Assassin's Creed: Black Flag

I am, at the time of writing, 13% of the way through Assassin's Creed, Black Flag - Ubisoft's 2013 game where you run around being a pirate and doing pirate stuff. I know I'm 13% through, because the game tells me, on the loading screen. 13%.  I like that. I'm the kind of person who always wants to know the running time of a film, or how many pages there are until the next chapter of the book I'm reading. I don't know why, but I find it comforting to have a sense of where I am in relation to the end.

13% isn't very much, though, is it? I feel like I've been playing for ages. I'd like to be a bit further of the way through by now. Which kind of suggests that I'm not enjoying myself all that much, doesn't it? When I was playing Dishonoured 2, I was sad at the thought that the game would ever end, because I was having such a good time. With Black Flag, I'll be kind of relieved to have finished. It's the kind of game I want to have played, rather than one I want to actually be playing.

It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. 

Actually, that's not fair. I am having fun. It's a sunny, colourful game with lots of nice little features and a satisfying level of bloodlust. I've just played for a good three hours and I was happily engaged all the way through. It's just that there's something missing and I'm not sure what it is.

It's possible that there's just too much going on. So, for example, I'm really enjoying the ship to ship combat. I get to be in charge of a pirate ship, sailing through excitingly real-feeling waves, blasting away at other ships. It's very well put together, in terms of gameplay. The waves swell up and plunge down, spray smashing over my ship as I try to haul it around so we can fire more cannons at the other ships. There's a satisfying weight to the controls as I wrestle against the ocean, and there's immense satisfaction in seeing my cannonballs smash into an enemy vessel.

But that's just part of the game. I've also got to do missions on foot, where I creep about trying to murder people. That's the "assassin" bit, from the title, I guess. Though what my "creed" is, I'm not sure. I seem to assassinate people pretty indiscriminately. Plenty of guards who are, presumably, just doing their jobs, die horribly as I pounce out of a haystack and murder them to death. I'm not sure that's a 'creed'.

This guy probably has a family. Now he'll have to explain to them where his knees went.

So, there's two very distinct modes of gameplay. Which is OK, I guess - they seem to be part of the same world and there's a visual continuity between them. But it does feel a bit like two different games. And then there's all the other millions of things you need to do. Following guys sneakily. Chasing after guys, noisily. Climbing things. Searching for treasure. None of these things are terrible, but they do sort of dilute the gameplay and make me wonder what I'm actually doing. There's one bit of gameplay where you have to hunt animals and use their skin to craft new items. Am I an animal assassin, as well, then? What's your focus? Although, it must be said, I do take some pleasure from the achievement you can get, with the truly amazing name "air assassinate an ocelot". It's fun to say out loud. Try it.

The very worst thing - which thankfully has only happened once so far - is the bit where the game suddenly flips away from the pirate scenario and dumps you in an office. That's right - an office. Suddenly it turns out that I'm not a pirate. I'm a guy in an office, doing a simulation of being a pirate. A woman comes up to me and takes me on a tour of the office, explaining how I'm excellent at doing pirate simulation stuff. I mean... what?

At one point we get to a lift and she says, I kid you not, "Why don't you call for the lift yourself?" Well whoopy doo! A moment ago I was a Pirate Assassin, controlling a big beautiful ship through tropical waters. Now I'm being given the chance to press a button so a lift comes? Are you out of your minds?

"No, no, you're right - this is just as much fun as sailing a pirate ship in the sunshine."

I'm aware that most, if not all, of the Assassin's Creed games have this central conceit where you are just a guy in the future, interacting with a machine that lets you pretend to be in the past. Who on earth thought this was a good idea? I'm already a guy in the future, using a machine to pretend I'm in the past. That's my actual life. I don't need you to remind me! It strikes me as weirdly timid, as if the game is ashamed to admit that really we're just all being very silly and playing games like children.

So. My initial experience of this game is that there's lots of fun things to do, but not enough commitment to the idea of a pure game experience. It seems to have trouble settling in one place. Having just played through Dishonoured 2 and Rise of the Tomb Raider, both of which I loved, I feel let down by a game that should be so much more. When it's good, it's great. A moment sailing at night, with the moon reflected in the gently undulating waves beneath me, was truly beautiful. There's brilliance here, let down by a lack of courage.

But hey. Maybe it all kicks in after 22%, or something.