Diary of an Assassin - Twelfth Entry

Welcome to Abstergo Entertainment.

Every Assassin’s Creed game has some kind of modern-setting component to it. The first Assassin’s Creed had small intermission sequences with Dr. Vidic and Lucy resulting in a more-questions-than-answers ending with cryptologic glyphs. Assassin’s Creed 2 had Desmond training to become an assassin leading up to a confrontation with Dr. Vidic once again during the end credits. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood had you renovating the Villa Auditore and traveling under the Coliseum to Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations took place entirely within the animus with the exception of a cutscene at the very end. Assassin’s Creed 3 finally realized Desmond as an assassin in the modern day, jumping off skyscrapers in New York and a mission in Brazil before heading back to Abstergo to rescue Desmond’s father and take out Dr. Vidic.

The modern setting of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag takes place at Abstergo Entertainment, the game studio branch of Abstergo that’s hinted in the multiplayer mode of Assassin’s Creed 3. You play as a nameless employee gathering memories from a ‘generous donor’ (Desmond) to create a new pirate game. Yes, this effectively means Black Flag is taking place within itself as Abstergo Entertainment is a weird pseudo-replacement for Ubisoft Montreal, even though it’s specifically noted that Abstergo Entertainment is working with publisher Ubisoft.

It sounds bizarre and silly, but it works meticulously. The studio is littered with copies of Assassin’s Creed 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation, a few nerf guns, even an Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag art book. They even take it a step further; as you explore the studio, you’ll find market research and focus group testing on prospective protagonists for their next project, as you can see above. It’s probably the most fantastically simulated game studio I’ve ever seen.

What makes this all work as a premise is the perspective. Whereas in previous games you’ve always played from an assassin point of view, Black Flag is through the eyes of templars. They view themselves as the ones doing good, with the assassin order corrupting minds. Ultimately though, the modern day story is a stop-gap. By the time you finish scrubbing through Edward Kenway’s memories, and a trailer is produced for the project you’re working on, the only thing that’s happened between the templars and assasssins is you handing off some Abstergo data to Shaun and Rebecca.

Diary of an Assassin - Eleventh Entry

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag doesn’t waste any time introducing you to Edward Kenway. With the sound a boom, you’re on the deck of a ship, cannons firing back and forth in the middle of a storm as Ubisoft puts its naval combat front and center. There’s no cutscene to show who his family is, where he came from, or what his motivations are. Kenway is a pirate, out for riches and himself and that’s all you really need to know about him.

There is an exception to this, of course. There are a few flashbacks to his earlier life with his love Caroline Scott, showing how her father didn’t approve of Kenway. It’s a stark contrast to compare Kenway to the other assassins of Desmond’s lineage. I spent a good chunk of time getting to know Ezio’s family, and in turn, their deaths being his motivations for becoming an assassin. I spent even more time with Conner and his family. I spent time as his father, Haythem Kenway, Edward’s son, as Conner when he was a child and Templars killed his mother, as a teenager, and as an adult.

Altair is the only assassin who comes close to having as little backstory as Edward. I know Altair was a master assassin, before being demoted to a novice for breaking the assassin’s creed and essentially being too cocky, but before that, not much is known.

The short introduction to Edward is a far cry from Conner’s introduction in Assassin’s Creed 3, and almost feels like a direct response to it. For the most part, I liked Assassin’s Creed 3, particularly it’s time and place during the American Revolutionary War. But its long, drawn-out, and unreliable introduction set a pace that made the rest of it feel arduous. It’s near eight-hour introduction left me feeling like I was already halfway done with it before even starting. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag slims the introduction to Edward and the Caribbean down to maybe three hours. Once you get your ship, it’s clear sailing from there.

Through the process of completing missions, recruiting crewmates, and upgrading your ship, it’s almost glaringly obvious Edward was written to invoke the vibe of Ezio, and I’m ok with that. Ezio is, without contest, the best protagonist the Assassin’s Creed series has seen, no small thanks to having three games dedicated to him. But Edward Kenway nicely fits in at no. 2. His selfish attitude and lust for wealth is just what was needed, and the way he plays sides, assassins and templars, makes his tale intriguing and unique among Desmond’s ancestor.

Intriguing and unique are also the words I would use to describe the real world setting of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, and it’s probably the thing I’m most excited to talk about, but I’ll save that for the next entry.

Diary of an Assassin - Tenth Entry

Well, it seems like the Assassin’s Creed franchise decides when it’s time for me to upgrade. I originally started writing this series because I had to upgrade my computer to be able to play the first Assassin’s Creed. Since then I’ve played through all five games, seeing the changes from one to the next, with each one playing silky smooth. That is, until Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag.

From the first scene, Black Flag told me, “Hey, I’m going to tax your system.” The naval battle at night in the rain chugged along; dipping to 30 frames per second at times, no thanks to the way the AnvilNext engine handles vertical sync. I spent about a week at the area above tweaking settings, trying different anti-aliasing options, seeing if I could squeak out extra frames by turning down shadows, foliage, god-rays, and other environment effects.

I built my computer in November 2011, and by 2013, it was already showing signs of age. So I did what I thought any other PC player would do gain a bit of power without spending extra money: I overclocked, further. When I built my system, I overclocked my i5-2500K from its factory setting of 3.3GHz to 4.0GHz with a third-party cooler. This was my first time ever trying to overclock something, so I thought that was decent. Doing more research, I found the i5-2500K was stable enough most people could overclock to 4.0GHz using just the stock cooler, and with third-party coolers, it could reach up to 4.8GHz.

In order to make sure conditions were right for overclocking, I cleaned out my system of any dust or particles, cleaning up around the desk area, and in general making the area cooler for the system to run. With that, I bumped up the CPU to 4.5GHz and ran a few stress tests to make sure it was stable. Once it was, I also dug into overclocking my EVGA GeForce GTX 570. I used MSI Afterburner to bump it up from its default settings of 732MHz core clock, 1464MHz shader clock, and 1900MHz memory clock, to a core clock of 850MHz, 1700MHz shader clock, and 2000MHz memory clock.

What this all essentially means is I gained about 10-15 extra frames per second while playing Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag, making gameplay range anywhere from 45 to 60 frames per second, which makes for a vastly better game experience. I also was able to stave off having to upgrade for another few months until Watch Dogs releases.

Watch Dogs delayed to spring 2014

Ubisoft announced the delay of Watch Dogs, its open-world game set in Chicago, to spring 2014 today on their blog. When it was first shown at Ubisoft’s E3 2012 press conference, Watch Dogs was synonymous with next-gen, heading the charge of the new comes that are now less than a month away.

“Our ambition from the start with Watch Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we’ve made the tough decision to delay the release until spring 2014.”

According to the post, Ubisoft is using the extra time on polish to closer deliver on their desired quality.

“We know a lot of you are probably wondering: Why now? We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.”

Watch Dogs was originally slated to release on November 19 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 version launching alongside those consoles. It will now release sometime in spring of 2014. The push to spring leaves November 19 open to Need for Speed: Rivals and the PC version of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.

2013 Fall release schedule

Games are releasing again. The summer drought of games started near the beginning of June and starting next week, games will figuratively start hitting shelves again. The fall schedule always seems to start fast and furious, but unlike 2012 where there was a constant stream of new games almost every week, 2013 appears staggered. This makes sense, though, as Microsoft and Sony have yet to confirm dates for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, leaving these gaps in releases for console releases and launch line-up games leading up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday. This list covers the majority of games I’m looking forward to with a few exceptions, like games that are console exclusives, such as Grand Theft Auto V, and games that don’t have a release date yet, such as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance for the PC.

August 20
Saints Row IV
Splinter Cell: Blacklist
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

August 28
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

September 3
Rayman Legends

September 10
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

October 25
Batman: Arkham Origins

October 29
Battlefield 4

November 5
Call of Duty: Ghosts

November 12
XCOM: Enemy Within Injustice: Gods Among Us

November 19
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
Need for Speed: Rivals

Assassin's Creed 4 transitions from land to sea in E3 gameplay debut

Ubisoft finally unveiled gameplay of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag at Sony's E3 press conference, and while there were some hiccups, it looks to bring stealth back to the series. The most intriguing part of the demo was the seamless change from land to sea as Edward Kenway, grandfather of Conner Kenway from Assassin’s Creed 3, jumps from rooftop to rooftop to the back of his ship the Jackdaw, instantly taking command of it amongst a sea battle. Along with a new cinematic trailer below, Ubisoft also showed off a new gameplay trailer, featuring the song "Half Circle" by Full Moon Run, at their press conference. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag releases on October 29 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC, with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions coming later this year.

Set sail with Edward Kenway in Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

As previously rumored, the next installment in the Assassin's Creed series is indeed heading to the high seas with Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. This time taking a step back in history, rather than moving forward, with Edward Kenway, father of Haythem Kenway and grandfather to Conner from Assassin's Creed 3. Set during the golden age of piracy, Kenway sails through the Caribbean encountering historic pirates such as Blackbeard and Anne Bonny while plundering treasure from the the king he once served, attempting to redeem himself as a 'man of quality' to his family. Black Flag will improve on the sailing and naval combat first seen in Assassin's Creed 3, giving players the option to explore the open sea as well as deserted islands. Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is due to release for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC on October 29, while PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will arrive sometime later in the quarter.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag poster surfaces

The next Assassin’s Creed game may already have a name. Kotaku received the poster to the left earlier today along with other marketing materials for something called Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

Ubisoft hasn’t officially announced the name or any details of the next Assassin’s Creed, but they did confirm during their last financial conference call a new game would be coming in their 2014 fiscal year with a new hero and a new setting.

The poster shows an assassin in garb similar to Conner from Assassin’s Creed 3, standing on a pirate ship with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. The artwork is apparently from comic-artist Todd McFarlene, leading to the speculation that the poster is legitimate as it wouldn’t be the first time Ubisoft used a comic artist for the Assassin’s Creed series. Promotional materials for Assassin’s Creed 3 used artwork from Alex Ross.

Rumored details for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flags include the main character Edward Kenway, Haythem’s father. Edward is a privateer, assassin, and sometimes pirate, leading to locations in the Caribbean such as Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas. If this is true, Ubisoft seems to be leaning on the strong naval missions from Assassin’s Creed 3, while possibly exploring the narrative behind Haythem’s turn from the assassins to the Templars.

Ubisoft has only said so far that the next Assassin’s Creed game will be coming sometime in the next year. The Examiner ran first screenshot, running on an Xbox 360, showing what looks like an improved lighting model. It’s unknown if the game will be solely for current generation platforms, or have next generation versions as well. Ubisoft is holding an event tomorrow on February 27 presumably to discuss more details about the next game.