Black flagged pirates in shady killing zones

Review

Played on: PlayStation 4
Released: 2013

I have to admit it, I gave up on Assassins Creed III. It just didn't click with me. After playing through AC1 and 2, plus two full-scale spin-offs of AC2, I was tired. Perhaps it was me being sick of the series, or perhaps it just wasn't as good as I'd hoped for. That disappointment aside though, ACIV: Black Flag manages to get me interested in the series once again, in a more light-hearted and fun way.

As always with AC games, they take a part in history and play around it, allowing you to witness how it was to live and experience those times. AC4 does this too but it takes a more light approach on reality. It focuses on the Caribbean seas, during the early 18th century. You play an "up and coming" pirate, named Edward Kenway.

Like the previous AC games, the game is about joining the Assassins Creed and taking down the Templars, while building up your own little empire. This time around though, the gameplay is divided into almost half and half of naval and land gameplay.

This variation in the main gameplay and focus on ships is what save AC4 from being just another game in the series. It makes it more original and the sense of exploration far larger. There's a huge map to explore, with both areas on land to complete, side missions, hidden treasures, as well as areas at sea to reach and ships to defeat.

The game depicts the whole pirate theme perfectly and has interesting storyline about various famous characters from that era. Just like the other AC games you get a sense of the larger picture in life and the struggle against the Templars the Assassins must endure. The whole time span of the story is huge too, giving the player the sense of Edwards hard life as a pirate. However, there always seems to keep a more humorous tone than the previous titles, which goes very well with the whole pirate theme.

There are issues that keep this AC4 from being truly great though, once again the controls are tricky. Edward is fine at walking but once you hit the running button he tries to climb every wall, tree and rock he possibly can. It makes escaping and following enemies a real pain. Frustratingly, I had to replay missions as I got stuck into things.

The mechanics work a little better in town areas but since this game is based a lot more on tropical areas, the mechanics just show they don't work well in larger open worlds. The modern day story arc, as well as the endless ramblings about the Templars, is quickly getting old too. It's like they're never getting anywhere with wrapping up the story after so many releases. A small bonus for the modern setting being about making a video game about ancient times, very meta!

I liked my AC4 playthrough, I really enjoyed going into naval warfare, capturing one ship after the other for my ever growing fleet and upgrading Edwards ship the Jackdaw.

The game looks clean and nice, but shows that it was built with the last generation consoles 360 and PS3 in mind, they add little other than a higher resolution and some extra graphical effects for the current gen PS4 version. I'm hoping the next game is built for the new consoles from the ground up and really tweaks the player controls.

Assassins Creed is back as usual and in a fun, more humorous way captures the essences of pirates in the 18th century. It's a game that focuses on exploring islands and taking part in naval warfare, which sets it apart from the rest of the series in a good way! If you didn't enjoy AC3, or just like pirates in general, you really should take a look at Black Flag!

Review

Played on: PlayStation 4
Released: 2013

The Killzone series is for Sony, what the Halo series is for Microsoft a renown sci-fi shooter series, that's as popular for it's story driven singleplayer as it is for the competitive multiplayer. Killzone however, is the little brother when compared to sales and popularity, though it always tries hard with varied results. This latest instalment marks the beginning of the series on Sony's new platform, the PS4, and is not one of the greatest attempts.

If you have interest in the new consoles, this game is the one you'll most likely have seen a lot of screenshots and videos from, since it's reveal at E3 last year. Truly showcasing some of it's more open and graphically spectacular levels. Although, it does deliver on a technical level, that will leave most players very impressed and most likely will be a title to boast your new PS4 to your friends, it falls short as a game otherwise.

The opening level is incredible, so are some of the few and more open levels later on, but they simply give the impression that it's a launch title. The levels don't feel as an open FPS game should, like say the first FarCry. Shadow Fall is the same scale, but it never really feels that awesome to fight in the open areas. Enemies seem to randomly appear and the shooting mechanics feel to heavy and clunky for the freedom.

A freedom that sometimes seems larger than what it actually is. Revealing that it's far more restricted than one hoped for. As such, Shadowfall results in being another corridor shooter. Most of the time I spent traversing corridors from A to B, in warehouse-like environments or high-tech labs.

A disappointing and cliche experience, on powerful new hardware. Don't get me completely wrong here though, it's not a bad game per se. You can find far worse games in the genre, but I wish they'd tried a little harder when it comes at least getting the gameplay mechanics more smooth and making the game more free roaming.

The lacklustre story, with it's shallow characters, just didn't engage me either. A shame, because the artstyle, lighting and overall design has a lot of atmosphere. I found many segments to be simply frustrating, far too many times I was simply told to wait and brace myself for hoards of enemies attacking. I hated the drone element, as it was cumbersome to use and just felt like a stress element in hectic gunfights, rather than being helpful.

Shadow Fall is best played purely for the stunning graphics and indeed it does deliver some beautiful scenery. It's a fairly short game and towards the end I felt I'd played enough anyhow. It does nothing excitingly new and feels like a typical generic shooter of newer times. Hopefully they'll remedy this on the next release.