Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Preview

Sometimes you almost want to hoist a parrot to your shoulders, don an eye patch and use sentences that contain a lot of “aaarrgh’s” in them.

Sometimes …

And then sometimes all you want to do is hoist the sails, feel the tide beneath the hull and smell the burnt cannon powder in the ocean air. Ah, the life of a buccaneer!

Powered by the Storm Engine, Akella and Playlogic are behind the pending PC release of Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales. This game, played out from the third-person perspective, is very much an individual tale of high seas adventure, swashbuckling and general derry-do.

The single-player game begins with choosing a character, male of female, and creating the conditions of the game – nation aggression and progress rate, starting colony state, relations to player, encounter frequency, events frequency, sail/firing/damage and AI settings, nation alignment and overall difficulty. While you can’t alter the appearance, you can select a name for your avatar.

It was rather tough to understand the setup of the game, simply because the narration was in Russian, but following a cutscene sea battle, the player’s avatar finds him or herself receiving a package from the father that died 20 years previously. What this actually has to do with the game itself is a bit of a mystery, as the narrative was not in place to further that story element. However, from that point on, the game allows for the player to take on missions for profit and adventure. You can accept delivery missions, as well.

Combat is handled both on shore and at sea. In melee combat, players have four attacks available – piercing (little damage but little energy output), slashing, fierce and all-round – each of the latter ramps up the energy costs and all-round is an area-of-effect attack that damages all the enemies nearby. There are also three blocks available.

Ships are also upgradeable, including cannons (with culverines, which have loner range) and sails, as well as hulls. Of course, you will have to hire on crew (seamen, cannoneers, soldiers and musketeers) and that costs coin.

Fighting in sea battles requires knowing what your enemy is using in the cannons, altering between full sails for speed, and lower sails for maneuverability.

Getting missions is simple – just look for the NPCs with exclamation marks above their heads. They will either dish out instructions as to how to play the game or give a mission. The game also allows for quick combat, simply by pushing the F3 button. That pulls the game into a distant isometric view and allows quick map navigation.

Fighting and missions bring experience and that means upgrades to your avatar or your ship.

Those that played Sid Meier’s Pirates may well understand the mechanics of this game. Basically, at sea, you use the wind, set sails, load up cannon balls to damage the ship and its structures or grape shot to rip apart the sails. The goal is somewhat sandbox in nature; you are tasked to be the best privateer you can be, either serving your country or yourself.

The musical score underlying this title is very nice – at the time of this review – and graphically the game is exquisite. While it plays out in third person, the sea environments are stunning, with night skies, swells and such all supplying visual treats. The combat is also solid, but be prepared to spend time in this game getting your ship lined up for combat elements. It can take time to get in the right position to fire your cannons, or even to pull alongside and board.

The control scheme, at least in this build, was far from intuitive. There are options, though, to reset the controls to hotkeys of choice, which may simplify things. The mouse is used primarily for looking around, not for the interface, and for combat. Guessing in using the keyboard produced acceptable results, but the game’s adherence to a keyboard-based command system may prove slightly ponderous upon release.

The game does have a multiplayer element that can be played through a LAN or the Internet. At the time of this preview, this option was not populated.

Control issues aside, though, Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales is a smart-looking adventure title that will likely please pirate-game fans on many levels.