Yesterday I played a shit load of AC4. I have to say, that this game is VERY good and it definitely deserves the award it won at the VGX awards last night for Best Action Adventure Game of the Year. I think just yesterday alone I just about doubled the amount I had done in the game and there just seems to be so much more.
My wife even noticed how much more I am into this one than the first one when it came out. I said this one is so much better than the first one. The first one just felt so repetitive after a little while, and to be honest, I know I didn't get that far into the first one.
There is just so much to like about this game I'm not even sure where to begin. The ship combat for one is just a downright blast. I love sailing around and just getting my wanted level up only to try to have the hunters come after me and then take them down as well. It's also really cool if you play with the companion app on your smartphone to send some of the ships that you have plundered over to the game, where you can play mini-games of trading as well as fighting via keeping the trade routes clear. I had to have my phone plugged in the whole time I was playing yesterday as having the app open for hours at a time was killing my battery. Every so often I would grab my phone and send off more ships to trade. The app also comes in handy for using the map features. The map you see on your console is the same map you can pull up on your phone, so you can have the map open the whole time you are playing and never have to switch over to the in-game map which is very nice.
The story is another part of the game that really has me continuing my long play sessions. I will sail around for a while and plunder and do some of the side quest work, and once I get a little tired of that I jump back to the main story line and the story is just amazing. Right now I really feel like I am getting to the good part of the story and I can't wait to play it some more.