The Elder Blog: Assassin’s Creed

I’m talking about the first game of the series, not the series in general. I currently have it rented from Gamefly. Meant to get Far Cry 4, but they sent me this one instead. Whatever.

Anyway, I originally didn’t like this game because it’s not as advanced as the later games, like Black Flag. I’m used to those controls and everything. I even made a video about how much I didn’t like it. But, as I said in the video, I just figured it was because I was spoiled by the later games.

Well, I’m a little further now, and my views have changed. I am in Acre, Israel (well, present-day Israel), and I just realized that the reason this game seemed so hard for me at first WAS because I was used to the later games, but not in the way I thought. In Black Flag, you could leap into a group of guards and still win. Not so with this game. I just discovered that you have to press R1 to defend. You don’t have to do that in the others. That annoyed me at first.

Until I kept R1 held in and fought five guards. They stand still for a few seconds, then one will attack you, and if you have R1 held in, you will kill them easily. One by one this happened until all but one. The last one surrendered and ran off. That had never happened before.

So this game requires more strategy than the later games. I think I just grew to like this game a little more.

The Elder Blog: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

I didn’t get into the Assassin’s Creed series until last year. A friend suggested Brotherhood, so I tried it and loved it. I watched a video of the Gaming Lemon playing Black Flag and wanted to try it. So I added it to my Q on Gamefly.

I’ll say now, it was the first game rented from Gamefly I actually paid to keep. I absolutely love it! Even more than Brotherhood. I’ve always liked pirates, so maybe I was bound to like this title, but I think it also has something to do with the fact that Ubisoft took the gameplay of Assassin’s Creed and added sailing to other cities instead of just focusing on one.

I remember when The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker first came out, everyone hated it because there was so much sailing. Ironically, that’s the biggest praise I hear for Black Flag. Perhaps it’s because you can realistically sail in a wooden ship instead of a talking dragon boat.

Seriously, it made me think of things I’d never even considered about sailing. To be honest, I’ve never been on a boat, but I feel like I have now. I’ve always wondered why people get seasick, here I sit watching my ship rolling over wave after wave, watching crew being thrown every which way, and it suddenly makes sense. I also never really considered that the sails were really effected by, you know, THE WIND. If the wind is blowing too hard, it’s very difficult to turn your ship.

So in a way, this isn’t just a game, it’s also an educational tool. Now I not only know how to sail a wooden ship, but I also know how to air assassinate someone from a watchtower. Sure, I’ll probably get injured in the process for both of those, but still…

Some of the objectives are very challenging, but it’s just the right level of difficulty. I’ve only thrown my controller in fury fifteen times, so it’s a really good game.

My rating: 9/10