Assassin overboard!

I, like most here, played every console parts of the series.
The 4th main part of the series is again much better managed than the third part. But like other Vorrezensenten I find the 2nd part is still the best.

The game begins where her Edward Kenway, your great love Caroline "farewell" says to go on a long trip and to collect enough money in one or two years in order to provide you and your family. Sodele lands her on an island and kills there by chance a treacherous assassins and Take the information to which want to sell their expensive to the Templars. On the fly even saved a dealer who takes you with to Havana and already the Scots be tight.
Arriving in Havana you sold the information. Of course, you will discover and once just locked in a ship. With your new cronies and fellow her pirates you the ship (the Jackdaw) and then off you go to the stormy sea (or Poseidon's abysses). Because Edward is indeed a pirate, but not a bad person, he gets quickly that he has done great harm to the sale of information and is as caught between two fronts. In order to make good the damage and to clean his conscience he starts to switch to the assassin and work for them or to cooperate with them. In between will quickly try to establish a pirate republic and of course to be as rich as possible.
In short, it's about an ancient relic to find the observatory. Use of the observatory and a drop of blood can be seen through the eyes of the "blood donor".

In our time, however, we start in the first-person view our first day as an employee in the Abstergo Entertainment Division. Here we sit in the Animus on behalf of the company to the game to "test" (and of course secretly find out where the observatory is). After some time we will contact John who with a trick to take us to hack other computers and so continues to look behind the scenes of the company Abstergo.

Characters:
The characters are all quite successful. Edward Kenway is a likeable protagonist who of course has its flaws. I especially liked also MaryRead alias William Kidd as Edwards 'conscience' and contact with the Assassins. Blackbeard's performances are also well done, especially when he falls into madness slowly but surely prey. The other pirates liked most good, which are usually here and there a few Unsympathen course. The Templars, however, I could not hold big deal.

Story:
So the story of Edward and Caroline now I found something flat. Either one brings a love story or not. But three scenes doing as a background for piracy now nothing interesting.
Otherwise, it's just a typical Assassin's Creed story. That's not a bad thing, you know where you stand and ultimately runs up murdering and meuchelnd through the area to a great relic to find (in this case, just the observatory). Nice addition to the elements here were of course as the construction of the pirate republic Nassau or the medical problems that arose there.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is typical AC-well done. The whole thing is now running much smoother starting, so Edward slips sometimes under leaning trees or through a porch through. As before, everything is climbable what is found and of course, the trees are not a problem for our hero. So tricky climbs like in the churches of AC2 you look allerdinsg vain.
Otherwise, Edward is equipped as usual with smoke bombs, knives, arrows and all kinds of Dia weapons and hidden blades. Health is no longer there is no longer an infinite number of bars and also medicine. I also have a feeling that the struggles have become the first really serious. But what may also be due to lack of health: D.

Otherwise, there is much to discover, but what fun also makes can be incredibly annoying. Fun doing this, of course, the appreciation of the Jackdaw to hijack ever larger ships, forts destroying etc. But just the beginning I felt really annoying with my little ship bad, since you will often attacked and of course is not fast or strong enough to flee or to conquer. Since Quick trips are only gradually released I was so at first but animal annoyed by the imposed shipping sequences. But when one is first better equipped and simply can sail off into the sunset, while the Pirates their shanties ... well .... sing, it's really great to look at and listen to.
Besides it there assassination missions, a stripped down version of the hunting of AC-3, many islands (also a bit annoying if there is only one Animussplitter), Maya puzzle Navy missions and so on. There are really a lot of way to discover and collect, produce, act, etc.

In the present, the whole thing has to be done fairly quickly. Man hacks through the PCs of employees through various mini-games and puzzles and that was basically it.

Multiplayer:
Here, on the contrary to its predecessor not much done. New characters and settings, no new game modes, but many customization options. Quite still solid, but it is unfortunately without innovations.

Ultimately, I decided for 4.5 stars, because my ship trappings indeed liked better than imagined, but also partly was too much. It is not a voluntary component have been more and perhaps overkill. Due to the abundance of side missions and tasks and the good, long-standing history but rounded up to 5 stars.