AC Black Flag: How to fix it...

Assassin's Creed Black Flag could be much better. Here's what I'd do:

1. Bring back the original controls from the first installment of the series, including:

• "aggressive" and "sociable" modes
• "walking slowly" and "sprinting

2. Give players the option to crouch on demand, and not only in cover. 

3. Do something about AI: it's a joke!

4. Let players interact with NPC's freely. I need to be able to pick a fight with a random pedestrian: don't treat me like a baby!

5. Spend just a little more effort making all islands accessible.

6. Make finding enemy ships more difficult to find and more rewarding to loot.

8. Slow down the clock and add a consistent day-night cycle. Also, add some type of a clock to the HUD, so that players can plan activities accordingly.

And that's about it! Why would that help? For me, giving the character more movement options helps me get in character and adds to the feeling of immersion. For example, if I want to play the game more slowly, the character standing straight up once out of cover ruins the stealth experience for me.

And yeah, I stopped playing at about 40% completion. Too busy these days.

Black Flag: The Upsides

Still playing Black Flag... Which means that, after all, it's all that bad.

The turning point was when I realized that you can craft and wear a Shark Hunter outfit. Since "Brotherhood", I've had a hard time identifying with the character because of how bulky all those costumes were. AC3 was where the stupidity of scaling a vertical and icy wall wearing 200 kilograms of gear became almost unbearable :) My favorite part of that game was when Connor was a teenager and was wearing light Native American clothes.

Anyway, getting the character to look a little "lighter" made it possible for me to enjoy the game a little more.

Basically, to make it interesting, I have to maintain a certain wanted level and do a lot of side activities between the missions. Having fun so far.

Asinine Creed: How Ubisoft Ruined a Franchise

So I play Assassin's Creed Black Flag these days... I'm not proud of it, mostly because this game could be so much more than it actually is. That's why I have to complain a little, just to get some of this dissatisfaction out of my system.

First, let's make one thing clear: I loved the original Assassin's Creed. It was--and still is--the best game of the series. What made it so good was the integrity of your gaming experience. As a player, you felt connected to the character through the control interface. It was partially achieved through, in my opinion, revolutionary control system that included two modes: low-profile and high-profile mode. Moving around in the crowd using that "gentle push" option was just a lot of fun. Also, climbing felt much more impressive than in any later installments. Why? I have no idea, that's just how it feels when you compare the original game with the newer releases.

I'm aware that many people criticized how repetitive the original title was, but that's only if you played it like an asshole. If you were really role-playing the story (e.g. avoid repeating a failed investigation task) the limited story line wasn't problematic.

Which brings us to to Black Flag. I was excited about the title, mostly because sailing was the best part of Assassin's Creed III, where you couldn't really free roam. After two days of playing Black Flag, it slowly occurs to me that Ubisoft is incapable of making a good sandbox game (maybe with the exception of Far Cry 3). Here's the list of my problems with Black Flag:

• The third person view is too close to the character (severely limits playability)
• The time passes too fast (watch the moon race up the sky like a rocket)
• There's no logical day & night cycle ( + the weather changes too quickly)
• There are too many ships around and your ship covers ground way too quickly

It feels like Ubisoft identified their main target as 14-year-olds who don't like challenges too much and there's no way to convince them that adults might also want to play. I think I know a fix: open it to modders and they'll fix it :)