Assassin’s Creed IV, The Final Judgement Call

<p>When you hear the word &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;assassin”&comma; what words come to mind&quest; Stealth&quest; Undetected Killer&quest; The most recent <em>Assassin’s Creed<&sol;em> games seem to have taken a turn to a more action-adventure style game&period; Personally&comma; I would be fine with that&comma; but since they built the foundation of the game on a stealthy style of combat&comma; I’m not so sure everyone would like where these new games are going&period; Here are 3 reasons why <em>Assassin’s Creed IV<&sol;em> will be the final judgement call for me and many other assassins&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Action over Stealth<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As I said above&comma; the modern games seem to focus on the action in the game and the methods to take down arsenals of men in a single point&period; I get confused when talking about it now as the first four games had a focus on sneaking around places and killing targets unnoticed&period; Like in <em>Assassin’s Creed&colon; Brotherhood<&sol;em>&comma; there were multiple instances where you had to sneak around crowds of people without getting spotted or figure out a way to get into a window on the 5<sup>th<&sol;sup> floor without being noticed&period; That made the game more engaging for the player and forced people to sit back and think of a strategy to solve the current puzzle &lpar;in this case&comma; getting from point A to B&rpar;&period; I picked up <em>Assassin’s Creed III<&sol;em> on release day&comma; and the moment I got to the points where I had to start taking out targets&comma; I wasn’t impressed&period; A lot of the time&comma; I had to rush in there and kill in the target as quick as I could&period; There was one instance where I felt like I had to be sneaky and that was the time where you put on a disguise and sneak into the British camp&period; There was one more time when you had to sneak around and stop your fellow tribe from attacking the militia but also ended in an action fight&period; After that&comma; the rest of the game just felt like going to see a modern action film&colon; a lot of frontline attacking&comma; storming through impossible firefights to kill someone&comma; and a lot unnecessary filler material&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Walking over Climbing<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What really put me away from <em>AC3<&sol;em> was the lack of any really good building to climb and the environment&period; I got the sense that the game was about &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;trekking through the American Frontier&comma;” but the results speak for themselves&period; Most of the time you spend walking around the wood or trudging through snow to get to your destination &lpar;don’t get me started on the snow&rpar;&period; I never thought that a form of running around in <em>Assassin’s Creed<&sol;em> could annoy me but the snow trudging in <em>AC3<&sol;em> managed to do just that&period; Also&comma; during the latter of the game&comma; I never found myself running around the frontier or anything&period; I would simply load into the frontier&comma; fast travel to the other side of the map&comma; and then walk into the loading zone&period; No need to waste time walking around&period; All that frontier space was wasted—no need to explore&period; Sure there were hunting challenges&comma; but what were you rewarded with&quest; At least in <em>AC2<&sol;em> when you were collecting feathers&comma; you were rewarded with a special cut-scene acknowledging that you completed that task&period; I felt no satisfaction from hunting animals&period; I only did it when I had no choice but to hunt things&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Ships are Cool and all&comma; but…<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now let me preface this section by saying that I thought the ships in <em>AC3<&sol;em> were an interesting idea and I thought they were a cool concept&period; Now that that’s out of the way&comma; let me say that <em>AC4<&sol;em> better not kill it&period; The ships worked &lpar;a little&rpar; because it wasn’t overkill&period; You have those few missions where it was required to ride the ship from place to place and fight those few ships on the way&period; Now I feel they did a couple too many ship battles in <em>AC3<&sol;em>&comma; but it was still ok&period; Wasn’t a ridiculous amount of them&comma; but there shouldn’t have been so many&period; Now&comma; the fear I have with <em>AC4<&sol;em> is that there will be either way too much time on a ship or using a ship&period; I could be wrong about this&comma; but with the setting in the Carribean&comma; I can’t help but be skeptical&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>So after all this&comma; I’m going into <em>AC4<&sol;em> with no real hopes and high expectations&period; I expect to be slightly disappointed with the end result and this to be my last purchase in the franchise&period; With the way modern games are developed&comma; I don’t see as much effort being put into keeping franchises to their roots&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What are your reasons for buying&sol;not buying AC4&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"zemanta-pixie" style&equals;"margin-top&colon; 10px&semi; height&colon; 15px&semi;"><img class&equals;"zemanta-pixie-img" style&equals;"border&colon; none&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" alt&equals;"" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;img&period;zemanta&period;com&sol;pixy&period;gif&quest;x-id&equals;8e97febb-e925-4bd3-8d42-85b5feeb3af0" &sol;><&sol;div>&NewLine;