Flammie reviews: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Assassin’s creed black flag is a western style RPG / stealth action adventure with a pirate theme and heavy emphasis on sailing and ship warfare on top of typical assassin stuff. It is definitely a triple-A product with high production quality, the plot is well written, the graphics are cool and acting is good. One of the biggest problem for me is controls and the overall experience, this is the first assassin’s creed that I played so maybe it’s just not for me, but I find that the game overall is super slow to control. I get it that it’s mainly stealth game but e.g. stealth in Batman Arkham series, Spiderman or Metal Gear Solids are all more controllable for me to play. The last straw with the controls for me is that you have to run to do most things and running usually causes the character to jump or climb just the wrong thing, so most failure’s are more like problem with controls than my own fault. The sailing part is fun for a while but becomes monotonous way before you have collected all the ports, ships, etc. etc. To summarise I’d say I played first 66,6 % of the game being excited and enjoying myself and then sprinted through the last 33,3 % just to see the ending that I was only half-interested in anymore.

(partial review first written for metacritic)

Score: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7 out of 10)