Tagline: Sail the rough seas with your tall ship and
loyal crew of vicious cutthroats and fierce corsairs. Build
up your fleet and capture and rule the colonies to become
the mightiest pirate of them all.
One of my favorite video games of all time is Sid Meier's
Pirates! so it was with some glee and trepidation that
I began playing AoP: CT. I knew that the game would
either add to a genre I loved or not be able to hold a candle
to an almost 20 year old game. The good news is that it
does bring new ideas to the table, but the bad news is that
Sid Meier already nailed it in 1987.
Despite the realities of back breaking labor, poor wages,
rampant disease and frequent death, a pirate's life seem
like a romantic one from the comfort of our homes. Armed
with only our sword, a few gold pieces and rugged determination,
the open sea is a place where any young lad or lass can
make their fortune and fame.
So begins Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales.
You start with the usual choosing of name, gender, national
allegiance and pick a few skills your swashbuckler is naturally
good at. After that, the sea is your oyster. You'll be plopped
in the middle of a town square where citizens will explain
how to accomplish basic tasks. You'll need to visit the
tavern to hire a crew, hit the ship yards to pimp out your
rig and check in with the local governor to look for work.
Towns are little more than service stations where you
can sells plundered goods and repair and restock for your
next expedition. It isn't until you leave town that the
actual game play begins. On the open sea you're free to
travel wherever you want, doing whatever you want.
See a ship that's nicer than yours? Attack it and steal
it. Don't like the way the French are looking at you? Attack
them and sink their fleet. Want to haul 60 tons of sugar
to a border colony in exchange for a hand full of gold bullion?
Go crazy, you wild man.
All the while you'll gain experience which you can use
to increase various skills like cannon accuracy, sword play,
leadership, etc…
While much of Age of Pirates follows Sid Meier's
20 year old template, this is where the game does try to
beat a different path. Adding RPG elements allow you to
build a unique character that, if you were to play the game
more than once, might be a different experience.
Sadly, once you leave port, you'll realize that Age
of Pirates has a wooden leg.
You do have the option of boarding enemy ships, but the
3rd person sword play is a joke that can easily be mastered
with a few ham handed mouse clicks. Pile on to that a cargo
hold full of reported technical problems and a lack of patch
at the time of my typing this and Age of Pirates
just doesn't seem all that seaworthy.
In addition to the solo campaign, you and up to 15 friends
can also compete in multiplayer action including capture
the flag, deathmatch and convoy defense, but given the lackluster
solo game, I find it hard to imagine anyone being able to
find 15 other players enthusiastic about raising sails and
loading grapeshot.
Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales needed to greatly
expand game play to the point of micromanagement for all
the pirate enthusiasts out there (we know you're out there,
we've seen you at conventions) or sacrifice more of the
realism in favor of a more arcade style experience to keep
the rest of us Ritalin kids playing.
Either way, Age of Pirates as it is today has technical
bugs galore and rough sailing in the fun department. With
pirates saturating our culture now
more than ever and a Pirates of the Caribbean
sequel still waiting to be released, there is still time
for Playlogic to polish this into something more entertaining
and cash in on pirate mania. But for now, we're content
to bury this one at sea.
Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales DVD-Rom
