{"id":39733,"date":"2013-11-20T14:52:36","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T14:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=39733"},"modified":"2013-12-03T22:58:53","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T22:58:53","slug":"assassin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/assassin\/","title":{"rendered":"Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag PC Preview – a Pirates’ Life for me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag<\/em> released yesterday for PC.\u00a0 As part of Nvidia’s 3-game Holiday Bundle including Assassin\u2019s Creed IV\u2013Black Flag<\/em>, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist,<\/em> and Batman: Arkham Origins<\/em>, ABT received a preview copy of the game on Friday night.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we did not actually get to play the game until yesterday and the full review of the game will be coming out later this week with two ABT reviewers giving our commentary on the game, as well as a full performance and IQ evaluation.\"ed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once we started playing Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag<\/em>, we were drawn immediately into the game and played far longer sessions than we normally do which is the reason that this preview is nearly a day late.\u00a0 However, we do want to preview the game now and let you know that we like it a lot, so far.\u00a0 Playing satisfactorily as a pirate hasn’t really been possible in any video game since Sid Meier’s Pirates!\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag\u00a0<\/em>allows the player to become Edward Kenway, a pirate captain trained by the Assassins. This editor is no fan of the Assassin’s Creed series, the story’s convoluted ancestral memories coupled with the war between the Templars and the Assassins, nor the clunky combat and sneaking.\u00a0 However, in this game, Edward can effortlessly switch between the Hidden Blade of the Assassin\u2019s Order and all new weaponry including four flintlock pistols and dual cutlass swords.\u00a0 In other words, he kicks ass and it is a lot of fun to take on a well-armed mob.\"Sink-enemy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unlike with previous Assassin’s Creed games, button-mashing works well until the player discovers the depth of the combinations that he can use.\u00a0 And this time, the tutorial is not only mercifully short compared to Assassin’s Creed III<\/em> – but interesting, immediately exciting, and fun to play.\u00a0 Who doesn’t want to start<\/em> a game by piloting a ship with a full compliment of cannons in the middle of a large battle?<\/p>\n

The Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag <\/em>world is big.\u00a0 From Kingston to Nassau, there are more than 75 unique locations where you can loot underwater shipwrecks, assassinate Templars in 17th Century Caribbean cities, fish, hunt whales, as well as hunt for now rare animals in the tropical jungles while searching for treasure.\u00a0 You get to live the life of a pirate with legendary names such as Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Benjamin Hornigold, as you establish a lawless Republic in the Caribbean to explore the events that defined the Age of Piracy.\u00a0 There are a lot of surprise moments and plot twists that need to be experienced without spoilers.\"curch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As Edward, you command the pirate ship, the Jackdaw.\u00a0 You can upgrade the Jackdaw with ammunition and equipment needed to fight off enemy ships. The ship\u2019s improvements are critical to your progression through the game.\u00a0 You can attack and board massive galleons, plunder treasure, recruit sailors and manage your crew.<\/p>\n

Multiplayer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mario will cover the multiplayer.\u00a0 There is a brand new set of pirate characters and additional exotic and colorful locations. You craft your own game experience with the new Game Lab feature by choosing abilities, rules and bonuses to play and share with your on-line friends.<\/p>\n

The Graphics<\/strong><\/p>\n

The game is a lot of fun, and it gets one’s heart pounding when the entire mini-map lights up in red showing nearby enemies closing in on your position and you must fight your way out of a desperate situation to run for your life with the goal of “becoming Anonymous”.\"party-help\"<\/a>\u00a0 You can even pay prostitutes to distract the enemies as you walk right past them instead of sneaking or fighting.\u00a0 The excellent graphics support the game and immerse the player right into the story and the action – and there is a lot of action!<\/p>\n

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag<\/em> is powered by a wide range of technologies that allow it to deliver excellent graphics and an immersive gaming experience. In addition to using technologies like FXAA and TXAA to improve image quality, it also uses newer technologies like Nvidia’s new HBAO+, God Rays, and Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) to enhance the game\u2019s graphics. An upcoming patch will implement APEX Turbulence effects, self-shadowed particles, and soft particle shadows, and it will also make the God Rays and PCSS effects become more pronounced. \"evedrop\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We played Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag<\/em> at 2560×1600 at maximum details with a stock GTX 780 Ti, Core i7-3770K at 4.5GHz, EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard, and 16GB of Kingston HyperX RAM.\u00a0 All of the settings were maxed completely out with 4 variables – 4xMSAA (38fps), 2xTXAA which takes less of a hit (42fps), SMAA (47fps) and FXAA (49fps).\u00a0 Of course, this is from preliminary benching.\u00a0 We shall also compare the IQ of these four settings in our full ABT review of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag\u00a0<\/em>this weekend.\u00a0 Let’s look at some of the settings.<\/p>\n

TXAA<\/strong><\/p>\n

TXAA is a cinematic-style anti-aliasing technique designed specifically to reduce temporal aliasing (crawling and flickering in motion). TXAA is a mix of hardware AA, custom CG film style AA resolve, and a temporal filter. To filter any given pixel on the screen, TXAA uses a contribution of samples both inside and outside of the pixel in conjunction with samples from prior frames. The trade-off is blur, which for some is intolerable and for others, cinematic.\u00a0 This editor much prefers the mild blur of TXAA to the texture crawling and flickering while in motion without.\"settings\"<\/a><\/p>\n

TXAA has improved spatial filtering over standard 2x MSAA and 4x MSAA, particularly on fences or foliage. TXAA is also capable of intelligently managing per-pixel effects without introducing lighting artifacts on object edges. The filtering used by TXAA results in a softer image compared to traditional MSAA – the blur.
\nTXAA uses hardware MSAA in conjunction with a temporal filter. The performance hit of TXAA will vary from game to game and is directly correlated to the performance hit of MSAA. In this game, 2xTXAA takes less of a performance hit than 4xMSAA.\u00a0 Screen shots look better with MSAA, but video capture can show the advantages of TXAA.<\/p>\n

NVIDIA HBAO+<\/strong><\/p>\n

To advance Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) tech, Nvidia’s HBAO+ looks better than the original HBAO algorithm, especially on scenes with thin objects such as grass and leaves.\u00a0 It now fast enough to be used by top GPUs.<\/p>\n

Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCCS) and PhysX (APEX Turbulence)<\/strong><\/p>\n

An upcoming patch will make PCCS more pronounced and also add APEX Turbulence to the game. Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) is a technique designed to simulate the natural softening of shadows that occurs over increasing distance from the occluding object. PCSS provides three notable improvements over hard shadow projections: shadow edges become progressively softer the further they are from the shadow caster, high-quality filtering reduces the prominence of aliasing, and the use of a shadow buffer allows PCSS to handle overlapping character shadows without creating \u201cdouble-darkened\u201d portions.<\/p>\n

APEX Turbulence is a GPU-accelerated PhysX simulation system that allows for smoke sprite particles to dynamically and realistically behave in the world, being influenced by gravity, winds, character movements, and explosions. Additionally, these sprite particles have the ability to cast shadows on each other and soft shadows onto the environment using particle shadow mapping (PSM). When shadows are cast onto other particles it gives the particles a heavier and denser appearance than without<\/p>\n

In addition, Assassin\u2019s Creed IV Black Flag<\/em> is the first game to offer 4K textures – something probably best experienced by SLI’d GTX 780s or higher, especially 4K textures over 3-panel Surround.<\/p>\n

The full review of Assassin\u2019s Creed IV Black Flag<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay tuned for the full review of\u00a0Assassin\u2019s Creed IV Black Flag.\u00a0<\/em>\"ship\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong> <\/em>In a first for ABT, this editor and Mario Vasquez, will jointly review this game as well as present a full performance and IQ evaluation.\u00a0 In the meantime, join the discussion<\/a> at ABT forum.<\/p>\n

Happy gaming<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

. . . yo ho! (a Pirates’ Life for me)<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Poppin<\/p>\n

ABT Senior Editor<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag released yesterday for PC.\u00a0 As part of Nvidia’s 3-game Holiday Bundle including Assassin\u2019s Creed IV\u2013Black Flag, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Batman: Arkham Origins, ABT received a preview...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":39793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,4454,4453],"tags":[7261,251,7262,121,359,7263,4983,87,314],"class_list":["post-39733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-mini-reviews","category-software-2","tag-assassins-creed-iv-black-flag","tag-graphics","tag-holiday-bundle","tag-nvidia","tag-pc","tag-pirate","tag-preview","tag-review","tag-ubisoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}