Assassin's Creed IV - Black Flag (Long review)

Assassin's Creed 4 - Black Flag - Long Review



You know from the beginning I was going to stop playing this early. Having never played any of the Assassin's creed series, I found that I had to learn all the assassin player controls in that as well as the controls introduced in this series with the ship and fleets. The Fleet mini-game takes 5 minutes to learn but ... well...5 minutes to master as well. Once again you are trading tedium for in-game assets. The data is quickly introduced and is gone again much like the secondary objectives in each mission. I often don't realize I started a 'Specific mission' until the ending when it says 'Oh...too bad...You don't get 100% because you didn't do it the way we specified'. It was 2/3rds of the way through the first play through that I realized how to use 'Heavy Shot'*.

Halfway into my second play through I was getting tired of the game. Let me explain. There is a graduated upgrade system. Certain things unlock only when you get to a certain point in the story. Regular upgrades cost quite a bit. That's all great. But the upgrade is the fun part because the main missions are shit.

The office assistant seems very fond of showing you her backside. "Office? What Office? How is an office supposed to be in a pirate/assassin game?". Well...you are actually not playing a pirate in a game but a software company employee who is extracting memory from DNA and interfacing with it through a simulation device. "Because the actual Edward Kenway didn't botch anything up..." when you screw up...you don't die...you 'desynchronize'. Fyi there are hacking mini games in the office where you can get into other people's computers for more information on the background. I suppose if you played all the Assassin's Creed series you may be able to connect the dots. I found it too voluminous and cryptic to bother with.

The controls are quirky and unintuitive. This is what happens when you have the exact same button doing one of several things. I will be walking along and quite arbitrarily decide to start climbing the side of a building or leaping onto things. You tell him to 'Go the other way' as in 'Get off that persons desk'...and he jumps onto something on the other side of the walk. You then turn from Edward Kenway - Feared pirate and assassin to Daffy Duck. It is much easier to get him to climb something than to get him off of something so when time matters, this could be a real pain:

"Oh climb something. Sure...there I'm up."

"What!? No! Get off"

"That's 4 feet up...I'm going to have to drop down... and I'm not facing the right way to drop down from something"

"Well JUMP OFF THEN!"

"Okay...I jumped onto the other wall...now what?"

"Uh...(sigh) jump to the other wall in a forwardly manner so as to follow those people"

I was actually informed that the lack of variety of buttons used in this game was so that the PC crowd didn't get an advantage over the console community. Really? Guess I should pull the shocks off my Cadillac so I can feel every pebble on the road like I'm driving a Cavalier 'Just to be fair' to the cheap car community. Remember Ubisoft...alot more people don't speak out than do. Try to listen to everyone rather than those who make the most noise.

Botching the many of the missions is quite easy. Though a sandbox game, these missions can be the tubular of tubiest tube-tastic taint. You can go anywhere you want as long as it is within one travelling circle...but not too close. Because the missions involve the 'Mastery' of such a randomly unintuitive movement system. Just one step shy of a rail shooter.

In other games, you could quick load or know specifically where the last checkpoint was. Though, much like the 'Tutorials' or random instance objectives, saving happens fast and doesn't always make all that much sense in where they place those save points.

One mission where you are actually trying to make your way past several assassins. You have to take out 3 with one in a patrol pattern. Jump a gap. There are 2 with 1 in a tight patrol pattern...and your timing and distance has to be perfect. now there are 3 jumps to make with an assassin on the other side who is on a very short patrol pattern. If he sees you...which is quite likely...you will have to start again (go to the top of the paragraph). You start to feel like you are a student with a strict teacher...and you get one answer wrong and she tells you to 'Start from the Beginning!'. The 'Tedium/Reward' system that we all know so well from World of Warcraft...is in here as well. It also takes 3 full white whales to make a suit. No... not for a TITAN. But hey...this amazing suit LOOKS ... uh... like rags. BUT it does the most AMAZING ... uh ... nothing. BUT HEY what are you otherwise going to do with the parts which only sell for ... uh ... 12000 (which is enough to get the best swords in the game).

Often the camera is quirky as well. I'll be swimming the depths of the ocean ... caught up in a current and have to avoid obsticles while looking at my 'handsome face' getting hit by a beam that I may have been able to avoid if I had been looking the way I was supposed to.

I did like leaping from rooftop to rooftop...it gave me that 'Prince of Persia' feeling. Ship combat is fun but you do so much of it for the purposes of upgrading that it doesn't retain its novelty after the 20th time. It becomes more like - 'Grinding' to get something - a la World of Warcraft. Suddenly you aren't playing a game you enjoy but rather trading tedium for in-game assets...which is...to be blunt...a useless waste of time.

There are 'Cheats' (they call them) to make the game more fun...but it also turns off saving making them pointless for all except the most proficient players.   The unlocking of them also requires tediously picking up a bunch of crap. 

The problem with ship combat in this game is that you're not actually playing a pirate in the practice of how a pirate ship would operate. You're a small fish in a big sea. You can't take on a Ship-of-the-line and win. In this game? A fully upgraded brig could take on at least 3. Piracy was really a game of cat and mouse and cheese. You were the mouse who had to get to the cheese before the cat got you. The last thing you want is for your motley band of lowlifes to go up against real soldiers. So you avoid military vessels and focus on merchant ships with minimal defenses. In this game? There ARE no non-military vessels...and your crew can hold their own against any military. Do you see where I'm going with this?

The main missions can be very frustrating. If you are the kind of person who likes to take their time being Stealthy and methodical, Assassin's Creed is not for you. I like to think that the side missions would help prepare you better for the final conflict ... nope. You can pretty much do the final mission in a clown suit with just your fists (but not all that leads up to the final mission). Since the game comprises almost completely of 'side missions' or main missions that feel like side missions... the designers have instituted a %complete System.

You have to think fast:

Sleep him. Kill him. Jump here. Jump there. Hurry up. Your targets getting too far. What are you climbing up the side of a building for? Oh the guard on the roof saw you. DO IT AGAIN...BETTER THIS TIME. This may be a good game if the controls were even minimally intuitive but they're not.

There is so much shit in this game but alot of it they actually forgot to do anything with. Why buy a guest house? Why buy a garden? The Bonfire doesn't do shit. The baudy house doesn't do shit...or the tavern. Don't even get me started on the 'Outfits'.

From the 'Jesus...who would want to play this psychopath?' department. What has me really bugged is that I actually hated playing this guy. His initial intent was to go out and "Be a pirate for a couple of years...get some money and come back to live well". Well...he's a killer... and he kills alot of people. Common soldiers who are the heart and soul of each empire. They earn shit for money. I mean...come on...even Braveheart gave me a reason to think that the English needed a kick to the nads. It wasn't very realistic...but it was something.

The people you are fighting against believe that a device will help them eliminate corruption but at the cost of everyone's right to privacy. The assassins believe that no device can be at the control of any man or organization without being abused. You believe you don't want anyone looking in on you while you are jerking off. I mean come on. 8 years away from your wife...and, despite violating 9 commandments 100s of times over, you refuse to violate the tenth!? Give me a break! Does anyone remember how to write stories for games anymore?

They seriously missed the opportunity to have a 'Tom Jones'esque style pirate adventure. The main protagonist being all faithful to his wife and almost never into drinking...they missed all kinds of imaginative ways they could have put this together. How about 'Stalking' someone while you are drunk. Instead of jumping into a bush...you fall into a bush...and then someone remarks 'He'll sleep it off'. How about rescuing a damsel 'In distress'...and when you get to 'her' you find it's Rackham in drag figuring he would infiltrate a compound by other means than sneaking. You walk him out while 'Defending his honor'. You know...just fun stuff. What? Not authentic enough for you? How about these 'Authentic' facts: No pirate ever buried ANY treasure (except into each other). The only brig that successfully took on a 'Ship of the line' was a bomb (fire ship). You can't actually go into the wind. What you do is get momentum from travelling with the wind and then drop the sails and push into the wind with that. That would make using a ship WAY more interesting...and would open up alot more aspects of strategy.

Here are the rules: Them bad, me good, me kill.

Save the good versus good writing for the novels! You can work in clever writing but don't violate those 3 principles. I'm sick of having to temporary lobotomize my conscience in order to play a fucking game! All this "Good versus Good" Bullshit. Seriously. We've all met evil people. They get off shitting on your day to make themselves feel better. They steal out of whimsy. They say derogatory things about people just out of earshot. They tell other people that you are a pedophile. I can't put a sword through THEIR head without facing serious consequences - tempting as it may be - but I can play a game where, when someone calls me a pedophile I can call them chum...as in the tiny bits of meat you throw into the ocean to attract sharks. So stop with the moral ambiguity and go write a great novel if you are so skilled and inclined. Here's a writing challenge: Write a game well using the above 3 rules.

Also, in regards to the writing, I can't quite figure out if this game is made by psychopaths or for psychopaths...or maybe both. The 'Special Character' that dies toward the end ... a person that you obviously 'Have feelings' for. This same person (Oh fuck it...'Spoilers') took advantage of two soldiers' compassion to give them a surprise stabbing. I'm sorry but when 2 soldiers defied orders to help an injured woman...and the 'Injured woman' shoves a dagger into their guts, that woman is a cunt. I can't get into any story that somehow expects me to have any good feelings for a card carrying cunt...especially when she previously rode the 'guilt train' on the protagonist about 'Doing the right thing'...making her also a hypocrite. They played off the ccc as a boy and the son of 'Captain William Kidd'. From the point I saw him I was like 'Why is that woman pretending to be a guy who is obviously past puberty but his voice hasn't changed?'. She let down her hair and reddened her lips THEN the main protagonist said 'Your name isn't James, is it?'.

This is my first Assassin's creed -fortunately I picked a good one- ... but it will be my last unless they do an 'Assassin's creed' in space (THAT I wouldn't be able to resist). The "Enforced Stalking speed minimum" just isn't my thing.

Sorry guys...I love sandbox games but the main missions are mostly a drag. The controls are quirky. The tedium for in-game assets is too high for the single player game. Also... If I'm going to kill 1000 people...spend a few seconds to make me feel like they deserved it at least! 7/10

　

　

*In Wooden ship navy terms there is no such thing. The balls are all made the same. They did, however, use 'Double Shot' which is effectively 'Heavy Shot' by stuffing 2 cannon balls into the same cannon with less range but more destructive potential. 'Heavy Shot' is a game mechanic thing that works well enough so what the hell?

The things they refer to as 'Mortars' were actually called 'Carronades'. Since no one knows what a 'Carronade' is and everyone knows what a 'mortar' is... it seemed like a good move.