One of the things that immediately personified Assassin's Creed all those years ago - as well as prompting many to look forward to trying one themselves - were the high-octane chase missions, first demonstrated by Altair leaping deftly from atop a roof and slamming down on his quarry after a heated pursuit. For the last few games though - and especially AC III's godawful endgame chase - they've become necessary inclusions for the sake of the series' identity, being absolutely mind-numbing to play through. The gameplay literally amounts to holding forward on the stick and occasionally tapping a jump button to surmount something in your way - with the pre-assigned auto-animations doing the rest. Even if Ubisoft found a way to make these chases more fun, it'd be missing the point - regular purchasers of the series have had enough of this bog-standard game mode, and the fact it was shown again for Syndicate is only a sad indication of what's to come.
