Yo Ho Ho, and a Bottle of Glum

I'm back. Luckily, there's not really been any big gaming news since February, so I haven't missed much. Let's talk about pirates.

As you may well know, I was, up until recently, a pretty big fan of the Assassins Creed series, but I've felt pretty let down with the last two instalments. I'd really hoped that AC3 might be a return to form for the series, but we all know how that went. Anyway, Ubisoft has released a new video that highlights all of the open-world gameplay and naval combat in Black Flag. I was initially just going to tweet my reactions to it, but I started to have too many thoughts to fit into that, so away we go.

• Right off the bat, it's very apparent this is an AC game. The run cycles, the leap animation, the climbing animation, they're not just similar to previous games; they're identical. I know it's a time saving technique but it shows.

• On a more positive note, the town looks a little more varied than previous fare, if only visually. I think smaller deeper outposts are far more interesting than sprawling citadels.

• Obviously, the big draw in BF is the naval combat, which I'm okay with. I enjoyed what there was of it in AC3, so hopefully the improvements will round it out a bit. It's nice to see the speed at which the game moves between land and sea.

• Speaking of land and sea, there appears to be quite a wide expanse of it. As I said, AC tends to go for these big city play grounds, but they seem to have combined the Frontier from 3 with the cities from every other AC game, which isn't too bad.

• Conversely, there's only a limited amount of enjoyment one can get through sailing across the ocean again and again. With the viewpoints now acting as fast travel as well, it seems to relegate the ship to mission use only.

• There's seems to be a lot to do outside the main plot, judging by the minimap. Hopefully they won't be artificially gated like in previous instalments and all be available from the start. I always prefer to do as many flim-flammy side missions before tackling the plotline.

• One of my biggest disappointments, both in this trailer and the others that have been shown is the lack of vibrant colours of the game. Sure, there's a bit more greenery and the sea is a nice shade of blue, but everything still feels so... muted. I'd like to blame it on the Unreal Engine, but AC4 is made in Anvil, so you'd think Ubi would have a bit more control over lighting.

• Despite this lack of colour, some of the locales do look pretty ace. I'm a sucker for abandon temples, especially those overgrown by jungles, but you can't deny that hunting for treasure in them doesn't sound appealing.

• You can't really hear too much of it in the trailer, but the music seems nice and piratey. I've never really been too enamoured with the AC soundtracks from previous games, but you can't go too far wrong with up-tempo violins and thumpy hand-drums. 

I want to be excited for Black Flag, I really do. But I've been let down before, and after my time with AC3, which culminated in a glitch causing me to lose all of my side-mission progress, it's hard to get my anticipation up. Hopefully, if they can tighten the focus up a bit, and maybe hammer out some of the bugs that plagued the predecessor, it'll prove to be a return to form for a once great series.

If not, then I'll just go back to hoping for Beyond Good and Evil 2, I suppose.