Assassin's Creed: Buccaneer

[Thrik]

I guess we're at that awkward stage now where everything is looking a bit gash now the next generation has been dangled in front of us. I'm a bit bummed they didn't take longer to get this being a truly next-gen game with loads more polish, but I suspect PIRATES will help me overlook it all.

Hopefully if this does well it'll inspire others to give the pirate genre some more love.

[melmer]

My favourite part of the video is the crew member standing on the ships port (boat talk for left) railings during the storm #NotGivingAFuck

 

[Murdoc]

They are going through so many lengths to remove the assassins creediness out of this one, I appreciate it, but it's not removing it enough. Just give me the freakin pirate game, i don't need to play some dope in a hood.

[Thrik]

I suspect the earlier comment about using the AC franchise was the only way for these guys to get their dream pirate game out and sell well. But I do agree that any and all traces of Ass Creed tropes should be eliminated.

 

Personally I think the main character looks really out of place in the gameplay footage. You've got this dude who's meant to be a pirate in the Caribbean, and he's dressed like that? Come on. I want my guy to look like a fucking pirate. I really hope AC2's clothing customisation extends to letting you dress like a full-on LeChuck with beard and pirate hat. I don't know how the clothing was managed in the fequels and AC3.

[Gormongous]

Personally I think the main character looks really out of place in the gameplay footage. You've got this dude who's meant to be a pirate in the Caribbean, and he's dressed like that? Come on. I want my guy to look like a fucking pirate. I really hope AC2's clothing customisation extends to letting you dress like a full-on LeChuck with beard and pirate hat. I don't know how the clothing was managed in the fequels and AC3.

 

It's really jarring that the garb of the Assassins has been more or less unchanged after five hundred years. Now that the monks that they were supposed to look like are gone, surely it'd only take a few generations for people to start saying, "Watch out for the dudes wearing bracers and goofy eagle hoods. They're part of a weird murder cult!"

[K-bohls!]

I really like the idea of your ship being the second main character.  You always get a sense in pirate fiction that crews were very attached to their ships so it makes sense to force upgrading and customization of the Jackdaw to progress in the game.  That being said I too think that all this could be handled better if it weren't an Assassin's Creed game.  The whole thing looks to much like an arcade game, especially the ship movement and combat.  The Assassin's Creed series is a damn shame because they choose interesting under-represented periods of history and represent them on a triple-A budget, but then make them all play the same and be filled to the brim with cut scenes.  This one looks somewhat different but not enough.

[Twig]

Personally I think the main character looks really out of place in the gameplay footage. You've got this dude who's meant to be a pirate in the Caribbean, and he's dressed like that? Come on. I want my guy to look like a fucking pirate. I really hope AC2's clothing customisation extends to letting you dress like a full-on LeChuck with beard and pirate hat. I don't know how the clothing was managed in the fequels and AC3.

100% agreed. Let me look like a fuckin' pirate!

[Thrik]

It's really jarring that the garb of the Assassins has been more or less unchanged after five hundred years. Now that the monks that they were supposed to look like are gone, surely it'd only take a few generations for people to start saying, "Watch out for the dudes wearing bracers and goofy eagle hoods. They're part of a weird murder cult!"

 

I thought the whole point of their outfits in AC1 was that they resembled the same kind of gear everyone else was wearing, so when you blended in with crowds you literally blended in even without the sci-fi 'you're now invisible' effects. It made sense. Now the outfit looks increasingly out of place with every subsequent game and there's nothing in the fiction/canon that really justifies it. Even the modern-day Assassins don't wear any of that shit in the game's fiction (unless that changed with AC3).

 

I suspect there's some kind of internal war over this at Ubisoft, with some thinking the retained look defeats the whole point and some not wanting to give up what is arguably one of few unchanged defining icons of the series. 

[Gormongous]

Meanwhile, the Templars ditched their uniforms when the crusades ended. No wonder they're winning the secret war!

[Twig]

LET ME LOOK LIKE A FUCKIN' PIRATE!!!!

 

sorry it's just this game is like on the cusp of the perfect setting for me, and it's flawed because they refuse to stop being ASSASSIN'S CREED

[Thrik]

Looks like I'm getting the next-gen version of Pirate Simulator: Assassin's Creed.

 

[melmer]

Dat next G foliage

[Roderick]

That's actually pretty impressive, those swaying shrubs in a tropical storm. Can I mention here that I'm excited about this game? Pirates are a huge cliché, but this just oozes atmosphere and brightly colored charm.

[Zeusthecat]

They should really switch the eagle to a parrot in this game. I want me some parrot vision.

[Erkki]

I suddenly became really exited for this after seeing the map of the Carribean and the seamless land/sea transitions (looks like it might be completely open world?). Then after reading posts here, I remembered... Abstergo, Animus, Assassin Garb. Agree with the above points that they should just make these as separate period-games and not ruin it with some sci-fi glue and a stupid overarching theme that ties it all together (although I'm sure having some elements stay the same helps them develop so many of these games so fast).

[melmer]

I just hope the UI is very minimal this time round. This was probably my biggest gripe with AssCreed3, there was so much shit slapped all over the screen, I found it really distracting.

[melmer]

So...

Is anyone actually playing this? I'm getting it on Friday

[Erkki]

WTF is that? Is it from the game?

[SilentBtAmazing]

I am playing this on xbone and it is my favorite game on that console currently. I should note I basically hated the rest of this series so take that fwiw.

[melmer]

WTF is that? Is it from the game?

Yiss. It's some awesome glitch I saw posted on twitter, I'm pretty sure the choir singers were added afterwards

[youmeyou]

I am playing this on xbone and it is my favorite game on that console currently. I should note I basically hated the rest of this series so take that fwiw.

 

Yeah, same here. (about it being the best game of a series I mostly dislike) I think the main distinction from earlier AC titles is that so much of the game takes place on open water. Sailing around and getting in gun fights/boarding fights with other ships, hunting sharks, diving for treasure; it all coalesces in an incredibly well tuned and engaging gameplay loop that's kept me occupied for many more hours than I'd care to admit. 

 

The stuff on land is standard assassin's creed fare, though the fact that it's not ALL you do makes it that much easier to bare. Stealth has thankfully been retooled to be a bit more accessible. And the design of stealth missions is much tighter than I've seen from the series (though some story missions still cause a bit of the grating of the teeth)

 

ps: had that glitch happen in my game in the same place. didnt stick around to see the boat magically rise up, however. Reminds me of when chunks fail to load in minecraft resulting in an improbably huge negative space physically at odds with its surroundings.

[youmeyou]

I've been watching this video about the game's historical authenticity. Didn't realize just how many characters in the game had been plucked from real historical events.

 

[SilentBtAmazing]

Agree on the points above - basically they reduced the amount of time you spend blending into a slow moving crowd etc, resulting in more fun moments at least in my experience so far.

[Erkki]

Is this the first time the PC/Console releases of AssCreed were simultaneous (or were they, I didn't pay much attention to actual release dates)? Now I'm doubting which version to get, although I would usually pick PC. The PS3 version seems to support 3D while with the PC version it doesn't seem to be officially "NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready", but I'm not sure if this game would be good in 3D, especially considering how long it probably is (might be tiring in 3D).

 

[edit] Actually Wikipedia seems to be lying about PS3 3D games, as the PlayStation store says Black Flag is not 3D compatible.

[Frenetic Pony]

Agree on the points above - basically they reduced the amount of time you spend blending into a slow moving crowd etc, resulting in more fun moments at least in my experience so far.

 

Neat, though if you played AC like that most of the time I'm not sure you were "doing it right". That is to say running around like a sociopath supervillain that stabs or shoots ever guard they come across, often throwing the bodies on top of people in the streets made it kinda fun, at least in AC2. Not that I even beat AC2, but I had fun with what I did play and can't imagine it being very fun otherwise.