Another Cool Thing: Black Flag

​I've just re-read yesterday's post - my first stab at 'One Cool Thing' - and found it crass and childish so here we go again.

As part of this year's September Shorts I've asked writer friends to contribute posts inspired by the title One Cool Thing. They'll be telling you about one cool thing they're looking forward to as Autumn approaches. It might be a book or movie, a tabletop or computer game, an event or visit to a special place, a chance to achieve something... or perhaps even an exciting new project.
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But I couldn't ask everyone else to help out without doing the graft myself, could I? So I'll go first... and second, it seems... that way there'll be a marked improvement once the guest writers turn up.

​Martin Griffin: Replaying Black Flag

The final months of a games console's life is an opportunity to take stock; to revisit some of the wonders it dished-up and relive some of those timeless adventuring moments that might be forgotten in our perpetual clamour for the new.

So it is with the PS4's end-of-days. Yeah I'm excited about the new machine - awesome processing power, unreal engine blah blah - but I'm also really looking forward to replaying some of my favourite PS4 games as the nights draw in. I'll be revisiting The Last of Us, I'll be finishing A Thief's End once and for all, I'll be hiking the woods in Firewatch one last time. But chief among my planned destinations this Autumn will be the Caribbean. 

Why? Because Black Flag, for my money at least, was the most successful stab at a pirate game made by any PS4 developer. The landscapes are lushly sundrenched. The sea is salty and raw. The smugglers' towns are densely populated, morally dubious and grubbily lit. And the music! I love incidental music in video games; to pass by a drunkard braying a shanty in some seafront bar and to hear the crowded pub join in on the choruses? That's the stuff of world-building wonder that sets my pulse racing.

So swab the decks, people. Cast off. And splice the hell out of that mainbrace - whatever that means - we're going to sea!