I’ve never played an AC game. How is AC4 on the linear story vs open world sandbox scale? I’m the type who loves Elder Scrolls (ignoring the plot mostly) and dislike linear Bioware story-driven games. Would I like AC4 or no?
You need to play for a while before you totally unlock everything, but in between the story missions you can do whatever you want.
But what is there to do? I would say it’s a game about collecting things that light up on your minimap, for the most part. It’s exploration, in a certain sense, but quite unlike an Elder Scrolls.
But what is there to do? I would say it’s a game about collecting things that light up on your minimap
True, but those things include enemy forts, buried treasure, galleons, shipwrecks protected by sharks, sea shanties that your crew sings and so on. Elder Scrolls certainly wouldn’t be a good comparison, but the collectible hunt is much more fulfilling than in, say, Far Cry 3. The linear story side is hit and miss. On the one hand, the story itself is terrible and the missions are generally less fun than the open world stuff. On the other hand, the aforementioned instafail stealth missions aside, you usually have more freedom in how you complete a mission than in GTA. There’s usually a fairly obviously designed path, but you don’t usually have to follow it.
Piracy!
Explore sunken wrecks
Assassin contracts
Defeat sea forts
Naval contracts
Defeat legendary ships
Find maps/buried treasures
Plunder warehouses
Find collectables (fragments, stela, and shanties)
Templar hunts
Hunt/harpoon
Not sure if an Elder Scrolls fan would automatically like it. There aren’t really quests, no NPCs to talk to, and of course no RPG progressions system (well, upgrading the boat, kinda). And it’s mostly on water.
The real question is: does sailing around pirating ships sound like a good time? Watch some let’s plays!
Kevin, even after the early hours of “gametax” corkeh mentioned, it does force you through story missions at various points. And some of the scripting remains really really clumsy. Furthermore, the story is pretty bad overall. But for the most part, it’s a gratifyingly open-world sandbox. That’s about 90% of what’s going on.
If you like the freedom of the Elder Scrolls games for their production values, you’ll probably also like the Assassin’s Creed games, and Assassin’s Creed IV is a grand way to introduce yourself to them.
-TomYou will also probably be used to the questionable writing quality from playing elder scrolls games as well.
Thanks for all the info!
Speaking of collectibles, you know that tab that occasionally pops up to tell you how many of a given island’s collectibles you’ve found? Is there any way to bring that up manually? The start menu lets you look at individual ones that you’ve recently collected, but I don’t know of a way to bring up the overview.
Are you referring to the location info panel that appears on the right side of the screen when you hold Right Button on 360?
Took me a while to figure out what you meant by that, but yes, right bumper seems to do it. Thanks.
I’ve been playing this on the 360 for the last week or so, and this has really been my biggest complaint so far. I kept doing stuff myself, and then look at upgrades or something and the game would tell me ‘you cant do that unless you progress further in the story’. So I’d progress a little further, it’d show me how to do something I’d already learned for myself (like take a ship or a fort), and then the block would unlock. When I realized this was happening, I just powered through a few story missions to get to the point where all activities are unlocked- I’m on Sequence 5 out of 13 or so according to the achievements, so I’d recommend new players just do this- Kind of like playing the main story in Skyrim until you unlock the Dragons/Shouts, and then just ignoring it for a while.
Other than that, I’m finding the game pretty damn fun. I played all the way through AC1, half of AC2 and nothing until now. I feel like that was the appropriate amount of time to take off to make the series seem fresh again. Some of the stuff in here has been epic- I took that fort in the middle of the hurricane (Charlotte?) when I only had a couple upgrades, though it took me a bunch of tries. Now I’ve unlocked the diving bell, and it’s been great exploring that whole side of things. All the little sid quests (Templar Hunt, etc.) have been at least a little varied, so that breaks up everything else.
As far as I can tell, the last major gameplay thing to unlock is the diving bell (there are upgrades and such still gated, but if you want them you can beeline for them). And after the intitial tutorial , most of the gameplay stuff other than the shipwrecks isn’t hardlocked, just not officially ready for you. That said, there are some areas walled off until you complete certain story missions.
Just beat these assholes–the Ornstein and Smough of AC4.
Action shot
Booyah!
Ok just ran in to an example of really poor scripting.
I was fighting a legendary ship, which is basically just a really badass ship.
The game keeps warning you the entire fight “don’t leave the area or the fight will reset.”
I am sticking right on the enemy ship as it is bigger and meaner than me, so i need to stay behind it to survive. The enemy ship leaves the mission area at about 25% life and the fight resets. I then put the game down for the night in disgust.
So far this has been fairly amusing, though it strikes me as overrated. As usual, the game feels like one long tutorial for the side activities. I’m tempted to just plow through the rest of the missions then shelve it. Love sailing and exploring, but during the intro when I started firing at the other ship, I was like “wait, I’m going to be doing this for another twenty hours? If I want to get fully equipped? Two-dimensional dogfighting?” It’s like a more detailed version of the Pirates! mini-game, only with no wind gauge or whatever it was called. Or tacking. Oh, and I can now shank ocelots, yay.
Brotherhood is still the high water(har) mark it seems, they threw so much stuff into that game it’s like the law of averages guaranteed that some of it would be great. And if something wasn’t fun you at least got it over with fairly quickly. I have fonder memories of blowing up ships in that game wth da Vinci’s gunboat, unfortunately for AC IV. This latest game seems to be really suffering series fatigue, and the new stuff seems repetitive. Does anyone enjoy that shark hunting game the tenth time around? I did go ahead and made a shark hunter outfit, just to get rid of that stupid hood I’ve been forced to wear the entire series. I now actually look inconspicuous.
By the way, IGN says you can skip naval combat by leaving the helm and just jumping on to the other ship, then slaughtering everyone. Anyone actually done that? I’m guessing that only works in shallow waters?
I can understand your complaints about the naval stuff, which is a triumph of production values over gameplay for the most part*, but to then level the charge of series fatigue at Black Flag? The naval stuff is so completely unlike anything in the previous games (the few naval mission in AC3 excepted, of course). I just don’t understand how it’s series fatigue when a game does something so different. Unless you just mean you don’t like the rest of the game.
As for worrying about the harpooning being repetitive, you only need to do it for crafting, and even then, you never have to do it more than twice. Any additional runs are just a way to make money, if that’s how you want to make your money. The Assassin’s Creed games have never cared much about their economies. For instance, I’m making a tidy sum as I type this with the goofy fleet minigame. And thanks to everyone giving my ships a helpful shove across the ocean.
Ha, me too. I couldn’t wait to get out of that dopey hoodie.
Why would it only work in shallow water? You could totally do this, but it would take much longer than blasting the ship and then killing the handful of dudes you need to seize it. Also, if you just climb on board and kill everyone, do you get to claim the ship? In other words, can you then use it for repairs, erasing wanted levels, or your fleet? Do you even get its cargo?
-Tom
- I’m not ashamed to admit I still love it!
Can’t you not leave the wheel while in combat?
I never tried boarding a non hostile ship, so that may or may not be possible. Seems like it would be hard to do though.
For me, I like the naval combat a lot, but maybe I could do without the weak point mechanic.
One more disappointment: they didn’t do the “starting time” one-upmanship the other games were doing.
In AC, you start as a 20s-30s Assassin doing his thing.
In AC2, you begin literally at the moment of your character’s birth.
In AC3, you begin as your character’s father and play through (though not showing) your own conception.
I was hoping in AC4 we’d start as Edward’s grandfather, move to Swansea, begin a simple life, marry and give birth to Edward’s father, who we then controlled through his rough teenage years, learning the skills he would instill in his son, Edward…
Sigh…
I’m pretty sure you’re right, though I was wondering about just jumping onto an enemy ship before combat begins, to see if there was either an achievement(right, PS4, so trophy I guess…) or more loot from leaving the ship more or less intact.
So far I’m a huge fan of the naval combat, including the weak point mechanic, since it lends a layer of spice for me without feeling too much like a QTE…which I suppose it is, but whatever. :)
Also thanks to the folks who have been helping me on my shipping mini games. I’ve been doing the same as much as possible, since why not! I’ve just reached Kingston, which means I get to search for more sea shanties. These are so much better than the silly ‘letters’ you found in AC3.
I also think the main character is far more charismatic than Connor from AC3. I’ll agree that the plot(in so far as I’m into it) is pretty forgettable. I’m just moving things along so I can explore more. Now that I know the dive bell is basically the final unlockable, that’s probably my goal for the long weekend. This is probably my second favorite AC since Brotherhood.