Summary
Not what I hoped for
The Good
Of course, what I was hoping for was to recapture the feeling I felt when I first played
Pirates! Well, parts of this game were close. You could play a campaign or historical scenario although the campaign aspect of the game was limited. General gameplay involved issuing command orders from a 2D map, which involved the raising and lowering of flags. When orders (navigation and combat) had been given you then entered into the 3D mode. This was a novel aspect of the game. A four-minute turn elapsed in which you could walk around the top deck of your flag ship and watch combat commence around you. You could also use a spyglass to see far off ships.
The wooden ships were great looking and they also sounded great. They became damaged, lost masts, and slowly sank to their watery graves. Controls were relatively easy to learn, but not too much changed from mission to mission.
The Bad
The four-minute 3D turn (which could be sped up) was novel but not very useful, there was no option to issue orders and if nothing of interest happened that turn then it was a waste of time.
Much of the game seemed very repetitious to me and I felt that this game was not supported by Strategy First. They claimed for several months that they were going to release new campaigns, but eventually I lost interest in checking back. Some things are not worth waiting for.
The Bottom Line
Nice looking and sounding wooden ships combat game but offers little for long-term gameplay. Real-time 3D combat fails to pan out.
