Pirates of the Caribbean (Xbox)

The Lighthouse Family wasn't home

If there's a man among ye, ye'll come out and fight like the men ye are thought to be." - Anne Bonny

There were too few famous women pirates. There was Anne Bonny and Mary Read though, who were known to be as bold and bloodthirsty as any man. In their final battle they shot at their male captors, killing one and wounding several, but despite their ferocity and vociferous challenges Anne and Mary were captured.
Seeing that loudmouthed curses and bullets had not saved them Anne and Mary resorted to cunning and “plead their bellies” – maintaining that they were pregnant. As it was illegal at the time to hang pregnant women they both escaped hanging, for a time.

Inspired by such a rousing tale, I decided to set off in search of my own fortune. The first obstacle in my quest was the simple fact that ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ does not allow you to be a female pirate. Consoling myself that he wears a girlie shirt, I embarked on my adventure as Nathaniel Hawk, Pirate Extraordinaire (Mrs.).

Visit the Caribbean for outstanding natural beauty

Boom!

Pirates of the Caribbean takes its license from the recently released Disney movie. However the name and the handful of skeletons you’ll encounter on your travels are the only similarities you will find between the two.

As a young captain starting out your career in the Caribbean you become caught up in conflict when the French descend on the English settlement of Oxbay

I’ve quickly found out that there is a lot to this being a pirate business. You can adventure on land and at sea, fighting ships, weathering storms, fencing, finding hidden treasure and all manner of swashbuckling activities. There is a lot on show and it often looks absolutely breathtaking. The graphics at sea are the showcase of the game, with detailed ships afloat on sparkling waters set against the setting sun. Swing the camera above the ship, and you can see reefs and seaweed and other unexpected details. It all makes you want to take a dip really.

The graphics on land are also very good - colourful, detailed and with pedestrians wandering around with a sense of purpose and dignity. There is a feeling of repetition though. Identical sections of scenery appear on different islands and the building interiors are the same from island to island too. It is as if it’s all made of Lego.

‘A Pirates life for me’

Weather for today : slight chance of rain

Most of a pirate’s time in the Caribbean is spent trading, sailing and fighting on foot. In reality, most of your time is spent re-loading, because this has got to be one of the hardest games for new players to learn.

Initially, you are given a short tutorial that tells you how to move around on foot, pick things up and fence. You are then abandoned, with no tutorial on how to sail or perform ship combat, which is far harder than just walking around.

My difficulty in learning to sail was compounded by the world map, where one moves one’s little ship around, choosing battles and sailing between islands. Other fleets are represented by a ship icon, which gives no hint as to how many ships you are actually about to engage. This meant I was often battling overwhelming odds and soon enough… reloading.

The fencing combat is a relatively easy block and attack affair and even the most novice player shouldn’t have any problems with it (that means me). The ship combat is far more tactical and if you really stick with it you may find it rewarding. Or you may not, depending on whether you like reloading.

Join the Navy, See the World.

All Aboard!

The game provides you with the option of traveling from place to place manually or often you can ‘fast travel’ to locations and even right up to other ships. The pleasure of hiking to the shops and sailing into town soon wears off and I ended up making use of this feature more and more. So I watched the loading screens more often than I actually looked at the great graphics.

Some travel insurance is a must, because often you just want to dash between islands for a bit of retail therapy and you are relentlessly set upon by pirates, storms and twisters. Sometimes by all three in the course of one journey! Naïve I may be, but life on the seas couldn’t have been that eventful, surely?

Look beneath this frustration and there is a lot of depth to Pirates. You are free to pursue the main quest as you wish, but in-between there is a wealth of freedom available to you. You can go treasure hunting in one of the game’s dungeons, you can trade, capture ships and are at liberty to build up your reputation as a scoundrel or a hero.

It’s all set to a stirring soundtrack with jolly pirate music playing while you walk around and thundering battle music when you are on the attack. All the other sounds, crashing cannons, sword clashes and the sounds of men in battle are just what you’d expect of a game chock full of blustering men and bottles of rum.

Sailing into the sunset…

Its not all sunshine in the Caribbean.

I found myself really wanting to enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean, as it’s a genre that I relish but after some time I found that it was more a chore than entertainment. The graphics, sound and music are fabulous, but the gameplay could have used some tweaking to remove some of the frustration that it causes. There is no other game like it for the Xbox, so if you are a fan of the genre and very persistent in nature I recommend that you strap on your hook and adjust your eye patch because it is going to be a rough voyage.