I Want To Be A Pirate

This is a bold statement to make, but I have a suspician that everyone secretly wants to be a pirate. We are all just closet pirates waiting to break out. Fortunately, I missed "Talk like a Pirate Day" as this sounded like some sort of freaky celebration some Trekkie would get off on. Actually hanging up their Klingon costume and replacing it with a pirate suit, black powder pistol, plastic sword, and imitation parot. I always seem to get this "Ahhah Me Matey" urge when a new pirate type game comes out and I find myself secretly obsessing to buy it. This all started with the original Sid Meier's Pirates. A game which we first played on the Commodore 64 or the Amiga (I forget which one now). It was a game which we played to death and absolutely loved. Sid Meier's remake of the classic was excellent basically keeping the existing formula (the only problem with the game was the added dancing mini-game which was completely unnecessary and out of the pirate mold). This week I have found myself playing Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales.

While I haven't played the original Sea Dogs games I did play Pirates of the Caribbean by Bethesda. I enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean but found it was somewhat lacking in the longevity department. The game engine was excellent and, fortunately, Age of Pirates uses the same engine, in fact, it appears to use the same graphics. If you were a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean then you should definitely pick up Age of Pirates. You will find that they have expanded the RPG and trading options a great deal and the game is relatively open ended with a small sandbox world in which you can pursue your pirate fantasies.

I have to admit that the game is buggy. You will find that you experience a number of CTDs at the most inopportune times. However, I still find myself rebooting the game and continuing the play. The ingame swordplay is relatively simple and could have been improved upon greatly, but the sea battles are excellent. The ocean is rendered extremely well. One of the things that I love to do is to sail in to a storm and place the third person camera at sea level so that it rolls with the large waves and then watch my ship bob in and out of the picture.

Age of Pirates is a game that could have done with a lot of work. However, it is still a good game to play. Whether you just want to be involved in trading or varies types of missions you will get many hours of gameplay from this title.

Unfortunately, I the game doesn't quite live up to the standard of Sid Meier's Pirates. I do find myself playing the game and thinking they could have done a whole lot more with it. Firstly they could have made the world map a whole lot larger. It only covers the islands of the Caribbean, whereas, Sid Meier's Pirates covers Florida and the northern part of South America as well. There could have been a greater diversity in the missions as well. The sword based combat could have been given a good overhaul and made more interesting.

Anyway, if you are hanging out for a pirate game then check out Age of Pirates. If you find that no pirate game lives up to Sid Meier's Pirates then I would give this one a miss as you will probably be disappointed.