Flashback Friday: With the Upcoming Release of, "Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced," Everything Old is New Again

I played many of the earlier, "Assasin's Creed," games and while, "Assasin's Creed III," might be my favorite, I've got plenty of love for, "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag," and mix of the usual Creed-stuff and addition of piracy shenanigans. Ubisoft's pirate-centric game, "Skull and Bones," was in development Hell forever before with released and bombed, hard. It seems the company decided to go back to what works, as there were rumors of an ACIV remake, and it was recently confirmed we're getting, "Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced." The release date is actually already close, July of this year.

A lot of ACIV/Resynced has been tweaked, but the meat and potatoes of it apparently still is great, plus now it looks even better thanks to all the tweaks 13 years(!) since its initial release. Some news outlets that have had hands-on time felt things were a bit clumsy, but it seems the overall consensus is that this is a fun remake that excises a lot of the annoying elements (those weird first-person modern-day segments), adds in features that came later to the series that were helpful, and so forth. There have been a lot of, "Assassin's Creed," games over the years, and I've probably missed out on more than I've played just due to how often a game comes out in the series. That said, I'll admit I am a bit excited at the thought of dipping my toes back into an overhauled version of this game so that I get a mix of nostalgia while enjoying a bunch of improvements.

Yet Again, "Skull and Bones," is Delayed

I have written about the pirate game, "Skull and Bones," and its development Hell at various points in time. Announced in 2017, I wrote about how it sounded like it was suffering huge issues in 2020. Then in 2021, I wrote about further problems. Oh, and in October of 2022, I wrote about how it had supposedly its last delay to March 9th of what is now this year, 2023. Guess what, ya'll? The game is delayed until the next fiscal year by its publisher, Ubisoft--meaning it won't come out until at least after April 2023.

"Skull and Bones," has morphed so much during its development that I'm not sure what exactly it will even be when it does come out. A single-player open-World action RPG? Multiplayer pirating combat game? Something that has a long grind as you level up but you can buy advancements with real money too via in-game purchases? I seriously just want a fun pirate game like we saw in a tiny bit of, "Assasin's Creed III," and the better parts of, "Assassin's Creed IV." We'll see what exactly we get from, "Skull and Bones," when it does come out. I just hope it is enjoyable as opposed to a Frankenstein's monster of ideas horrifically stitched together in a broken manner.

"Skull and Bones," Sounds Like it's in Development Hell

Way back in, "Assasin's Creed III," there was a small gameplay element where you could pilot a ship and get into fights with other ones. It was loved by players and led to, "Assasin's Creed IV," having sailing about around be the main feature--making it often thought of as the, "Assasin's Creed," for people who normally hate, "Assasin's Creed." Other games in the series have used boats a bit, but there was interest in a game announced in 2017 called, "Skull and Bones," which sounded like a pirate-themed game from the company behind, "Assasin's Creed," Ubisoft, without all the baggage. Again, that was 2017. It was mentioned by Ubisoft in 2019 as being delayed to 2020 and supposedly still getting work done. Now there is an, "Open letter," of sorts from the game's creative director, Elisabeth Pellen. This letter to the fans says how the game has a new vision and will be re-revealed in 2021 as whatever the new, "Skull and Bones," will be. This worries me.

I am concerned that, "Skull and Bones," is going to try and become one of those games that is a, "Service game," as rumors are saying, in that you buy it and then keep buying more upgrades and features. There are games that are essentially, "Free," and do this like, "Fortnite." There are also games like the new, "Avengers," one which you buy it, but then it also comes with a mode that offers a premium currency. These aren't monthly fees like in MMORPGs like, "World of Warcraft," these are games that want to technically, "Never end," and keep getting money as they add an update here and there with a new character/outfit/ship/gun/whatever. I'm not sure I want that, but Ubisoft maybe wants to offer that sort of game in the hopes it'll get, "Skull and Bones," out of whatever development Hell has been delaying it. When I first heard about, "Skull and Bones," in 2017 I was excited. Then I forgot about it. Now, I just don't really have much enthusiasm or hope for it at all.

My Favorite, "Assassin's Creed," Game is Getting More Respect Now

I've played a solid chunk of the, "Assassin's Creed," video-games, although not really any of the newer ones. With that said, my absolute favorite of the series is one that for a good long while many people scoffed at. Yes, "Assassin's Creed III/3." I adored many of the aspects people hated, from the extended intro with a character who turns out to be evil, to the tree-limb parkour, and my wife (who watched me play) and I even were big fans of the main character, Connor. Seriously, anyone who claims he was difficult to like clearly did not play the big, "Homestead," side-quests that really flesh his character out. As an article from Kotaku I finally made time to read discusses, now that some time has passed certain aspects of the game have really aged well, especially the political discourse.

"ACIII/3," originally came out in October of 2012. Obama was about to re-elected to a second term against his opponent Mitt Romney whom everyone had basically agreed at that point was doomed to lose. The World was an optimistic place. A game about the birth of America and how a lot of people were screwed-over by ideologues just seemed so pessimistic. Now it is 2019 and our political landscape has turned into a dumpster fire with President Trump eagerly pouring gasoline on it any chance he gets. The idea of a game calling-out the deeply-ingrained prejudices in our country with a half-White-and-British and half-Native American protagonist sounds extremely topical.

From its very inception the vow of our Nation being a land of equal opportunity for all has been a hollow promise if you aren't a White Male Christian. Perhaps some of the game-play was wonky (so, so many map-icons to explore with a good chunk being extremely buggy)) and the game took awhile to get the main story content. It still was an extremely fun and insightful, "Assassin's Creed," even if, "ACIV/4," of course gets a lot of positive press for the fun ship-sailing (which some people forget actually was introduced in this game too)! Yes, this was my favorite game in the series, I guess it just took a bit over half a decade for it to become even more relevant.

Three Video-Games that Happen to be the Third in Their Series That I've Been Playing Lately

Booting Up
There are three video-games I've been playing lately, alternating between them at various times. They all also happen to be the third in their series. They are "Max Payne 3", "Assassin's Creed 3", and "Far Cry 3". I've been enjoying them all for sometimes differing and sometimes similar reasons. I have not "finished" any of them so I won't say a review so much as my general impression of each game having played as far as I have. I will however give a rating of what my girlfriend, Samii, thinks of these games having extensively watched me play them all. Let's begin.

Max Payne 3

I'm about 2/3 of the way through this game and have enjoyed it a lot. Compared to the first and 2nd game this is quite different in how while the other ones did have somewhat of a cinematic feel to them they more-so almost felt like a comic book thanks to the graphic-novel interludes. Those are gone now, replaced by extensive cut-scenes and dramatic set-pieces. The game-play itself is fun but at times it feels like control is being taken away from me--the player--a bit too often to have more movie-moments.

One thing that has never changed in this trilogy however is the dark noir-feel that goes along with Max's misery. Early in the game as we saw our protagonist in his apartment sobbing and drinking so much he vomits, my girlfriend Samii asked, "Why is he so sad?" This got me to thinking about how throughout all the games Max has gone through enough in each installment of the series to utterly destroy any human being--losing his wife and child to drug-addicts high on a dangerous new substance, having the only other woman he possibly loved (Mona Sax) dying in his arms, and being shot and shot-at enough it could boggle anyone's mind. Why is Max Payne so sad? I suppose it is because his life makes a Greek tragedy look like a sitcom.

A rare moment of calm in the game.

For those who don't know the plot, Max has moved to Brazil to do security work and as with everything else he attempts to do, it all goes horribly awry. We play as him whilst the plot develops into less a case of a job gone wrong and instead possibly a big conspiracy, it's cool stuff.

As I said, the game-play is fun with its slowing-down time, ducking behind cover, and otherwise getting into amazingly choreographed gunfights. The story so far has really stolen the show here though, resulting in Samii being so captivated by Max's story and hoping things will finally work out she'll ask me to play the game so we can continue to be amazed by Mr. Payne's saga. I recommend people try this game without hesitation as it is a rip-roaring time. I know things probably won't work out too happily for Max, but my girlfriend and I can hope, can't we?

Samii's Rating:
"This game is extremely violent, but really interesting."

Assassin's Creed 3

Despite having a "3" in the title this technically is the 5th game in the series as after 1 & 2 there was, "Brotherhood" and "Revelations". I've played the first and second game but never got around to the other "named" titles. I did however do some reading so that I would be caught up on all the happenings before I booted up the 3rd/actually 5th game (Lucy was a triple agent, who would have thunk-it?).

"Assassin's Creed 3" is a lot like "Max Payne 3" at times considering how until around maybe the sixth "sequence" where I currently am the game runs on a (mostly) incredibly linear and scripted path. It seriously isn't until a player is maybe 8 or 9 hours into the game that you start getting the chance to just wander around and find fun side missions. This would be upsetting were it not for the fact that the story is pretty interesting and had myself and my girlfriend eager to see more. I had to spend a few minutes explaining to her what all this business was with the Assassins and their foes the Templars but once I had that background information out of the way she was able to follow along with the story in the game just fine.

The story itself follows main character Desmond (in the present day) as he uses the machine known as "The Animus" to explore genetic memories of his ancestors back in the times of the American Revolution. It's fun because there are all kinds of famous historical characters we meet and neat little twists on actual history that create a cool fiction (for example, did you know the Templars were responsible for the Boston Massacre? Now you do).

Climbing to perches will probably never go out of style in Assassin's Creed.

Another reason the game may spend so long holding the player's hand is there truly is a ton of stuff in it. From all the varied weapons, hunting, piloting a ship, exploring the Boston Underground, attacking forts, and even more side-interests this game is jam-packed with things to know and activities to do.

One major complaint is that this game can be really glitchy. There have been big patches to fix it up but things sometimes will go wrong and really break one's immersion. Be it a character's mouth strangely not moving when they talk, or having to restart a quest because you threw a bad guy in a spot you were going to need to interact with and now suddenly can't, this game can get really buggy. Luckily, it isn't too horrible a problem.

As I've said, I'm only on the sixth sequence where I've been taking advantage of finally getting some freedom and have been doing a bunch of exploring. My girlfriend has enjoyed watching me do the story missions but finds the plot moves along a little slowly at times--something I agree with completely. Also, she gets kind of bored when I'm off just wandering the wilderness or hunting various animals so if you want to play this with a friend watching you might want to stick with the main quests so they don't start yawning.

Despite my issues with the game's plot occasionally moving at the speed of molasses and glitches popping up, both Samii and I have found this to be pretty fun. I'd recommend playing this for sure, though if you haven't played any of the other games you may want to do some research into the complicated plot before starting this up.

Samii's Rating:
"It's fun, but it can be slow-moving."

Far Cry 3

I must confess that while I really enjoyed the first "Far Cry" on an old PC that could barely run it, I have never actually played "Far Cry 2". This game is also probably the one I've made the least headway in when it comes to the main story as compared to the other two games I'm discussing, but that's because there is just so much fascinating extra-activities to do!

Just as with "Assassin's Creed 3" you get a whole land to explore, with the difference between the games being  how in "Far Cry 3" after a relatively brief series of opening events the metaphorical gates are flung open and the island is yours to explore.

Now, while I really enjoy this game my girlfriend does not. She thinks the plot is cliche with the whole " hero coming to save the island," she finds the hunting mechanic in the game really gross because of how you see animal-guts when you're skinning the beasts (in "Assassin's Creed 3" the game tastefully cuts away once you begin skinning your hunts), and she feels the supposed scary bad-guy of Vass in the game is not so much intimidating in his insanity as he is annoying. Yup, she really doesn't care for "Far Cry 3".

Vaas did not impress my girlfriend unlike most other folk.

Now, while I'll admit the plot is pretty dull, the game itself in my opnion is just so fun! She might find it boring how I just wander around fighting bad-guys and hunting animals, but I love exploring the jungle, hopping on a hang-glider, and setting fire to enemy encampments. It might be boring if you're watching the game and want it to spin a good yarn, but if you are the one actually playing it you'll have a ball!

Whether I'm making bigger pouches to carry my ammo by hunting rare animals, or strapping C-4 to a jeep before I bail out of it and explode its cargo in a group of enemies, I really enjoy "Far Cry 3" even if its plot of your character, Jason Brody, rescuing his kidnapped friends is lame. For anyone watching the game though, it might be pretty "meh" to just see your friend running around not actually doing anything to advance the story--which as I've stated numerous times, kind of sucks anyways. I would recommend playing this game too, but don't expect anyone to be that interested in watching you.

Samii's rating:
"This game is boring and gross, I kind of hate it."

Shutting Down
I've now discussed the three games I've been able to play when I have some free time between school-work and general life. I've also told you, my dear reader, about which of these games is probably best to play if you have an audience. Each of these titles are being enjoyed by me, and two of them are fun in my girlfriend's opinion too. I'm excited to keep playing and eventually finish the games (or at least the main stories, I'm not going to spend hours gathering all the collectibles). There are so many good games out there I still have yet to play, and more coming out all the time! When I'm old and retired I'll probably boot up my dusty consoles and keep playing all these titles I never had the chance to get around to playing. I'm glad I've been able to enjoy these three games while I'm still young though, what with how in the future evil robots will control the internet and make it harder to write about anything. Now go out there and play some games between your reading of comics!

Side Note: I played all of these on a Playstation 3, other consoles (or a PC) can play them too of course.