Well, here we are … Pirates
of the Caribbean has finally been released in theaters and it was definitely a
movie that I was anxious to go see. The previews looked great, and I always
enjoyed the ride at Disney of the same name, so it looked like a winning
combination to me. Of course, popular or potentially popular movies normally
will have a video game to follow either right before or right after release, and
sure enough … out comes Pirates of the Caribbean for the PC. Being the fact that
it was produced by Bethesda, I was even more excited to play it since I loved
Morrowind and just the thought of a similar atmosphere involving pirates made it
a must get for me. Well, I’ll just open this whole review up by saying it’s not
identical to Morrowind and it doesn’t follow the movie, but it has some
similarities and is addictive to play. Read on …
Pirates of the Caribbean
(which I will refer to as PotC going forward due to laziness reasons) revolves
around captain Nathaniel Hawk as he wakes up in the town of Oxbay after a rough
storm battered his ship and washed some of his crew off deck. There is a guy who
meets up with you and offers to show you around and give you a little tutorial
on how to move, get items, equip things, fight, block, and begin completing
objectives that you get up front like “buy a new spyglass” and “sell your cargo
of chocolate and leather”. You don’t have to do the tutorial, nor do you really
have to any of the objectives, but it’s nice that it was included when you first
begin and will help you get started the right way. After doing everything you
need to do, you set sail at which time a nifty cut scene comes up where you find
out that Oxbay was attacked and taken over by French forces, and you were the
only vessel that made it out on a mission to inform the English of the attack
and occupation.
There is a storyline that
follows which is good and involves some neat things like spying, bullying or
bribing info out of people, and stopping trade ships … but I won’t really go
into all of that since from the time that the cutscene is over, it’s pretty much
up to you what you want to do and write your own plot. Like Morrowind, PotC is
an open-ended title that lets the player decide what he or she wants to do and
be. From that point if you want to be a trader and buy exported goods to sell
them to places that are importing and try to get rich … you can do it. If you
want to be a career criminal or smuggler … you can do it. If you want to work
with the French, Spanish, or Pirates instead of the English … you can do it. It
definitely ups the replay value and fun in my opinion since there aren’t any
boundaries or mandatory linear story that you have to do if you don’t feel like
it.
The actual style of Potc in
itself is also pretty neat, and blends in a good 3rd person action /
adventure title with an RPG style level up system. As you go about completing
tasks and whatnot, you gain experience points that will help you level up when
you get enough of them. As you level up, you get points that can be applied to a
number of personal stats, including Leadership that helps determine price at
which you hire crew, the salary you pay, and morale hits that they may take if
you don’t pay them or Grappling which determines the range at which crew can
toss grappling hooks so you can board and takeover a ship rather than sinking
it. As you progress in levels (every two), it will also allow you to begin
commanding higher class ships and will give you some additional skill points
that can be distributed however you want to use them.
The gameplay element of PotC
is also is very well done, and crosses between running around fighting,
exploring, conversing, or whatever on land and setting sail aboard you ship and
setting out to sea. While on land, there are a lot of different things to do as
you can possibly imagine, and you’ll find yourself getting some local gossip or
wild rumors about different areas of the game or hiring officers to escort you
around and help take care of scuffles or whatnot. The controls are pretty solid,
although they can take a little bit to get used to.
The true gem of the game in
my opinion lies with the sailing part though, and I was having a ball setting
out from a city and cruising to different parts of the world or getting into
conflicts with other ships at sea. The controls for the ship are also easy to
pick up and get into, but I will say that getting somewhat decent in combat will
take a few tries and attempts. When a fight does break out, you can handle it
one of two ways … either in a third person view or from a first – person deck
viewpoint. The benefit to the third person view is obviously the fact that you
have a little more LOS to work with on what’s around, but in first person mode
you can use your spyglass to be more precise on your shots which can be
beneficial as well obviously. There is also a decent amount of ammo to select
from and use as well, like your normal cannonball rounds, knipples to shred
opposing ship sails, grapeshot to shred enemy crew on deck, and even bombs which
are expensive but extremely effective in tearing apart enemy ship hulls. Now,
this is just the combat option, and doesn’t include the fact that you can also
attempt to toss grappling hooks at the opposing ship to board and attempt to
either take or sink the ship and it’s cargo which results in some neat on-deck
fighting.
While I enjoyed the heck out
of this game, there were a couple of things in PotC that I felt could have been
a little better or different though. For starters, one thing that caught my
attention was a picture on the back of the box and a caption that read
“thrilling sword and pistol duels”. Well, I personally found the combat to
actually be a little base and repetitive, and it wasn’t any more thrilling than
some other similar 3rd person games that I’ve played like Drakan or
Pirates: Legend of Black Kat since the basic element of combat is this … draw
your sword, hold the block button while enemies take swings at you so you don’t
take damage, swing back when you have an opportunity, repeat until someone is
dead. You also have a slower flintlock at your disposal to kill or wound enemies
from a distance, but it was usually only good for a shot or two especially if
there were a group of enemies. Even conflicts that I encountered with multiple
foes while alone weren’t too tough, and usually two would attack while the
others walked in place and waited their turn. I also thought it would have been
nice if you could loot the bodies once they were dead, but they fall down and
disappear so there’s not much reward to it with the exception of some experience
points.
Another issue that I
encountered dealt with the battles while at sea. While sailing from island to
island, you can use a world map view that helps to get you where you need to go
faster and speeds up time, and it also displays other ships that are at sea when
you sail near to them. Well, every ship at sea is represented with a little
single ship icon, but attempting to grapple one or engage in battle can reveal
that it was actually a fleet of much better ships than yours which means you’re
going to get shredded … especially since you can’t run away from a battle once
it’s begun. It would have been helpful to maybe color code them to display the
difficulty levels so that you don’t get aggravated by having to re-load your
game and try over again.
Lastly, I really found a lot
of the environments that you encountered to be pretty repetitive in the way that
a lot of them were set up or looked. Areas that you can explore on islands are
divided into sections, and most of them were set up like this … port, town,
outskirts, jungle, outskirts, and then another town or possible shoreline. There
are some extra areas here and there, and it’s not a terrible thing … but it just
seemed more linear than I expected especially since each area outside of towns
had a similar look and feel to it. In addition, it’s not as large or free
roaming as some other similar games, and most of the “outside of town” areas
that I explored had set pathways that can be moved away from to an extent, but
not enough to really open up a full search and explore that I was thinking was
going to be there.
Graphically, the game is
nothing short of spectacular for the most part … especially the looks and
details in town and at sea. The water looks so real you think that you might be
able to touch it, and the way that some of the little things like moonlight
reflecting off the water surface was done was absolutely amazing. I was also
pretty blown away with the environmental effects that they did, and I recommend
sailing towards an oncoming storm in map view and then flipping over to the
third person ship viewpoint just once. You can actually see the water start
getting rough and building into a frenzy and the sky darkens as the storm moves
in over you. The battle scenes at sea were also great and loaded with flying
ship parts, explosions, and fire, and everything from good splash detail when
ammo misses the boat and even your crew scurrying around the deck or climbing
the masts was added in. Shadowing detail was awesome in my opinion, and the
characters (even though some looked a little cartoony or exaggerated here and
there) moved well and were fluid for the most part. As I stated before, I
thought that a lot of the environments that took place outside of town were a
little bit repetitive though, and every island that I visited seemed to look the
same as the last one when I was in the outskirts or jungle areas.
The sound for PotC was
pretty good overall, included some decent sound effects like the howling wind or
pattering of rain, and the voiceovers were pretty good, even if some sounded a
tad bit cheesy. The music was also pretty accurate to what you happened to be
doing at the time, and would have just sort of an upbeat tune while you were
wandering around or would get more intense if you were in danger of entering
combat with potential foes.
Overall, PotC isn’t 100%
perfect, but then again … nothing really is. Even with a few issues that I felt
could have been better, I can’t say that there was ever a time that I wasn’t
enjoying myself playing … and many hours were drained in one night when I got so
into it I completely lost track of time altogether (needless to say I was a
“tad” late for work the next morning). If you enjoy pirate and action stories
with perilous adventure possibilities that you can technically write yourself
and a very light sprinkle of undead supernatural elements, this is definitely a
game that you will have a blast with and is one that will amaze friends or
family graphically as well. As with some RPG style games, it is difficult in the
beginning at a low level and it will take a little time to learn and some do
overs when you get killed, so if you can’t wait that long you may want to check
it out before you buy.
Gameplay: 8.0
This is a fun
title and a great action platform with some RPG elements added in to add to the
overall appeal. The ability to do what you want and be what you want to be will
offer hours, days, weeks, and months of play … and also offers a ton of
replayablilty to go back and try something different. There is a learning curve
to it though in both land and sea battles, and you may wind up finding yourself
dead a lot as you are trying to level up and grow stronger. I also thought that
the combat could have been refined a little more, and it seemed repetitive to me
overall. It also would have been nice to have some kind of potential challenge
rating or something to help you in deciding whether or not you wanted to get
into a battle at sea.
Graphics: 8.5
The sea and town
graphics, environments, detail, lighting, shadowing, day and night transitions,
etc. were absolutely second to none. There were even extra things added in like
dark storm clouds brewing or tornado waterspouts forming in really bad storms.
The characters moved well and weren’t too choppy or stiff, and naval battles
both ship to ship and on deck were really great. Areas out side of towns like
outskirts or jungles to me were repetitive for the most part though, and I
really didn’t see much difference in the different islands that I visited when
you got outside the towns.
Sound: 7.6
The voices were
pretty good overall, even if some of the dialogue was a tad bit cheesy here and
there. The music that plays in the background would change based on the scenario
or what you happened to be doing at the time, and while there weren’t many
tracks included they weren’t bad. The sounds of gunfire and whatnot from the
ships or forts that were attacking you were done well.
Difficulty: Medium
There is a real
simplicity to this game since you can pretty much do what you want to do, so
therefore it’s not hard to play since you make your own decisions. There is a
learning curve to learning how to play and maneuver, especially in naval battles
and grappling, etc.
Concept: 8.5
An open ended
action / RPG game meets pirates of the high seas. This was really well done and
a great idea, even if there were a couple of things that I personally thought
could have been done a little better.
Overall: 7.9
Overall, this is
a great game and a really great concept. Granted, there are some things that
could have been done a little bit better in my opinion, but that also may just
be me. If you like action games, RPGs, and especially pirates with a completely
open ended storyline, you should get this one and it will offer a lot of time
and replayability. If you are more of a straight action fan who doesn’t have
time for learning curves and leveling up, you may not be as impressed with this
title and may want to check it out prior to buying it.
