Home Gaming Hands on with Assassin’s Creed Rogue

Hands on with Assassin’s Creed Rogue

3 min read
23

GC AC rogue

Assassin’s Creed is jumping into the new generation with Assassin’s Creed Unity, but not all people have made the leap into the new generation and Ubisoft is catering for them with Assassin’s Creed Rogue. Rogue also takes place in the Americas and will help to round off the Kenway saga. While the story sounds truly interesting and innovative, my hands-on time with the game was a bit less so.

As a popular part of the previous iteration in the franchise, Black Flag’s pirate ship, naval battles have returned. Your ship is even more agile, making naval battles far less cumbersome. There are also a variety of new weapons that players can use to destroy their targets – getting chased by a ship, feel free to throw some fire oil overboard behind you. Ramming is also much faster and more fun, letting you attack your enemies from all angles when you combine everything in your arsenal.

Ships aren’t the only things with new entries in the arsenal. Players gain access to a gas mask, useful when using poison gas against your enemies, as well as a firecracker dart to draw attention. My favorite new inventory item is the Berserk grenade. While not great for stealth, it damages enemies while releasing a cloud of gas that causes the enemies to turn on each other. It’s nice to see even greater variety to add to strategies other than just smoke bombing and killing everyone.

Side activities return, of course, and you can take out enemy forts that are speckled around the map. These fort missions are much more multi-layered – you must not only infiltrate, but also destroy a few key objects before taking out the fort captain. Seeing as you’re going against the assassins, your enemies are generally members of their brotherhood. This is much more fun as they also use stealth, special attacks and can even find you when you’re hiding. It’s a much more dynamic experience than previous entries in the franchise. Another side-mission you could do was rescuing POWs, but I was much more interested in destroying ships and then rushing off to see the Northern Lights.

As I sailed off to the north, I encountered some gang ships. These gangs are allied with the assassins, causing them to attack the player on sight. In fact, the one ship rammed me, putting me into a boarding fight. It was quite cool as I was then forced to take out a bunch of the plebs as well as the captain to kick them off my ship. Once I defeated them, I was then given three options of what to do with the enemy ship, much like in Black Flag. I could use the ship to repair my own vessel, add the ship to my fleet for side activities, or simply strip it for parts. This time there won’t be a companion app for the game – all the fleet management will take place through the captain’s quarters.

While the naval stuff is still a whole bunch of fun, the land based activities are still much of the same. Parkour functions as you would expect it to, complete with missed jumps and frustrating controls. While I love the open areas and ability to run around and climb, it’s just irritating when you can’t get the character to go where you want him to. It ends up making the gameplay feel dated and limited by what the old consoles can manage. In the end, while I loved the new additions and enjoyed my time with the game, it simply didn’t feel new or innovative – it felt like Black Flag with a new spin rather than a completely new game. Fans of the last installment will certainly enjoy the game, but it’s more of the same instead of anything fresh or exciting.

Last Updated: August 15, 2014

23 Comments

  1. Kensei Seraph

    August 15, 2014 at 07:58

    One of the most common things I say when playing a game and getting frustrated at the controls is “Do what I tell you to, not what you want.”

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Beta Tester

      August 15, 2014 at 08:02

      Yeah, the controls for AC on kb+ms have always been ATROCIOUS, no surprise here

      Reply

  2. Kagutsuchi

    August 15, 2014 at 08:02

    It’s not that I was expecting to feel overwhelmed by how awesome Rogue was going to be, but from what I’ve seen so far I don’t even feel whelmed. 😐
    Unity set the bar so high, Rogue feels like a game they had to make just to keep last gen players ‘satisfied’. The story is the only thing I’m fairly interested in. The rest looks really, been there; done that.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Beta Tester

      August 15, 2014 at 08:02

      Heh, “whelmed”

      Reply

      • Kensei Seraph

        August 15, 2014 at 08:14

        Watch Young Justice episode 1.
        Robin gives a very good explanation on the whole overwhelmed, underwhelmed, whelmed thing.

        Reply

  3. PsychoSpazz

    August 15, 2014 at 08:05

    is this cow not completely milked out yet

    Reply

    • Kensei Seraph

      August 15, 2014 at 08:14

      Not until AC: Japan and AC: Star Wars.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        August 15, 2014 at 08:19

        Lightsabers!

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Beta Tester

          August 15, 2014 at 08:37

          fwooom fwooom

          Reply

      • Xcalibersa

        August 15, 2014 at 08:31

        AC Star wars sounds like fun

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Beta Tester

          August 15, 2014 at 08:37

          Agreed

          Reply

  4. Hammersteyn

    August 15, 2014 at 08:18

    The header looks like he gonna attempt to dig the sword out of his back with a dagger.

    Reply

    • PsychoSpazz

      August 15, 2014 at 08:24

      keep still buddy let me get that out for you…. nothing worse than a sword sized splinter

      Reply

    • Kensei Seraph

      August 15, 2014 at 08:25

      To me it looks like he’s using the dagger to chisel the hole so that he can get the sword in deeper.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        August 15, 2014 at 08:52

        Hahaha

        Reply

  5. Rinceable

    August 15, 2014 at 08:38

    Really not interested. Time to make something NEW!

    Reply

    • Spathi

      August 15, 2014 at 08:39

      Lol, something new!? Why would they do that! They actually have to be creative and care to do that.

      Edit: Ubi does actually make some “innovative” games though, the AC games just aren’t part of those games 🙂

      Reply

      • Rinceable

        August 15, 2014 at 08:44

        My badz, and I should feel da badz. Just tired of the same thing over and over and over again. Next some lunatic will use that as a basis to describe insanity https://33.media.tumblr.com/8f28f1c1e2536768ffce9f6d1756110d/tumblr_n2dgs4KVnK1s1pfwoo1_500.gif

        Reply

        • Spathi

          August 15, 2014 at 08:46

          I feel you! Get Divine Divinity: Original Sin! It’s brilliant – Both innovative and aware of what makes a great RPG.

          Totally off topic but I just had to tell someone, and you were near.

          Reply

          • ZubSaber a.k.a Hans

            August 15, 2014 at 12:36

            Magnificent game, no exaggeration. Out for only a few months and already someone has upped the in-game textures; landscape AND creatures!

            Where they get the time I don’t know but it just shows the love for this game.

  6. Macethy

    August 15, 2014 at 08:54

    ” it felt like Black Flag with a new spin rather than a completely new game”

    These were my thoughts exactly when I watched the gameplay video. Will pick this up when it’s bargain bin prices.

    Reply

  7. ZombieDogma

    August 15, 2014 at 12:03

    When I saw the gameplay trailer and all the icons were the same, and all the sounds were the same, and even the camera angles and the animations were the same, I was more than a bit disappointed. That said, they were all good the first time.

    I’m still not actually excited though

    Reply

  8. kat8

    August 16, 2014 at 05:09

    ohh so looks like it’s another ac game with the player looking down from heights and having to press O or B twice to get down from buildings that sucks.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Have a Far Cry 5 Weekend on Ubisoft

I’m baaaaack…. Geez…bugs are sneaky but stupid. I still feel like warmed up Gouda, but any…