by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher

Disclaimer: I’ve never played any of the previous Assassin’s Creed games — which is exactly why I picked up Black Flag.

I know people get all squishy in their girly bits when talking about the series, and there certainly can be no disputing its production values or status as a top-tier IP in the industry, but for some reason it just didn’t appeal to me, in the same way that a Porsche 911 just doesn’t appeal to me.

The latest entry into the series, however, changes all of that about as dramatically as a Wachowski brother becoming a Wachowski sister.

Next, on Les Mystérieuses Cités d’or…

Black Flag is a bit of a schizophrenic game. On one hand, there’s some convoluted story about Templars and Assassins and some dude called The Sage and a hunt for a MacGuffin called “The Observatory” which feels like it came straight out of The Mysterious Cities of Gold — oh, and all of this is wrapped inside an Inception meta-plot about you hacking into the Matrix and discovering a vast conspiracy at a Canadian company that specializes in creating entertainment out of “genetic memory,” which is basically the final proof that those nice Canadians are in fact evil science bastards who can’t be trusted, and we need to take our revenge for 1812 — but on the other hand, there’s this other game that got stapled onto it that’s basically Sid Meier’s Pirates! with so many features packed in that it’s a Jolly Roger SkyMall on an HGH Jäger-train.

Always be yourself. Unless you can be Errol the Pirate. Always be Errol the Pirate.

No, seriously. You start off with some boring stuff about Canada, eh, and then there’s some more boring stuff involving you chasing down and killing an Assassin — waitaminnit, aren’t they supposed to be, like, untraceably stealthy and stuff? (shaddap, Grotto) — and assuming his identity so you can meet up with Cunning Spaniard in Havana and make a bunch of money so your wife will think you’re a man. Never mind the fact that your character’s wife is totally hot and just wants you to hang out and earn an honest living, because somehow Assassin’s Creed: Bank Teller just doesn’t seem as catchy. So off we go with curtained hair to listen to some really tits Celtic music and play Grand Theft Schooner.

Of course, then there’s even more boring stuff involving plot in Havana and Nigel Bruce as Stede Bonnet, but I guess Ubisoft (which I think is Québécois for “We Code Better”) decided that spending four-million years in an extended tutorial would be enough time for you to get used to being Darth Maul as a parkour privateer. It’s like the game’s designers saw the opening chase sequence from Casino Royale and decided it needed less gravity and more Béla Károlyi. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT GO FOR A MORNING JOG AFTER PLAYING THIS GAME. YOUR NEIGHBORS WILL CALL THE COPS WHEN THEY SEE YOU FREE-RUNNING ON ROOFTOPS AND YOU WILL BREAK YOUR ASS.

Errol sees you criticizing AC IV’s “sailing.” Errol says your argument is invalid.

Anyway, right around the time you get fed up with this crap involving Exposition Sage and Cunning Spaniard — because at this point you’re a total low-level noob without armor or guns who hasn’t yet learned how to MacGyver rage darts out of Moby Dickskin (seriously, I need to learn how to craft those rage darts so I can hang out by the cheese section at Ralph’s and blowgun those sharts who pull into the Express Lane with four full shopping carts and decide to pay by check after squinting at coupons for like sixteen hours) — it’s like the game senses you’re about to call it a worthless turd and puts on a special asskick boot made out of Dolph Lundgren’s chin, because suddenly you get handed a ship and a Terminator Kunta Kinte Sidekick and it’s time to go Errol Flynn. Of course, you don’t actually go sailing, because as we all know actual sailing = boring. If you are the type of person who likes tacking and beating to windward, do not play this game because you’re that annoying coffee-shop neckbeard who starts every sentence with, “Well, actually…” any time someone who isn’t a virgin brings up something cool.

One of these two is secretly a woman.

At this point Black Flag becomes more awesome than Olivia Munn in Leia’s metal bikini. Whole days are swallowed up with boarding and sinking ships, pillaging forts, building up a fleet to take over the world, scouring islands for treasure and generally coming up with increasingly ludicrous ways to randomly kill red blips on your radar because you can. Every so often you have to do something plot-related (which is usually just a tedious exercise in eavesdropping on some idiots while the fingers on your right hand itch to buttonmashkill), but then the game makes up for it by doing cool stuff like revealing that Androgynous Kidd is actually Mary Read, which is a bit like The Crying Game in reverse, and that’s awesome because the game was making me question my placement on the Kinsey scale.

The problem starts when, if you’re like me, you finish up all the open-world stuff (even those ridiculously annoying diving-bell shipwreck missions) and all you’re left with is a Bataan Death March of Sitchin plot involving History Channel Ancient Aliens crap. And suddenly Captain Blood’s wearing a condom. ATTENTION, UBISOFT: IT’S OKAY TO JUST MAKE AN OPEN-WORLD PIRATE GAME.

Assassin’s Creed

But, of course, that’s not what happens in the games industry today. When a top-tier game costs more money than the GDP of Luxembourg to produce, investors enjoy words like “experimental” and “innovative” about as much as a colonoscopy applied by Terry Crews. This business trend must inevitably result in every Ubisoft IP eventually carrying the Assassin’s Creed brand, no matter how incongruous.  Assassin’s Creed Kitten Petting Simulator will kick your ass. Yes. Yes.

You know what, though? I’m okay with this. Because if cool games have to be disguised under a hit series in order to be made, I can live with it. Melissa and I were talking about this earlier, and we both agree that Assassin’s Creed Sekigahara needs to happen. Or, even better, Ubisoft needs to make a flight simulator called Assassin’s Creed V: White Fokker, in which we learn that Biggles can secretly perform swan-dive assassinations from a Sopwith Camel.

Damn, that’d be awesome, actually.

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One Response to “Assassin’s Creed IV: Grand Theft Galleon”

1. KrazyFace says:

   January 28, 2014 at 1:43 pm

   Best review I’ve read for this game like, ever!!!

   Reply