"Its nice to see a female
in the lead role," a friend of mine commented one night when she saw me playing
Pirates, complete with my "well-endowed" swashbuckling pirate running across the
screen with saber in hand. I couldnt help but chuckle as I brought out my list of
cheats and passed it over to her, fully prepared to crush her fragile feminist optimism of
female characters in video games. "Do you want her bikini to be blue on top, or green?" I
asked. I like this sort of humor on my Xbox. At the risk of opening myself to possible
accusations of male chauvinism, I find that games tend to be more fun when the developers
had fun making them. Its unfortunate, then, that the main body of Pirates is
deprived almost entirely of any similar characteristics. In WarCraft you could click
multiple times on the units and listen to their witticisms. In Max Payne you had the
constant "who cut the cheese" expression and his running commentary on the
lifestyles of the rich and mafia-involved. In Pirates: The Legend of the Black Kat you
have the outrageous accent of each of the characters, which at first is funny, until you
hear it enough that you start to wonder if it was meant as a serious attempt. The game
doesnt take itself too seriously; the cheats are there after all, but it would have
been nice to see a little pun on social life, a random encounter from the days of Fallout
2 maybe. Pirates is a vast and interesting world full of various adventuresome treats:
sea-life, treasures, a Captain Hook wanna-be or two. Its also an ideal world for the
type of imaginative humor that would have made this game incredibly fun instead of just
basically entertaining. This game could truly have been something else.
These pirates
arent to be confused with the ones weve been seeing in the news lately--the
completely unenchanted kind; these are the pirates with the code, the noble streak that
lets them rob vessels with Robin Hood flair. In the beginning there was your mother, a
pirate once famous throughout the land (seas?). She disappeared in a time before you
(Katarina de Leon) can remember, setting off to fight a final sea battle from which she
never returns. Years later, your father is killed by a conquering pirate and uses his
final dieing breath to inform you of your mothers past occupation. True to form,
Katarina brushes up a pirate ship and crew in a matter of seconds (what, doesnt
everyone have a couple in their basement?), and sets to the seas in search of the exciting
and rewarding lifestyle promised by the mysterious word that has intrigued the popular
mindset since Treasure Island: Pirates.
The game is
divided into two parts: the sea parts, in which you command a ship on the beautifully
rendered open seas, and the land parts, in which you carry a sword and traverse various
islands on foot in what amounts to, as was mentioned in the PS2 review, "a giant
treasure hunt." Fitting, in some ways, for a pirate. The two playing styles are
almost separate games. The majority of your time will be spent on the land. It is here
that most of your major battles will occur and most of your significant meetings will
happen. The controls are easy to learn for the most part, with a free flying camera that
rotates around, and zooms in on, Katrina depending on what you do with your right analog
stick. Aside from the occasional and rather minor frustrations with the camera angles
(Ive yet to run into a third person game that has perfected this completely), I have
only three complaints. First off, you cant back-up during combat. Youre sword
fighting; youre swinging and stabbing--you want to back step to get that perfect
angle to skewer the sucker
but no! Your character makes a full about turn every time
you press the back button, a maneuver that both takes time and exposes your back to the
enemy. Second, you cant look around. You want to see whats on the ledge above
your head? Sorry. Want to look down to see whats on that ledge below? Sorry. Your
camera moves in relation to the direction in which you are moving, and looking up and down
is limited to zooming in and out on your character. Third, you cant jump to dodge
many enemies. Try avoiding a cannonball by jumping out of the way. Its not going to
happen.
That aside,
though, Pirates is surprisingly addictive. When in combat the enemy blocks just the right
amount to keep it interesting, and the expanse of the land keeps you exploring. At each
group of islands youll acquire some trinket or magic stone that opens up another
setting, each with their own distinct differences. The Voodoo isles have monsters and
music that are different from those on Winter and Volcanic, enough so that opening new
areas of the map in search of your dead mothers lost treasure is your primary joy.
Along the way youll encounter different characters that require things of you,
everything from mermaids to skeleton kings. These quest givers appear with a mix of
quality design and imagination. While some show up without flair (Katarinas reaction
is often akin to, "Oh, its a mermaid."), others are forlorn spirits tied
to the ancient hulk of their mighty ships, and carry quite an extra charge. A quest from
an interesting spirit has the ability to make you more interested in the game, while
collecting flowers for the lazy mermaid seems to lack pizzazz and can have the opposite
effect. Many of the bad guys are the definition of stereotypical, but we had to expect
that; where would a pirate game be without the Argh and Hook combo? Each of them also has
their own accent, an element that was interesting at first but didnt seem to sit
well with me over time. The voice acting isnt great, with dialogue that I can only
describe at times as unique, but Ive seen much worse.
Graphically,
Pirates shines
most of the time. The ocean waters give a magnificent feel of depth,
complete with extra details like living sea squids and sunken ships, both of which swim
silently beneath as you glide by with your sails full to the wind. On land there is a
tremendous feel of height when youre looking down from a hilltop onto the docks
below and the enemy ships sailing in the background. However, there are oddities, slight
indications that the developers skipped over an element rather than address it head on.
When on land, for example, you cant enter the water at all. Its as if there is
an invisible barrier at every shoreline. You couldnt even fix your hair in the
reflection if you had to. When you slice your sword through tall grass, tiny chunks fly
into the air as if youre mowing the lawn, but there appears to be no effect to the
bush you just cut up. Except for the enemy guard towers, you cant damage or change
the land about you, and this is too bad.
Once aboard
your ship, Katarina becomes captain. You cut through the waters of the ocean on your way
to your next docking point, blowing up castles and enemy ships as they happen to appear.
The ship perspective is a unique addition to the gaming world, though youll spend
comparatively little time on the ship in relation to being on land. Youll have
opportunities to upgrade your ship along the way, adding more gun ports and cargo storage
for gas and fire-bombs. Ramming other ships is one of the most efficient ways of doing
damage, and a sea battle can be quite entertaining, since you can only shoot in certain
directions dependent on the ship you have. In fact, the multi-player option in Pirates is
a mildly entertaining, though not overly in-depth, one-on-one ship based battle against a
friend.
The game has
magnificent audio effects. You can read the PS2
review for an alternate opinion on this subject, but I found the sound of the water
lapping the side of my vessel while at sea very atmospheric. The soundtrack is varied and
I couldnt help but feel inspired whenever I got behind the helm and the music
launched into a miniature parade of sounds. There are sounds that are simply annoying, and
Id have liked to kill the save parrot a few times with its unceasing chirping, but
over-all I found myself impressed by the quality of the audio.
When it
comes down to it, Pirates could have done a lot more. Though there is a laugh factor in
fighting a one handed, one hooked Blackbeard with a bikini clad swashbuckler, the
developers seemed to restrain themselves almost completely from exercising their creative
humor-bone in the actual game. An entertaining romp in a time past, with a massive world
and a solid amount of game play, Pirates is a solid three stars, but missed the boat on
what it could have been. The world is just begging for a little comedy, a random encounter
with Bigfoot or Moby Dick, a Swiss Family Robinson look alike, or a chance meeting with
some Survivors. As is, Pirates is a competent game that will hold most peoples
attentions for at least a little while. I probably wouldnt recommend purchasing it
unless youre a true blooded third person fan, and in which case your could do much,
much worse.