is a little… odd. Still lots to do!
The post Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (PS4) appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.
Posted on Written by deKay
True to my word, I’m still playing. I’ve probably put six hours or more into it now, after finishing it. Or at least, getting to the point where I assume I’ve finished it.
What I’ve done, is mainly find collectables. I did also go and talk with Henry, who thanked me for my work and said he had something for me. He didn’t. Similarly, I spoke to Clara, who said the same thing. Yet gave me nothing. In addition, I keep getting popup messages telling me to speak to the woman on the train for more train missions, only she isn’t on the train.
Besides that nonsense, I’ve also been solving the murders for the Penny Dreadful side-missions. They’re quite fun, each seemingly based around a known Victorian murder story (like Sweeney Todd) only with a twist (i.e. it wasn’t the barber). They play out a bit like investigations in Batman crossed with something from Phoenix Wright. I think I’ve exhausted them all now though, as I can’t see any more on the map.
Onward with the collecting, then. And the Darwin and Dickens memories too, I think!
The post Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (PS4) appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.
Posted on Written by deKay
Before I started playing Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, I was reminded of how many people saw it as superior to Assassin’s Creed Unity. It seems that although in the most part Unity was a return to how the series used to be, it was overly “Ubied” up, with map icons galore and bugs a-plenty. The latter of which is par for the course in Assassin’s Creed, of course, but by the time I got round to playing it most had been patched out. I still had plenty of issues, but it was a better game than the version early adopters had despaired with.
That was Unity, however. At first, I found Syndicate a little hard to enjoy. More grimy, more violent than Unity, and with too much of a focus on trains perhaps. I instantly hated Jacob, one of Syndicate’s twin protagonists, for being too cocksure and brash. Evie, however, was pretty awesome, so I used her wherever possible in his stead.
Initially, the mission structure confused me. I didn’t understand how to do the next “story” memory, as they all seemed jumbled up with side quests and targets and other stuff. Eventually, at some point in Sequence 4 or 5, I realised you have to do the “Evie head”, “Jacob head” or “Skull” icons on the map. Until then, I’d stumbled randomly through the game and it didn’t help me like it.
Soon enough, though, it clicked. I really got into it. I started liking Jacob more (he’s brilliantly sarcastic). The conquest events, which seemed tedious and dull when a few hours in became one of my favourite bits of the game. The story was simpler, less convoluted, than Unity (and most of the recent Assassin’s Creed games, actually) and I think was better for it. Evie and Jacob take over London and find a piece of Eden. Done. No treachery, no double/triple/quadruple agents (aside from one character, but you can see that from a mile away), no unexpected twists. Just good, old-fashioned Assassins vs Templars.
And I completed it. At least, I think I did. You see, I finished what was clearly the final mission: kill the main bad guy. That’s not a spoiler – it’s literally the aim of the game. After that, no credits. No end sequence. Nothing. Except for an email, as in, a real email in my real-life inbox, from Ubisoft congratulating me for completing Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Now, I’m no fan of Ubi’s end of game credits, which are often longer than the game itself as they list every human being that has ever lived, and their pets. It just seemed odd not to have them. Or anything.
I did, however, have a message with some suggestions. I should do some missions for Queen Victoria, and take over the rest of London. So I did those too. Nothing.
There are non-story missions still littering the map. Associate activities, flowers to collect, and so on. Surely I don’t need these to “finish” the game? My usual metric is to declare a game completed when I hit the credits. That hasn’t happened and I’m not sure it will. In any case, I’m taking it as done.
By the end, and I mean the end I got to rather than the end which may or may not exist, I realised that I was enjoying Syndicate way more than I’d expected to. I know I declared Unity a return to form when I played that last year, but this is another step closer. A definite refinement. I may even do what I’ve not done since Brotherhood: Try to get all the collectables, because I’m enjoying it that much. Once more, it isn’t perfect. But if Ubi can take this and polish it a bit more, then I have high hopes for Origins. It has taken a long time to recover from the massive misstep that was Assassin’s Creed III. They’re there now – just don’t ruin it!
If you want to see my complete, but lengthy, playthrough, then watch this video playlist:
The post Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (PS4): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.
Posted on Written by deKay
I’ve not done a roundup post for a while, but I have been playing quite a lot of stuff. Regardez:
I’m not a fan of shootmans, but I am a fan of bargains, so Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline together for around a fiver was a steal. Then I did an odd thing: I actually played Battlefield 4. Not only that, but I think I’m quite near the end. It’s been quite good actually, although at this point I’m finding it a little bit repetitive – enter area, snipe everyone, move on. Naturally I could mix up my play style and use some different guns but when I tried that it didn’t go well. Tanks and boats and stuff did add some variety at least. Online? No.
Which is still amazing. There’s more DLC this week, but in the meantime I’m nowhere near finished. I have beaten the boss on the first Adventure Map (unlocking a second) and unlocked most of the characters. It’s just so much fun – I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it.
I’ve actually bought the full game as a result of being impressed with the demo. That and 1) it was on offer, and 2) my daughter was quite adamant I had to. She’s played the full game but I’ve only done the demo. It feels a lot like Limbo so far, albeit brighter and cuter.
Ever since seeing this when it was announced I’ve been interested. I wasn’t entirely sure why, as I had no idea how the game mechanics would even work – some sort of cross between Akiba’s Trip, Idolmaster and Fire Emblem? Maybe? Who knows. It didn’t matter. Turns out, having bought it on release, it’s Persona. And it’s very most excellent, even if I’m only a few hours in so far. I really should get back into Persona 4 Golden, actually. Stupid Vita.
This was a free rental on PS+, and it’s not very good. Somehow, though, I’ve been playing it off and on and I’m just over halfway through the game. It makes me pine for Micro Machines and how much better that is than this, which is slow and has boring (and very few) tracks.
I’m still playing it! I completed it not so long ago, but I’m still having fun doing side quests and mopping up all the collectables. Been a few Assassin’s Creed games since I last did that, so it’s obviously pushing the right buttons.
So many boobladies. In eyepopping 3D! But as well as that, Shantae is a fantastic platformer with metroidvania elements. I’d enjoyed the original GBC game on the 3DS Virtual Console so when it was available as part of that frankly ludicrous Nintendo Humble Bundle I was very pleased indeed. I’m quite a way through it too, having been unable to put it down for a whole weekend, and I’ve just one main area left to clear, I think.
The post Things I’ve been playing recently appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.
Posted on Written by deKay
You may think that because of the way I’ve haphazardly been playing this off and on over the last couple of months (or more) that I’ve not been enjoying it, but that’s actually not true. I have enjoyed it quite a lot, it’s just other games have been sidetracking me.
Over the last week I’ve made a conscious effort to “get it done”, in a straightforward way: just the story. I was finding it all too easy to be distracted by side missions and collectables and that in turn was having an effect on how I was following the story (and I do so like to follow stories), which coupled with intermittent play wasn’t conducive to getting through the game. The upshot is, that I barrelled through the last three or four sequences and finished the game.
In many ways, Assassin’s Creed Unity is a return to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, with almost all the action taking place in Paris, not unlike how Brotherhood was in Rome. There’s no III/IV/Rogue boating nonsense here – it’s proper back-to-basics assassining which is familiar and fun. A downside is the number of weapons at your disposal are a little reduced, but it doesn’t really suffer for it.
Concentrating on the story allowed me to ignore many of the many hundreds of icons on the map, which clutter the place and make the missions seem unwieldy. Just vantage point, targets and sometimes shops were generally enough, and now I’ve completed the game and acquired a fantastic new sword, I can merrily run around Paris with gay abandon mopping up all the chests, crests, cockades, side missions and other attractions.
So is it any good? A lot of people would tell you no, Unity is not. The story is not especially strong, and the plot muddies the water between assassins and Templars to the point where it doesn’t really matter which side you’re on – both have a stake in the French Revolution (but seemingly for the same reason), and there’s an uneasy truce between the two age-old adversaries for much of the game. In fact, the final boss (spoiler?) would appear to be a Templar working the Order for his own gain, dispatching more of his own “team” than those who would traditionally oppose him. It’s odd, but after previous games it’s something different, I suppose.
Gameplay is the same as before, albeit with the ability to create distraction or assistance opportunities when mounting an attack. Rescue some prisoners and they’ll occupy the guards, for example. There are more “predetermined” methods of offing your mark too, but that flies a bit against the free-form “do it however you want” way of earlier games. You can still do that, but you’re suggested ways of achieving your goal. Perhaps that’s for the casual players or something – I rarely stuck to them.
Graphically it’s a massive leap from Rogue, as you’d expect being on newer hardware, but aside from far more people roaming the streets and a longer draw distance when synchronising viewpoints, it’s not really that important.
I’m not sure where in the hierarchy of Assassin’s Creed games I’d put Unity, but it’s certainly better than III and the first game, of course, and it’s probably the best non-boating one since Brotherhood. In the middle, maybe? It’s certainly pretty good, and I expect many of the complaints at release (bugs and performance issues) simply aren’t there any more. I’ve certainly not seen many – fewer than most titles in the series at least. Assassin’s Creed Unity is definitely recommended, especially if you loved the earlier games.
Here’s my almost complete, spoiler filled playthrough. If you’re interested.
The post Assassin’s Creed Unity (PS4): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.