This is more like it.

Man, after the disappointment and frustrations of Assassin's Creed 3, I thought I was done with this franchise which I've adored ever since the original Assassin's Creed all those years ago.

Now I'm only a few hours into Assassin's Creed: Black Flag but already this reminds me of the franchise I once couldn't get enough of. From the captivating world to simply how well it plays, this is already some of the most fun I've had in an Assassin's Creed game since Brotherhood. It's difficult to explain why, but I feel the stealth sections are fairer and more of an enjoyable challenge. The game hasn't really opened up yet, but I found myself just walking around Havana taking in the sights because part of the joys of this franchise as always been taking in the world. Looks outstanding to on the PC, after they finally fixed some of the technical issues the game had.

Is Assassin's Creed finally back on track? Don't know yet but can't wait to play more.

*Side note*

I did chuckle at the fact that Edward's running animation seems identical to the running animation for Aiden Pearce from Watch Dogs, guess that makes sense though.

I wholeheartedly agree. I didn't make it past the introduction part of AC3, where you play as that adult, most uninteresting person ever, man. I was incredibly turned off by allmost every aspect of that game. I'm one of those who can't keep playing a game if the start don't "pull me in", and boy if the start in AC3 did anything it was to push me AWAY. Black Flag had me from the first seconds I started playing, and it hasn't let go since. The world is amazing and even something so boring as sailing from point A to point B is exciting. Just writing and reading about it right now makes me want to jump back in to cintinue exploring and progressing through the story. The game is simply put incredibly captivating and fun!

@machofantastico said:

Sort of, but it's probably more accurate to describe it as a different train on a different track entirely. The old track is barely even visible from here, but you can still see the smoke rising from the smouldering wreckage of Revelations and AC3.

Hopefully they will decide to see where this new track leads, but also try to overhaul the old route and get that back in service too.

I agree too except I would've been fine with it not being an assassins creed game at all. I wish they didn't need to justify a pirate game having a little bit of sci-fi twist by putting you at work at ebstergo. There's only been 3 times I've been pulled out of the animus and forced to walk around the office so far but it's been the worst part of the game. I just want to play a bad ass pirate game and that's what this is for the most part.

I think it's definitely the best since AC2. I made the mistake of collecting and exploring too much, too early on. It made the mechanics during missions very tedious (since I'd already been using them for a long time). I'd recommend shooting straight through the story missions first, then do side missions/exploring. The story is fantastic btw.

Through out the entire campaign missions though, there was a voice in the back of my head that always said, "Wow, this game would be amazing if it wasn't an Assassin's Creed game." though. I think it's because of the controls mainly. Edward constantly moves and does things unintended, like all the other AC games.

Yeah good advice on the first thing, the game still does tutorialish missions for a while even though it opens up, so I also recommend doing those to (to at least the fort attack mission... it was kind of dumb doing that one when I had already taken on a bunch of forts and much harder ones at that).

And couldn't agree more about the controls. I think in particular the wonky-ness really is glaring on the boats. I don't know if it's just me, but twice now I have come to the random burning ships you can find and loot, and gotten the instance where it's absolutely full of crates to open up and loot, and man, trying to do that with any speed will result in my character climbing ontop of the boxes, up a rope, whatever, and then I'm scrambling under the time limit to recover, then I'm not facing the right side of a crate to open it, and I flip out and have to bail before I got much of the loot at all.

Really, I know the controls are already complex but they just have to have a separate "sprint" and "free run" button at this point. Maybe re do the whole controls, I don't know. Just so annoying that the button to do anything with speed results in your character climbing up anything in sight. This hadn't bothered me much in the games until this one.

Hmmmm. This is what I need to do. I have not been feeling this game, but I think it's because I'm just collecting and exploring and it feels the same as AC2 because of it. I will try this, this weekend and hopefully it grabs me. I really want to love it.

YES. I honestly have no idea how they haven't figured this out yet.

It's on a totally different track, and from what I've played of Black Flag (roughly 15 hours so far), it's a great track. If they just kind of take themselves less seriously than they did in 3 and vary the gameplay, they're in great shape. For example, instead of the next game being about a pirate, perhaps it's about a ninja or something. Different professions in different parts of history in different parts of the world. That's what this series can be: an interesting interpretation of history. None of that precursor race nonsense, just cool people doing cool stuff.

I'm going to break from the majority view of this game. AC4 has some a nice Caribbean-flavored seasoning, but it's still an Assassin's creed game at its heart, focusing around traversal that's too easy, combat that's too simplistic, and stealth that's too finicky. The ship and ship upgrade mechanics make it feel fresh, but they're ultimately shallow and at the end of the upgrade path you end up in the same place as you began, doing the same things in the same ways, just with bigger targets. The story seems like it's not taking itself as seriously with the templars-assassins stuff, but by its conclusion, most of that light-heartedness has evaporated, and it's not at all a compelling story overall.

I hadn't played an AC game since 2, but I don't think this one is an improvement from that. Which is still fun, but you can't dig very deep before you hit the bottom.

I love this game, and I have not been particularly fond of AC games in the past (ACII being my favorite and I still never completed that game). I love the setting, but I think what really makes this game stand out is that most of the collectibles and hunting missions actually mean something in game. They aren't just something else to do and collect, but they result in upgrades to either your character, boat, or base. This game is definitely in my top 5 games of 2013.

Don't worry, you'll be completely sick of the awful stealth missions pretty soon. But besides that, yeah, it's a great game. Waaaay better than III.

I always wondered if as you relive these memories, does the dude in the animus experience taking a dump off the side of a pirate ship?

@natetodamax: But I like stealth =(

I'm not enjoying this game as I thought I would. The naval stuff is a huge, massive pain in the ass. Traveling, fighting, boarding other ships and attacking forts... fuck it. I appreciate the open-world aspect of the game, but I would have liked it better if it was more focused on land than on the sea...

I'm on my way to meet with Kidd for what I assume will be that mission, so I guess I'm still at the beginning of the game. And that there's still a lot more of sailing to be done... ugh.

Edit: Oh. Great. It's a "stealth" mission. I wonder why Ubisoft insists on making "stealth" mission when they clearly know jack shit about how to make them properly.

@joeyravn: The naval stuff gets much better once you get a few upgrades in on your ship. And with the materials needed for the upgrades primarily coming from looting other ships (metal in particular), there is a natural incentive to continue pirating outside of the story missions, which is where the real fun of the sailing is, not the stupid sneaking story missions. After a while I found I had the most fun with this game just roaming the open seas selectively pirating for metal heavy ships while listening to shanties. Alot of the tedium of the pirating is removed when you start being able to single shot the small gunboats and are fighting/disabling whole convoys at a time instead of just circle strafing single ships over and over again.

Not sure if it helps with avoiding running up walls and things, but I've noticed that the right trigger is now analog, so if you pull it half way, you'll run about half speed.

On the gameplay side, the addition of stalking zones was very much needed and helped AC4 become a much better stealth game than the other games in the franchise ever were. It's pretty simple but at least the player knows for sure he is hidden/unseen.

Hard question to answer. They really can't do pirates and sailing in general again (at least for an AC game). It got a lot of people back into the franchise for sure, hopefully they could craft a more robust (yet still accessible to mainstream audiences) stealth system into the next game.

Ezio's recycled Altair animations had me learning to accept the franchise as it is. Altair's still the best though.

It's still got the same awful mission structure and character development that has always been in the games. And with AC4's critical success, we can expect Ubisoft to begin to annualize a pirate themed game.

Yeah, I think 4 is better then the last 2, but still not as great as 2 or brotherhood. My main problem is how they keep making the combat fucking easier. I don't find the sword play very fun at all anymore. The controls are also a bummer cause they made them more simpler. Previous games had right trigger a general move faster and then you needed to hold A to also sprint and climb. Now right trigger does all that which makes moving around harder I think.

Also it's fucking annoying how their is no way I can find to turn off the "PRESS Y TO BREAK BLOCKS" or other obvious messages which piss me off.

Also the AI just makes me wish it was a whole hell of a lot better. Ever notice how when you get ready to board a ship and everyone is shooting their guns yet no one dies? Yeah, fuck that. I want my and their people to die after 50 people start shooting guns at each other. Also when I'm on land and I run back to my ship with people shooting at me it would be nice for the people on my ship to do jack shit.

I also wish you can do more with crew on your ship or just do more on your ship.

I also think I had the same problem someone else said of doing too much side stuff.

I know this is a lot of nit picky stuff, but the game could be much better if this game had more time. But of course that wont happen because the game sells too good already for Ubisoft not to release it every year.

I was hoping to like it more considering all the praise it has gotten. It has a lot more of the problems from past games than I was expecting. The back half of the game is filled to the brim with "follow these dudes in this ring" missions. It became really tiresome with all of the trial and error. It's about time developers learnt that instant fail states for fucking up stealth sections are really awful. Ubisoft seem to be the worst when it comes to this stuff. The stealth boat sequences are also pretty awful.

I enjoyed a lot of the game and Edward is a cool character. The boat battles are really cool... well, they are after you've upgraded your ship a bit and there's something really satisfying about taking over ships and forts, but I was ready for the game to be over about two or three hours before the end. It got to a point where if the mission wouldn't instantly fail me for getting spotted I'd just run up and murder everyone leaving a pile of about 30 bodies.

Yeah. It's better than 3 but it's still not as good as 2/brotherhood was.

Like I said previously, I was not really feeling this game as when I started it out and I was in Havanna, I just started hitting the objectives that I could see and collecting and all of that just felt like AC2, which was the last game in the series that I played. For a player like me, having not played an AC game in 4 years should have left me properly primed to enjoy a new AC game. After following the advice of some on here who said to just progress through the story and not get stuck collecting early on, I have a hearty THANK YOU, for you. Doing that pushed me through enough to finally get where all the love is coming from. The game isn't perfect, but it is definitely full of lots of fun stuff and variation and I'm now wanting to play the game when I'm not playing the game. Like others have said, there is a certain amount of jank in the controls still. I'm getting better, but there are just a lot of times when Kenway is doing stuff that you do not want him to do. It can get frustrating, especially so during the stealth missions/sections. And so far, I really enjoy the naval stuff. It really breaks the game up in a good way and gives you fun activities to do. Now I just need more steel to upgrade my ship and I will be happy.