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Best AC so far?

Since I was very critical in my review you might wonder how I can call this game the best AC? The truth is however annoying might be the small negative parts in the game, Black Flag as a whole is so much fun that its hand’s down the best AC game so far. The Caribbean Sea or the cities looks so fabulous on PS4, it’s so much fun to visit all those cities, trying out so many occupations that it’s impossible to not lose yourself in the game, in fact, I can hardly stop to play.

The pirate parts are incredible addictive, I didn’t have so much fun since Side Meier Pirates! attacking and plundering all those ships on the sea or hunting down wild sea animals. Edward himself and his ship can be upgraded in so many ways that it always gives you a push to continue plundering those ships just to get more wood or iron for ship parts or gold for Edward to buy some strong weapon or fancy clothes. Multiplayer is also kind of fun, but I still cannot be drawn into multiplayer, too many good single player games out there. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is one of them, and it’s the best on the PS4.

Act of piracy

While on the mainland the basics of the game are still the same, however as soon as we set the sails we have the impression the play a separate pirate simulator instead of an Assassin’s Creed title. Black Flag was inspired a lot from Sid Meier’s Pirates! and other similar titles.

With our pirate ship we can sail almost anywhere on the Caribbean Sea, attack Spanish and English merchant or military ships and when they are near sinking we can get rid of the enemy crew with our mounted gun then jump on board of the enemy ship and with the help of our own party we can kill the rest with swords and pistols.

It’s just incredible how this sort of tactical-action gameplay with ships and pirates still feels so addictive. Ubisoft have done its best with the technical aspects so we what have here is the best looking and most enjoyable Pirates!-like game so far.

And let’s not forget how we can also upgrade our ship in the most sophisticated ways: ship’s hull, guns and other parts of the ship can all be reinforced, modernized to make a real beast from our pirate ship. Of course it all costs a lot of gold so if you fell in love with open world pirate part of the game, be prepared to spend a lot of time with Assassin’s Cred Black Flag until you reach the end of the game.

The basics of the combat are still the same but their possibilities have been expanded and it’s still as fun to be a shawsbuckling hero as ever, even if it’s dead easy to notice how laughable sometimes is the enemy’s artificial intelligence. Besides the combat we have to do some sneaking as well.

There is an extremely annoying sneaking mission in the game when we had to sneak in the assassin’s base while taking care of not to be discovered or else we had to restart from the checkpoint. Since I am a big fan of Splinter Cell all I could feel is how Ubisoft should NOT force sneaking elements into an AC game from his other big franchise.

En garde!

When it comes to armed conflicts with either the local soldiers, the assassins or the Templars the combat feels familiar as well: straightforward, and relatively easy and it’s more spectacular than ever. While we have the familiar and hard to defeat “behemoth” kind of enemies here are as well and also we can get surrounded pretty fast by every soldiers, still, throwing a smoke bomb to the ground and killing everybody while they are coughing usually solves every conflicts.

Against a bigger crowd pistols are golden which we can also upgrade and multiply by advancing through the game and getting more gold and resources. Besides the traditional weapons we can also use blow pipes with different poisons in them. One of those poisons drives the enemy mad and it provides a near sadistic satisfaction to watch them kill each other under of the effect of the poison.

Unfortunately the developers somehow felt their duty to force those well-known and overused elements, and the “chase the target, push him, get him, defeat him or kill him” game elements aren’t missing either. True to be told those elements are less frustrating here like in the previous game, Assassin’s Creed III.

Also wondering through the streets and rooftops of the very detailed and colorful Caribbean cities, searching for the vantage points and jump with the usual “leap of faith” never gets old and just as fun as seven years before in the first Assassin’s Creed in the Holy Land.

While we are walking through the cities and we get all sort of missions, we blend in the crowd, we run on the rooftops, or discover temples, ruined castles, hidden city parts and other famous buildings it really feels like we are back to the Caribbean world of the XVIII century.

Every assassin will do his duty

But that’s quite alright. The Assassin’s Creed series has grown a bit tired, and Black Flag itself isn’t even really the fourth part, since we are talking about the sixth fully fledged episode besides the several smaller games done for handheld consoles and smart phones.

That’s why I felt many familiar elements from other games a bit repetitive and boring.Oh my god, how many times did I followed lone characters or parties babbling to each other while I perched on rooftops or I was mingled in the crowd? How many times I had to listen to conversations - which generally weren’t too exciting, to begin with – hiding and waiting for it to end so the game could go on?

I suspect that even the CIA didn’t wire-tapped so much European politicians altogether as much I listened secretly to NPCs in the Assassin’s Creed world.

et sail to the sea, be on top of the surging waves with a rickety pirate ship, attack and plunder enemy Spanish galleons, kill or capture its crew than sail away with a rich booty! Who wouldn’t dream about all this in secret, while watching an Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp movie in the romantic, devil may care or funny role of the pirate? So it comes to no surprise that the gaming world embraced several times the world of pirate’s trough complex simulations (Sid Meier’s Pirates!), funny adventure games (Monkey Island series) or even action role playing games (Sea Dogs series).

It’s no surprise either that the pirate themed Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag distanced itself somehow from the concept of the original games. Not only the main hero refrains to become an assassin but the game doesn’t go either in the same old direction of the assassin simulation of the previous games.

2012.03.17 “Why become an assassin if I am already a pirate?” – that could be the motto of Edward Kenway, the main protagonist of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. The latest episode of the very successful Assassin’s series invites you the beginning of the XVIII century, to the Caribbean Sea, and to the golden age of piracy. Its hero is a devil may care young pirate captain who plunders ships, treasures and even whole cities. Sometimes he also kills assassins or sometimes Templars – all according to his own interest.

Added to the injury the developers also thought that it would be funny to make Abstergo (which become here an entertainment company making Matrix-like games) similar to Ubisoft. While in the beginning of the game this approach is kind of funny, by the third or fourth occasion when we are taken back from the pirate simulation this ongoing Abstergo/Ubisoft comparison joke gets tired.

I suspect that most Assassin’s Creed fans prayed that with the end of Desmond’s storyline the modern parts will be finally gone, but no dice, we are still stuck with those and this time we have to also finish the rather annoying and lame “hacker” sub-games (one of those is in fact more akin to good old Frogger) just to advance through the game. The best thing about the modern parts? They are short.

Edward is cool, but the Abstergo is not

I didn’t wrote much so far about the story which is a lot less important this time around. In fact there was even a part in the game when I almost suspected, that the linear story will disappear altogether from the game so loose it become. The story is still enjoyable and its main character, Edward Kenway is much more sympathetic than Connor from Assassin’s Creed III who was a bit stiff and boring.

Unfortunately Ubisoft still didn’t get rid of the modern part which in Black Flag won the “award” of being even more annoying than the “incredible adventures” of Desmond Miles. What we have here is a faceless, mute, nameless Abstergo Entertainment employee in first person view. Wow. Just wow.