Gaming Altair You a New One: The Assassin's Creed Series

I made the mistake of thinking that I could swim up to a Legendary ship, kill the crew, and take the ship by myself.

As it turns out, Legendary ships blast you to smithereens the second you approach their hull. Heh.



Btw, after a recent update over Xbox Live, I'm noticing a thorough lack of sharks during my diving explorations. Does anyone know if Ubisoft deliberately removed the sharks, or am I just getting really lucky?

 

Legendaries move with ridiculous speed for their class and size and auto-kill you on contact. You'll just have to out-sail them!

 

Well guess it's easier to explore the ocean without getting eaten

 

Er, Connor is Edward's GRANDson. Connor's daddy is Edward's son Haytham, a magnificent bastard through and true. But neither of the Kenways can touch one Ezio Auditore Da Firenze.

 

I must agree. I don't see Ubisoft replicating Ezio's success.

 

double post

 

So when do we think we are actually going to get some type of resolution to the story here.

 

When the movie kills the franchise.

 

I have to say, I honestly doubt AC2, AC2:R and AC2:B owes its success to Ezio as much as it does to the stunning improvements over AC1. If Connor had been the protagonist - or, more accurately, if Connor or Haytham-style personalities had been used for them then the games still would have been successful.

 

Anyone download the new single player missions with Adewale? I'm contemplating it but the reviews have been mediocre.

 

So I've got through the grind and killed all the Legendary ships. Took down one without even being hit once.

So now I can play the story as I've done everything else. Spoilers for Sequence 5.

Spoiler

Did anyone else immediately call that James Kidd was both an Assassin and a woman? Her introduction had her take a good look at the Observatory note that Edward took... and she sounds like a female. Yeah, it took me until Sequence 4 to even realise that we were supposed to believe this was a man.

 

Well, the 2013 story is over. The Templar vs. Assassins story is said by one of Desmond's recording to be impossible to end. If they wiped out the other, they'd just reform.

 

THIS.

***

And glad I'm not the only one who tried to swim-to, then sneak-aboard a legendary ship....

 

So my opinion of this game has changed greatly upon completing it yesterday. While I still think the grind for materials is unnecessary, and that some of the islands are far too copy-paste, the story is fantastic.

By the end of the game, I felt like I did with Ezio, that I'd really been on a journey with this character. The supporting cast is strong, though quite large, but I felt like I got the feel of most of them in the time they had. I adore the tone in this game. It starts very care-free in a way that no AC game has been, and then gradually gets darker and more serious... to the point where you feel quite sad.

Spoilers for the whole game therein:

Spoiler

I do feel like the First Civ plot made very little movement here, but having a follow-up on Aita from what we learnt in AC3 was welcome. I'd also very much like to learn what the Templars gained from the Observatory - were the First Civ blood vials collected and returned?

I also loved the callbacks to the original game. Having Tulum be a Masyaf-like. Being told to go to different cities and report to the bureau leader. The Grand Master of the Templars using a decoy. Considering AC4 seems very much a beginning of a second saga, these homages were nice.

Having the last scene be in the Theatre Royal was a great way to tie it all in. It's been really enjoyable to live through three generations of the Kenways.

In terms of the modern day stuff, which I'm a massive fan of, it felt like there was more effort put in this time around. So much information to collect. Almost an hour of audio recordings. Pages and pages of info on artefacts and Abstergo. That said, while finding out John from I.T. was Aita surprised me, it didn't really go anywhere. They killed him off too early, I feel.

Intrigued by what could be coming next year, and am about to dive into Freedom Cry (and then the Aveline content, since I'm playing it chronologically).

Disabling aspects of the HUD simply makes it so you can't see it. It won't come up until you re-enable it. The only thing I turn off is the controls in the top right.

 

Question, whats the Aveline content? Was that in AC3 and I completely missed it? I feel like I was missing a big chunk of something I should have been knowing? I was pretty busy last year so its understandable I would have missed something.

 

The WiiU has superior graphics over the PS3/360? ~_^

I have a friend who has a PS3 and WiiU, and he says that the PS3 is the clear victor in the graphics department between those two. Admittedly that's one person's opinion. I had read that the Wii U was simply Nintendo playing catch-up with 360/PS3 graphics. I didn't realize it was slightly better.

As for HUD management, I'm not quite certain what you mean. You could look at in-game screenshots of AC4 on Google and you'll see that the compass/map seems to always be present in the bottom left, while the health meter similarly remains present on the top left. I haven't really given it much heed, but I suppose you could disable the compass and the health meter might vanish if you're not in combat (but I haven't noticed at all).

What sort of customization options does the WiiU offer in AC4?


07jones7: I really don't understand your struggle for resources. My Jackdaw is 90% upgraded and I'm able to buy whatever I want. I am sitting on a pile of loot, more than I could possibly spend in-game. Are you not using the Fleet minigame? I am maxed out on docks and my fleet consists entirely of Frigates and Man of Wars, all of which are constantly engaged in missions and earning me even more resources.

If anything, imo, resource management and acquisition was much easier this time around than Oregon Trail 2012...err, Assassin's Creed 3, I mean.

 

It's for AC4 - specifically only for PS3, PS4 or PC. It's a set of three memories lasting around 45 minutes set a year after the Revolution ends. According to the description there's a First Civ artefact involved somewhere.

While I don't own one, I believe the specs of the Wii U are indeed better than either the PS3 or the 360, if only slightly. Obviously it doesn't compare to what the PS4 and Xbox One have, even if they haven't been fully optimised yet.

I wasn't using Kenway's Fleet first time around. After I got sick of the repetition and restarted a few days later, I decided to check that out and it definitely makes money easy to acquire, I agree with you.

I have the Jackdaw 100% upgraded, and I've bought everything in the game - every weapon, outfit, cosmetic upgrades for the Hideout and Jackdaw. It's metal that takes time to get. You need 5,000 for the Jackdaw upgrades and another 1,000 for the cosmetic wheels. It'll take some hull upgrades to be able to survive in the south, and even then you can only get 140 metal off a Man O' War from boarding, or 70 from sinking. It's grinding, and I don't enjoy that.

I suppose I feel it more because you need to upgrade the Jackdaw. You can get through every other AC game without buying a thing if you learn how to counter, but there's only so much maneuvering you can do with the Jackdaw. You will get hit occasionally, and it will do a lot of damage without hull upgrades.

 

Oh damn it. Curse 360! I'm sure we will get it later though. Hows Freedom Cry by the way? Have you started it?

 

I feel like you should acknowledge the PC is better than all those consoles, graphics wise.

I just got up to the sequences where Edward becomes more likeable. So, enjoying the game a hell of a lot more now!

 

I'm only about an hour in. So far, it seems promising. Adewale has his own ship and there's a smaller West Indies map to explore, with new islands, plantations and towns. As far as I can tell, there are no repeated locations.

One thing I have noticed is that the soundtrack is really good. It's a mixture of what type of sound you got in AC4 proper and the type of songs slaves would sing to keep their hopes up and strengthen their sense of community.

There's also a "resistance" system where you can free slaves around the West Indies. There's all sorts of activities that add members to the resistance movement. For example, stealing a key and unlocking a cell gains you 4 members, raiding a plantation gets you 40 (and has a different strategy to it depending on whether it is day or night), boarding a slave ship (Man O' War) gets you 100. Every time you hit a certain number, you get given an upgrade. These are pouches to hold additional ammo, better weapons and a better ram for your ship. This replaces the crafting system.

Obviously only being an hour in, I can't comment on the story. It definitely seems like much more effort has gone into this DLC than any of the previous ones. I plan to attempt to complete it tonight so I'll post my more complete opinion of it with a non-spoiler take of the story's quality.

 

One thing I'm not a fan of is the anti-British sentiment in this game (and AC3). For starters, it acts as if the British were emphatic slavers when they were reluctant to ever engage slave labour in the first place. The Spanish were, but they manage to get a much nicer impression in this game.

 

Blame the fact the games are made in Quebec if you want to know why the past two games have a strong emphasis on murdering British.



I don't think Black Flag emphasizes the slavery aspect all that much, however. Edward is vaguely against it but slavery is something that isn't really on his priorities list. The major slavers in the game are Lauren Prins (who is Dutch) and Barthlomew Roberts (who is a Welshman like Kenway). Freedom Cry is all about a French colony and, well, given the history of future Haiti--it's truth in television.

Here's my review of Freedom Cry.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2013/12/assassins-creed-4-black-flag-freedom.html

 

And what's your opinion on the rest of my statement?