My high incredibly screwed expectations were initially disappointed. The small island (Cape Bonavista), stranded on the Edward Kenway after a storm was, although well designed, but the subsequent chase after an Assassin, to the inexperienced Kenway can far too easily kill in order to then create the typical Assassin clothes were, me a little too strongly applied.
And "Abstergo Entertainment" where the new employee who is interested in Kenway, the French colleagues and the "animus" - not as in previous games, a type operating table, but simply a PC workstation with a large monitor - will be presented, acts smooth and quite striking.
The new staff is made up, and followed in the Edward James Kenways Animus program occur in sun-soaked Havana and immersed so the color, adventure-prone and dangerous life of pirates of the Caribbean to the early 18th century. And this Havana managed to forget my initial disappointment.
The sequences in "Abstergo" are kept short (often just "hackers tests'), so that the Pirate Adventure extensively and extremely extensive gets priority. And in improvement to AC III the change to land and sea adventures are this time mostly fluent and almost without loading times. It remains mostly left to the players (of course depending on the game situation): I Stay at sea or I'd better get ashore?
The vastness of this open-world games is huge. Many places where the Pirate Assassin Captain to exercise its mostly "wicked deeds": steal, rob, kill, conquer the fort, board ships, conduct assassinations, looting treasure chests ... and is more successful one case, the Indeed - and powerful is Captain Kenway, the ship "Jackdaw" and its crew. And most important: climbing steeples and viewpoints and "synchronize" to make the respective "collector's items" visible.
The ship name "Jackdaw" (Jackdaw, a thieving black and gray crows bird) was chosen sensibly and appropriately by Kenway for "sinister" guild of piracy. You can learn in the course of the adventure, the pirates Republic Nassau, whose founder Benjamin Hornigold and the legendary, fearsome "Blackbeard", Edward Thatch know.
But now to the thing itself: to jump the movements are programmed very much alive, it is believed literally by the monitor of the action. The representations on the sea, the superstructure of the ships, underwater adventure and adventure on land - everything is quite realistic - especially the city of Havana. This works by many residents, which give the city to the colorful, bustling life, quite realistically, that one involuntarily coat retrospective feeling, "Oh man, that was romantic, charming and picturesque beautiful". Also Kingston was designed really excellent. And Nassau is a cluster of wooden buildings, though graphically pretty well staged, but not nearly as nice as Havana.
It may be a little too picky when I still following bemängle what I immediately fell at the first sight of the eye:
The faces are not quite as well-structured as "Blackbeard" appearance in the trailer, especially the eyes are too bright and uncomfortable "pungent".
Also Kenways swimming deposits appear quite unnatural. In full uniform and armed to the teeth until he crawls in Olympic Gold suspect speed by the floods. But ultimately unacceptable - why should it be contrary to its otherwise high-performance artistic movements just here?
For sound you can say that it was quiet and relatively unobtrusively adapted to the gameplay and the game situations. The monologues and dialogues, music, song, background - and effect sounds resound even from a standard public address system clearly in the ears. And the German language synchronization is actually again very professional if you generously apart from the lip movements, which do not always move in sync with the spoken words.
The prudent and judicious use of the equipment menu is not only extremely important, but simply "a matter of survival." Both the ship, the "Jackdaw", as well as personal equipment must necessarily be improved to "squelch" the increasingly difficult place to be occupied coastal defenses and to lead more efficiently battle "man to man". Even sea battles against heavily armed enemy ships, difficult to be carried out assassinations and discovery and hunting jobs are then easier.
For this reason, the fund-raising has absolute priority. The search for treasures and maps that often include plans to improve the "Jackdaw" and their own equipment, so is very important. Often in secluded, small sandbars are the notes for locations of hidden things to find that one then flitting unseen past can (alternatively by force) acquire.
The successful boarding of ships, relief from pirates and their embarkation, the arduous underwater search for chests that perilous Wal -and- sharks hunting, refined and unrecognized carried out assassinations and especially the conquest of the coastal forts are extremely worthwhile goals for equipment and armament. The coastal forts in the future provide a safe haven after the successful takeover of Edward Kenway and his crew. The upgrade of the "Jackdaw" is possible with effective improvements. Where it is absolutely necessary, additional materials such zBspl. Wood and metal to capture in raids in appropriate amounts in order to improve the ship. In addition, the cannon was - and Granatwerfer- aimer optimized. The fight against enemy ships, as well as the destruction of coastal bastions can thus be carried out even more effectively.
As a hand weapon Kenway gets a little later the hidden blades. Furthermore, one can carry four guns with him, at the Chop and stabbing weapons, it is possible depending on the situation to use two weapons at once. All these weapons can Kenway acquire or upgrade with appropriately thick wallet at the dealership. Here it is compared to "FarCry3" even the action time accordingly makes sense to hunt animals to produce holster from the skins in order to carry more guns with him can. And there is a new hand weapon to choose from: the blowpipe with specially soaked arrows. Sleep darts that can be a wounded asleep momentarily. And berserk arrows that cause aggression in the enemy ranks. Who is affected by such an arrow strikes immediately to his colleagues. That is to deflect adversaries immensely useful and helps tremendously while sneaking through the enemy's camp. However, "caught" I myself thinking that this innovation for a pirate captain but is helpful, but quite strange - seems more likely to be a weapon for Amazonian Indians? But what the heck, the blowpipe is extremely useful in some situations.
The control via keyboard and mouse is basically for savvy and skillful players pretty loose and fluid to handle. But here I must confess self-critically, that the instinctive automation of key functions and dexterity not just belong to my positive skills and abilities. Especially in time-limited actions I had some problems with the rather complicated handling the keyboard. So it happened with chases in the city that I, instead of running through the archway, an archway high jumped, or sitting on a wall etc. remained Clumsiness more. Even otherwise, it was not quite round with me with the motion controller. Must often a kind of "spinning now this - then the - finger technology 'practice to pass the situation successfully. But still it is very strange that Kenway can not sneak bent. Except in bushes because he can crouch. And on walls or ruined fragments he walks hunched over. But as soon as he leaves, and he is running again straight visible. (This creep mode is really strange because "Splinter Cell" is but also from Ubisoft?)
A few notes to the season:
Belong in principle to those who every now and again with relish "Get an eye" at fantastic landscaped surroundings. So an average, even more of a "cozy" player whose primarily interested applies more to the content, the process and the presentation of a game, as its possible fast, frenzied by Absolvierens. However, I have not placed too great importance to the collection of shanties and Animus fragments, will relive the story of the adventure without time-consuming minor distractions.
If I count together the times listed in "Uplay" my previous "game sessions", I needed about 32 hours. And as already mentioned, my "alter ego Edward" has some lie leave the collectibles and side quests. But the assassinations he did not let out. Nevertheless, I gerademal reached an average of 80% of the respective synchronization level.
Conclusion:
When this cinematic Pirate Survival-adventure "lived through" with many eventful, entertaining hours, remain very intense memories of exciting, often arduous, yet highly interesting situations. An emotionally and visually quite appealing - so almost all around memorable experience. However, I have the raids and naval battles that I had several times, or quite frankly, repeat very often, a little annoyed. That is why I give the game only four stars.
For these reasons, I am very excited, in which fields it verschlägt the main character in the next adventure. Should it actually go out like this:
Once at sea, once a pirate?
That would, given the previous two adventures a risky business, because the final installment of the successful film series "Pirates of the Caribbean" had some weaknesses, because it was too cluttered, in my opinion with spooky accessories.
