Slavery in the Transatlantic of the 1700s was a complex, interconnected network of financial systems, social engineering and psychological repercussions. The Assassin's Creed video games that have dealt with it head-on made good use of that subject matter but also stumbled in particularly clumsy ways. "Collecting freed… » 3/31/14 12:40pm 3/31/14 12:40pm

Starting this month, PS3 and PS4 owners won't need to own the full version of Assassin's Creed IV to play its excellent Freedom Cry DLC. Ubisoft's just announced that they're releasing the Adéwalé-focused add-on as its own standalone release on February 18^th. Make fun of the Black History Month timing all you want, but… » 2/05/14 12:00pm 2/05/14 12:00pm

When a new year starts, I go back and finish the previous year's Assassin's Creed. I spent early 2013 rediscovering AC III. I've rung in 2014 by playing 23 more hours of Assassin's Creed IV. I have some more thoughts about this one... » 1/27/14 3:00pm 1/27/14 3:00pm

As I continued my new year's tradition of playing the rest of the previous year's Assassin's Creed, I finally played the PS3/PS4/PC-only missions of ACIV. Good timing, if I dare say so. » 1/22/14 10:45am 1/22/14 10:45am

Did you know cows like playing checkers? Apparently, they do. » 12/26/13 7:30pm 12/26/13 7:30pm

Boarding a slave ship and liberating its human cargo is probably the most satisfying thing you can do in the new Freedom Cry DLC for Assassin's Creed IV. It's also one of the toughest. Take a look at how this naval battle to free slaves almost ended in tears. » 12/23/13 7:30pm 12/23/13 7:30pm

The newest chapter of the Assassin's Creed series gives me some of the things I've always wanted in a video game: a heroic fantasy that lets me control a warrior fighting against slavery. Part of it happens in Haiti, where my parents were born. Characters talk in Antillean Kreyol, the mosaic tongue made of French and… » 12/19/13 3:00pm 12/19/13 3:00pm

People like to rag on downloadable content. It's a boondoggle, detractors say. A crass way to get extra cash for a chunk of a game that should've just been included on the disk. That's true in many cases. But Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry is the better brand of add-on, one where developers' experimentation with the… » 12/17/13 6:00pm 12/17/13 6:00pm

All those islands in the Caribbean that are plush vacation spots now? They used to be colonies, outposts for imperial powers that were replete with inhumane slave labor. Some of these places exploded—sometimes into self-rule—with violent uprisings and rebellions. The new add-on—out tomorrow—for Assassin's Creed IV:… » 12/16/13 12:44pm 12/16/13 12:44pm

Maybe you spent the last weekend playing Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Maybe you recently picked got the game for a next-gen console, or for PC. Or maybe Thanksgiving weekend finally provided enough downtime to really dig in. Here are a couple of things you might not know how to do. » 12/02/13 7:54pm 12/02/13 7:54pm

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a beautiful-looking game. Or, well, it's a beautiful-looking game when it isn't covering the screen with blips, bleeps and blops of UI information and heads-up-display data. Is all that stuff really necessary? Nah. » 11/27/13 2:00pm 11/27/13 2:00pm

It must be awfully tricky making a game run on both current-and next-gen systems, taking advantage of the power of new consoles while keeping things running on the old ones. With Assassin's Creed IV, one of the highest profile cross-gen games around, it sounds like the current-gen side of things was, perhaps… » 11/06/13 8:00pm 11/06/13 8:00pm