Pirates of the Caribbean

The Good
Pirates of the Caribbean was once known as Sea Dogs II. Alas Disney came in waving around cash for the developer Akella, to change it to a movie tie-in. Unlike the film the game is quite enjoyable.

In Pirates you play as Nathanial Hawkins, a captain who knows his way around the sea. The plot in this game is fairly bare bones, so there is not much I can say about it, but in the end you and your crew go after an ancient and (gasp!) cursed treasure. There are tons of side quests, and endless sea battles. The quests range from escorting a merchant safely to port, surviving a deadly storm, and even saving villagers from crazed cultists.

The Graphics in this game are fantastic, as expected from a Bethesda game. Everything is incredibly detailed. Just take a look at the water! It almost looks like a Xbox 360 game. Every village and port looks unique, and all the different ships, swords and guns are equally unique.

The Sound and Music are good. The score is powerful when engaged in a ship to ship battle, and quaint when exploring a village. So the score always fits the situation just like a good score should. The sound effects are better than what you usually find in RPGs. The explosions and clanging of swords are all convincing.

The Gameplay of Pirates, consists equally of exploration and combat. Either ship to ship or sword to sword. The ship to ship combat takes some getting used to, but once you do it is a blast, if a little lengthy. Sword to sword battles are realistic in the fact that you must parry and riposte to stay alive, and each weapon type has its strengths and weakness. For example: a Rapier is fast but not to powerful, while a cutlass is powerful but lacks speed, there is also a variety of special weapons. You can also shoot your pistol in battle, a powerful one can often pick off an enemy before they close in on you. Beware as the enemies pack heat as well. There are tons of quests to undertake, and endless sea battles. You can even trade or smuggle goods. You can have up to four ships under your command which is cool, and you can name all of your ships. The story of the game is short, but the side quests make up for it.

The Bad
The story is short. The game is a little too hard, even when you get up in levels. And some ship battles take too long, the final battle at the end of the game takes about an hour. The bugs in this game are horrible, some corrupt your game, and therefore you cannot finish the game, others make the game lock up, there is really no excuse for this crap.

The Bottom Line
If you liked Sea Dogs check this one out. And honestly the Xbox version is better as the game feels like a console game meant for a controller, then again with the PC version you can always download a patch to fix all the bugs.

The Good
PotC sports some of the best features of any roleplaying game. Brilliant graphics, fantastic music, great gameplay, and a taste of steel. The game allows players to step into the shoes of Nathaniel Hawke, captain of the Victory, a ship which narrowly escapes french assault at Oxbay. It allows one to 'customise' their skills and abilities to their tastes, tailoring an experience on the high seas. It allows the player to outfit a ship that they can purchase or ransack from opponents, engage in high seas cannon battles, take forts and raid villages. Anything a pirate can do or would like to do, the player has the opportunity to do.

PotC is an impressive looking game, and from simple words the game seems to offer everything you could ever want in a role playing game of this nature. Sword battles are simple, yet exciting and challenging, sea-faring is realistic, but still arcade-ish, and there are little background variables to consider when making choices (morale, reputation, trade, etc...) The sailing is handled through two seperate environments. A world map, where most of the travelling takes place, and a 'Third Person Sailing' mode where you can operate the finer points of your vessel (eg: The Cannons). The greatest feature in this game is easily the 'Fast Travel' which allows the player to quickly skip the lengthy travelling process so they may find themselves where they want to be. For example, in a town you could select Shop from the Fast Travel menu and lo' you're in the Shop where you may conduct your trade. During sea battles you can select which ship you wish to engage and lo' you are somewhere within it's vicinity. If you're looking for a drawn out strategy fare than you've got it. PotC doesn't cut any corners in the ship vs. ship battles. They're dramatic, drawn out, and very beautiful thanks to the Storm engine. Also while sailing, you can use the Fast Travel to get yourself to different parts of an island, though once you've weighed anchor it's time for the feet to do their work. There is no 'Fast Travel' when it comes to the dark depths of the jungle.

All the brighter points of PotC are really something to behold. It's truly an enjoyable experience to play through this game on either system, despite it's console oriented design.

The Bad
However, with the good comes the bad, and I've always been one to point out flaws. PotC has no small amount of them. For starters, you cannot create your own character. This lack of character creation really disappointed me. I had expectations for this game that I could not fullfill. I couldn't play Black Beard, or Black Kat, or Jack Sparrow. I couldn't pick a face, a body, a sword fighting style, a 'homeland' (England, Holland, France, etc...), I couldn't actually pick anything. You cannot even select your own name. And though you can re-name any ship that you own, you cannot use your keyboard for this purpose (a painful sign that they really didn't care). Ship battles are slow at times, and frustrating at others. Boarding can be a pain if you don't know how to handle your ship and you cannot save your game during ship battles even though they can literally take hours.

Another main beef is the shoddy design of the manual. It offers no tips, no strategies and barely describes how you can advance in the game. It is a mish mash of information, quickly skimming all your 'options' as the player and then expects you to figure out the blanks.

Finally last but not least is the crashing issues. While the Storm engine is a wonderous creation (which lacks reflective technology) it is not a very friendly engine. It loves Direct X but hates losing attention. It is not flexible, and if something is in memory that it doesn't like, or if you get ad pop-ups, then this game will frustrate you to no end. This engine cannot be minimized, and recalled. And unless you keep careful track of your save files there is no way to discern one from the other (you can't name those either).

PotC had better get a patch soon

The Bottom Line
Well thought out for a console game. I wouldn't call it a Role Playing Game though. It's fun, but it's not overly fun. It's just good fun. But they'd better bring out a patch soon...

The Good
This game had all of the spirit and the adventure of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The weapons were done with a lot of detail and the environments were so vast. An example of the graphics on this game is the water, which was done incredibly well. And the ships and sea battles were great.

The Bad
One bad point is the music of the game. Some of it was just not good. The lighting on the characters didn't change as you went from a light area into a dark area. The land fighting really disappointed me. You can only do one attack at a time with no combos or anything.

The Bottom Line
This is a definite must have for RPG gamers. Although it took me ages to find on the high street, I must say it was well worth every penny of £12.99 (it would have been £14.99 except they didn't have a proper box). I'm going to say now... BUY IT!!!!!!