Age of Pirates - Caribbean Tales: Plonk a Parrot on yar Peg-leg.

By Mike Bantick
Sunday, 12 November 2006 04:46

Entertainment

There is much swash to be buckled in this latest plunder laden simulation of life on the high seas.  In an effort to out do gaming god Sid Meier, Age of Pirates contains a great deal to do, this is both its highlight as well as its failing.

Developer Akella does have a long pedigree of sail based titles, including Sea Dogs and the Age of Sail series.  This history shows in the graphical presentation of Age of Pirates, absolutely gorgeous, especially the at sea going elements.
Age of Pirates offers players an open world (well, the Caribbean Islands at least) to explore, with the newly appointed captain able to select missions at will.  This sounds fine, but in practice is somewhat clumsy, with acceptance of some goals, based purely on guesswork.

What is obvious, is the pressure of releasing a similar title to that of the gaming god Sid Meier and his opus of last year, Pirates!.  In Sids game you roam the ocean trading and sending other scurvy dogs to Davy Jones' Locker.  All in a fun way, almost bordering on camp!

In this Age of Pirates, those options are also available, but a budding captain must also manage crew morale, other ships in a squadron, as well as the RPG elements of your character and hired officers.  The added complexity is welcomed, but lacks an amount of polish that results in occasional bugs, crashes and interface difficulties.

The range of options on offer are fantastically huge, the sea battles - especially when more than two ships are involved.  Unfortunately, the on foot sequences, whether it be trading or fighting are hamstrung.  An attempt to bring a more realistic fighting mechanism to the game, results in an awkward mishmash jumble of slash and jump game play.

With a bit more polish, the sum of its parts could have produced a quality item. As it stands however, Age of Pirates has too many let downs that overshadow the quality sailing experience.