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Granddaughter of Catholic Worker Movement founder Dorothy Day, Martha Hennessy to speak at Misericordia

First Posted: 11/11/2013 The war between the Assassins and the Templars rages on, but this time, it is to rule the high seas in the pirate adventure &#8220;Assassin&#8217;s Creed IV: Black Flag.&#8221; &#8220;Black Flag&#8221; is the continuation of last year&#8217;s &#8220;Assassin&#8217;s Creed III.&#8221; In this entry, we go back in time to learn the story of Edward Kenway, the grandfather of the star of &#8220;Assassin&#8217;s III&#8217;s&#8221; Conner.
Edward Kenway is a pirate. He isn&#8217;t out for revenge or justice &#8211; he is out for money and glory. Kenway will stop at nothing to have as much treasure as possible, which leads us on a grand journey, exploring and plundering in order to obtain all the riches he can. &#8220;Black Flag&#8221; is very different from the earlier entries; there aren&#8217;t as many cities to explore. The focus isn&#8217;t climbing buildings; it&#8217;s more about exploring a more open world by sea. There are some civilizations, such as small shanty towns and pirate cities. It leads to some exploration, but nothing on the scale of previous entries like Boston or Florence.
Sailing was a very interesting part of &#8220;Assassin&#8217;s III,&#8221; but it was more like a side activity you could do; now it is the centerpiece of the game and the primary form of transportation. This time around, there is a boatload of activities that you can use your ship for, such as finding treasure, attacking naval convoys, and raiding warehouses. Each of these things earns money you can use to upgrade equipment and your ship, the &#8220;Jackdaw.&#8221;
When you start to see all of the cool upgrades, it gives you some real incentive to explore the world even more, looking for hidden treasures. Those ship upgrades can really come in handy when you are facing huge fleets of navel ships that patrol the sea. Controlling your ship is now better then ever; the controls have been simplified, and there are several more naval tactics at your disposal. You still have your broadside cannons and smaller cannons, only this time they are easier to use because they are now more in tune with the camera, making pulling off difficult shots easier. The coolest new upgrade to the system is you can now board enemy ships. If you do not do too much damage in the skirmish, you can board the ship using familiar &#8220;AC&#8221; abilities and take it for your own fleet.
Not everything takes place on the ocean. You can visit dry land, and once you do, you will find gameplay to be very similar to the older entries in the series. Edward can climb, fight, and find collectibles, just like the old games. The gameplay may be similar, but the story isn&#8217;t; it doesn&#8217;t seem to have much of an overarching bad guy like the previous games, but that doesn&#8217;t mean it isn&#8217;t interesting. There are some very interesting twists and turns in the story as it progresses. Something that is very different from the old game is that there isn&#8217;t much going on in the future. In previous entries, it was cool to see what Desmond was up to, stopping the Templars in the future, but his story is over. Now you just play as a bland Abstergo Entertainment patron; it doesn&#8217;t have the same emotional pull as Desmond, but it is still interesting.
One of the more disappointing things I found was the multiplayer; there are no ship-to-ship battles. It is more akin to the multiplayer that was in the last two entries. It isn&#8217;t bad, but it isn&#8217;t groundbreaking either. The real star of the show is the single player game.
&#8220;Assassin&#8217;s Creed III&#8221; was one of my games of the year last year, but I think &#8220;Black Flag&#8221; is better in mostly every way. The gameplay is great, the visuals are incredible, there is an unreal amount of things to explore, and the sea battles are a blast. Even though I do love this game, it is worth waiting a few weeks to pick it up on one of the next generation consoles to get the full experience. This game would be a great introduction to the new consoles. If you like &#8220;Assassin&#8217;s Creed,&#8221; this is the best in the series. If you have never played one before and think a pirate game sounds good, this is a must-play.
-Robbie Vanderveken is the digital operations specialist at The Times Leader. E-mail him at rvanderveken@www.timesleader.com.

GET YOUR GAME ON: High seas and high praise for ‘Assassin’s Creed IV’