LO3: Task 1 - Review - Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag

Assassin’s Creed – Black Flag Review

Price: £50.00

Platform: Playstation 4

Rating: PEGI 18

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Publisher: Ubisoft

Engine: AnvilNext

The Assassins Creed series consists of the same genre (with pretty much the same gameplay, missions and level design). Assassins Creed 4 is a 3^rd person action adventure stealth game and the 5^th game in the series.

The style is 3^rd person and the main convention of stealth is that you can sneak and have the ability to crouch. Which Assassins Creed has all those features. Its combat system is quite unique and its style of gameplay has not been used like this before.

The only other game that I can think of that is primarily a stealth game with an action adventure elements is the Metal Gear Solid Franchise, which in comparison the assassin’s creed franchise is a poor excuse of a stealth game, as the stealth is linear and the combat is very easy. Where as the Metal Gear Solid franchise has challenging gameplay and intense combat.

The assassin’s creed franchise always has two storylines where you play as to separate characters and they link the two stories together through a system called the animus. The idea behind the animus is you can DNA to ‘relive’ your ancestor’s lives. The main protagonist of the assassins creed franchise modern day story line is Desmond Miles (who you have played as for the past 5 games), however in this game you play as a new protagonist (who is not named). Where your job is to use the animus to research into the life of Edward Kenway for Abstergo Industries (who are modern day Templars). In this section you play in first person and complete various puzzles to hack computers.

Then comes the other half of the game, which is the primary part of the game where you play as the Pirate Assassin Edward Kenway as you follow his story to become ‘rich’ so he can go back to England to reunite with his wife. Which along the way you become involved with the dispute between the Assassins and Templars.

The game usually requires you to follow or kill a target that will be a key character that will move the story forward.

Sometimes in the game you are required to kill targets that were once your ally, which can sometimes lead you to hesitate as you have taking a liking to that character.

Sometimes the game will reference other games as all the character you play as are all related to each other. Most of the characters get a game to themselves (expect Ezio – Assassins Creed 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Assassins Creed Revelations).

The game runs on the AnvilNext engine, but requires the same methods of production as all games. The game form of animation will be motion capture and stages from there will go along the lines of:

Skeleton  - Motion capture

Animated skeleton – Render

Environmental Design – Animate it, render

The has features such as ‘air assassination’ which will be where you look at a target below and press the Square button to jump onto the target and kill them. This requires a certain level of physic and game mechanics as you can do this to moving targets too. This enhances the gameplay.

The main character (Edward Kenway) is a pirate who later decides to become Assassins after various events that take place throughout the game. This is relevant to the target audience.

At points throughout the story you can feel sympathy towards some characters often-deep hate and at points been generally quite cool. “Men dream. But dreams hold no value here. What was first the bright light of hope has now turned into a long night of captivity. Lost in the dark, we surrender our minds and forget who we are. But some of us have woken up. They remind us that we all have a choice. To stand, not kneel. To oppose, not obey. To live, not just exist.”

All the characters use pirate slang at points like the occasional “aye” but its not to over used which ads to the realism of the game, which is important as it belongs to the historical fiction genre. There is also a notice at the beginning of all Assassins Creed games that stresses that this historical fiction as is created by a multicultural team. This follows the convention of pirates and adds to the character of Edward and the other characters in the game.

Mostly the characters are good. The main cast was well developed throughout the story. Some of the supporting characters are weak in places mainly the villains. The character for the modern day story are poorly developed as you do not spend much time with the characters and you do not build any attachment to them in the short time you spend with them.

The game does not show much challenge as it gives you to opportunity to complete mission using your own methods. However there will be mission that requires you to not be detected etc. Which will require you to use cover and hide in crowds and use free running skills etc. There are also optional objectives that require you to do certain parts of the game in a certain way. E.g. “Destroy two boats using one broadside”.

It engages the player by giving you the opportunity to approach different targets and challenges the way you want to. One of the games main appeals is how big the world is and how much exploration involved which can engage the player more as it gives the player there own approach to the game.

You need to kill the target, or follow the target or case the target etc. Depending on what the mission is. Most of the require you to be stealthy and hide in crowds etc.

Usually your target will be a key character or somebody who’s going to lead you to an event or another key character.

Usually after you an objective there is a new objective that immediately replaces it giving you a new objective to complete.

The target audience is for anyone who is a fan of the Assassins Creed series or like pirate’s stealth action games action adventure gameplay or boats.

The indication of this is the game is about pirates and is part of the Assassins Creed series.

The game appeals directly to the audience as the main advertisement for this game is that you are a pirate linked in with the Assassins Creed series.

There is not any other game like this unless you compare it to the other Assassins Creed games. In that case this would be one of the strongest titles in the series. As the gameplay and exploration is one of the main highlights of the game and is far superior to the other titles. But I would still say that the story to Assassins Creed Revelations is stronger than the Assassins Creed 4 story, as it held more appeal to the main character and had a interesting plot in general that related to its predecessors.

This game is available for Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.

There is exclusive content that comes with the Playstation 3 and 4 versions of the games. For the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 the graphics are downscaled as they are running on older hardware.

This game would be more suited for either Playstation 4 or Xbox One as the graphics and performance of the game is significantly better.