Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag

     

  Pen-world sandbox games may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you have even a passing interest in the free-roaming genre then chances are that Grand Theft Auto V has taken pride of place in your disc drive for the last month or so. It’s a testament to Rockstar’s “it’s ready when it’s ready” approach that this generation has played host to just two GTA games. If the GTA brand was owned by a company like Activision or EA then you can bet your ass, bottom dollar and even the farm that Grand Theft Auto VIII would already be a cold-blooded reality.

          It’s a tad unfair to start an Assassin’s Creed IV review by praising its most staunch rival but, truth be told, Ubisoft has been turning out the sequels on a yearly basis ever since Assassin’s Creed II racked up over ten million sales. The result of this iterative ethos is a series that subtly adjusts the form and focus between installments without ever blowing us away with anything particularly revolutionary. It’s an approach to game design where the core template is polished and then infused with a few new features but, no matter how much the new setting and expanded story changes the placement, parts of the game will always feel like a well rehearsed recital.

 

        The game begins in the middle of a heated naval battle as Edward Kenway, the game’s roguish new lead, crosses swords with the crew of a military vessel as he and his fellow pirates pile into the melee. The carnage doesn’t last for long as, when a stray shot ignites a poorly secured gunpowder barrel, Edward is propelled into the sea alongside a man wearing an assassin’s cloak and, when the pair wake up next to each other on a deserted beach, words quickly turn to violence as Edward turns executioner on the would-be assassin. He then dons the familiar garb before making for the ocean.

          While Assassin’s Creed III spent hours showing you the ropes and padding out its origin story before

finally removing the training wheels and letting you get down to business, Black Flag gives you the freedom to wander off the beaten track far earlier. As soon as Edward acquires the Jackdaw, his modestly sized pirate ship, you’re free to hoist the anchor and go exploring. And while the last game had a habit of breaking the sense of immersion whenever you travelled between cities, Black Flag enables you to sail alongside one of the tiny Caribbean islands before seamlessly transitioning from deck to shore in one smooth motion.

          The fact that this review focuses on the Xbox 360 rather than the enhanced Xbox One version shows how far the Assassin’s Creed series has come since its 2007 debut. The inaugural game is often cited as a failed yet lavish looking experiment, while in comparison Black Flag eclipses all the previous games in terms of scope. The naval combat, in particular, builds upon the underdeveloped mechanics of the last game and transforms them into something far more intrinsic. You pull out the spyglass, identify a target that won’t immediately turn the Jackdaw into matchsticks and then proceed to plunder and pillage.

          The game would certainly benefit from a less scripted and more free flowing combat system like the one used in the Arkham games, but with four single-shot pistols thrown into the mix Black Flag can still make you feel like a killer captain. One place where you won’t be gunning down sailors, however, is the modern day setting that you visit as the story develops. This doesn’t centre on Desmond Miles but instead casts you as a silent employee of Abstergo Entertainment – a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries that specialists in entertainment sourced from the Animus. While the Desmond sections often felt like an unnecessary distraction in previous games, milling about the Abstergo offices feels much more complementary. It’s not trying to mimic the main game, as you can’t run and everything plays out in first-person.

   

      Instead, your objective is to hack the office terminals via a series of simple mini-games to uncover the fate of Desmond and the other Assassins. You can do the bare minimum to advance the present day story or, if you’re really invested in the series’ mythology, you can hunt down every recording to find out what the Templars have been getting up to. When weighed against the Caribbean setting and its colorful cast of salty characters, the office antics are little more than an optional extra. Edward is a hardened outlaw with a keen sense of camaraderie for his fellow pirates but, unlike Connor, his story isn’t motivated by revenge. He’s an opportunist who wants more than a life of hard labor for little gain and, as he meets the likes of Blackbeard, James Kidd and key members of the Templar and Assassin order, his desire to become more than just a cutthroat thief with a fancy boat comes to the fore.

          In the end, Black Flag can’t escape some of the hallmarks that signify it as a yearly sequel. There’s just too much familiarity in certain aspects of the game design to set it out as anything more than an evolution. But at the same time, Ubisoft Montreal has done more to improve upon last year’s framework than some studios manage in double the time. Everything from the dramatically expanded ship mechanics to the evocative Caribbean setting has resulted in a gaming experience that leads you in with the promise of piracy before stealing your heart with its killer hooks. It’s not got the raw ambition of GTA V, but it’s still a damn fine achievement. Assassin's Creed: PSP 3000 Limited Edition Bloodlines Entertainment Pack, white.

My Final Words concerning Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag

     

  If familiarity breeds contempt then it’s fortunate that Ubisoft Montreal knows how to make the familiar seem less trodden. The last game switched things up by making its world more open and Black Flag follows suit by taking the best element of Assassin’s Creed III – undoubtedly the sailing – and turning it into a unique selling point. It almost feels like three separate games that have been generously married together. The grounded assassinations are the something old, the expanded cannonball ballistics are the something new and the Caribbean Sea is the something oh so very blue. We won’t make a piracy joke, but this is definitely worth getting sinking your hooks into.

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