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Intro With their third attempt at conquering the high seas, Bethesda has unleashed a Morrowind - or Sea Dogs, whichever you prefer - kind of experience, but the result isn't as stellar is in the case of the latest in the Elder Scrolls series. In fact, Pirates of the Caribbean is more like Daggerfall, in that it's a bug-ridden game that has enough promise that its epic scale and grand design can almost make someone forgive all of its flaws. Key word: almost. Gameplay: 4/10 I'm not sure what it is, but my luck with games hasn't been too good lately. Shortly after nearly exploding after spending hours with the extremely flawed RTX Redrock, I felt a sort of redemption when I was given Pirates of the Caribbean to review. Aside from the fact that Nick salivates at Bethesda releases, I also felt that this was the perfect opportunity to cleanse my gaming soul; after all, what could be better than taking to the seas and seeking out the riches and glory that I rightfully deserve? For a while, it wasn't too bad either. Sure, the game had a rough start, but after a little time I had a crew ready to man my first ship. Oh, they were a motley crew of gents, and it didn't take long before we mixed it up with some other pirates, but we were a headstrong crew that was ready to take any challenge head-on. I have to say, there's a slight feeling of exhilaration when setting off from a port: traversing the world map, spotting an enemy vessel or two and either risking a fight or make for the nearest port as quickly as possible. Going ship-to-ship isn't as easy as it would seem; maneuvering for the best shot, and having lack of experience in combat early on, made things all that much tougher, but I stuck it out. There's nothing like the feeling of being rewarded for hard work and tenacity, like when I finally boarded a ship, killed its crew, and commandeered command of the vessel, right as my other ship was sinking. I tell you, I was meant for this life. For a while, it seemed as though this was the game for me. Traveling from port to port, getting in the middle of French and English conflicts, taking odd jobs of carrying cargo and tackling forts, gaining experience in boarding other vessels, and selling off goods for profit. Sure, I ignored the fact that most sentences 'lookedlike this' and that my crew had an insatiable amount of greed that, despite any solid job offers, had to be met with increasingly large amounts of money, and not with my blade. The excessive loading and twitchy camera got annoying, but I was a pirate!…damnit! I was supposed to lead a tough life! I even took the nearly-impossible storms in stride; I wasn't going to let such trivial things keep me from my booty! Plundering is hard work, but, being a good pirate is even harder. Pirates of the Caribbean has a weird reputation system that gets more negative the more fights are instigated and based on how actions are handled. Despite the fact that ship combat is actually pretty hard - oh, how I would've loved a grid to base my shots on or something more than the first-person targeting system - and that even a small ship can deal a great amount of pain, or even death, reward for tackling another vessel is slim. Unless something is done in the name of a mission, the player isn't really encouraged to be whatever they wish, be it a good sailor or a rowdy pirate; well, maybe the game isn't meant for the player to become a scoundrel, but when it's based on a movie where the lead character does embrace the lifestyle, and the options are there, why not let the player take that route? And it seems very strange that a pirate wouldn't want to deal with another pirate because of their bad reputation - they're freaking pirates! Being bad is what they do. Not to mention that I also did a fair share of good and never seemed to get credit. Being true to the code, I kept going. Nevermind the game's intentions; a pirate's life is the way for me! Oh, but the game had another trick up its sleeve. While my will was ready to stand the test of time, and my patience strong, neither could've prepared for the onslaught of bugs that I faced. The game's journal, one of the most crucial items in any game like this, would randomly delete entries, or simply not make any additions or alterations at all. With this elephant-like memory, I was able to downplay that problem and pretend like it wasn't that big of a deal - although it was. The first sign something was wrong was whenever I would launch from a certain port, the game would boot to a 'Disc is damaged or dirty' screen; several further attempts also failed, it wasn't until loading an earlier save file and circumventing that portion of the island that I was able to continue. While that was worrisome, being able to continue on my adventure was enough to stay off any major irritations. That is, until 20 or so hours into the game, I got a white screen - aptly named 'the white screen of death', hey, no one said that gamers were the most original people - that meant that the game had crashed and caused the system to reboot. After that, the previous problems and other oddities, like crew members vanishing, was making me wonder if I was going to be able to finish the game. I stayed the course, though, but I paid a heavy price. After being betrayed a few times and wrestling with the French, English, and Portuguese - not to mention seeing the Black Pearl once and fighting skeleton pirates, which seems to be the only connection to the movie it's based on - and staying off enough mutinies to last a lifetime, I was finally reaching the end. While my pistol seemed to miss nearly every time I shot, even at point-blank range, the loose sword-fighting actually worked to my advantage as I took a giant vessel. Decked out with numerous fine cannons and having a strong crew, I was nearing the last mission of the game. Then it happened. Upon going to save a game, I saw a saved file with an icon that had 'Bad Save' written on it. "Crap!" I thought; but, I figured this wasn't so bad since it was an older file and I could just save at that point and continue. After trying the saved file and finding out that it had indeed gone bad, I deleted it and continued on with my game. Just to test something out, I went back to the save menu and saw that more saves had gone bad. It was a freaking epidemic! Every time I deleted save files, more would go bad, then those would be deleted and my newer saves would go bad, no matter what I did, my save files wouldn't remain stable. Finally, I saved where I was and figured I'd just stop and try later, but, right as I went to quit, I got the white screen of death. Since I had already saved, I had hoped that my nerves would be spared and everything would be alright, but it wasn't: whatever saved files I had left were gone. I'm looking at around 40 hours worth of save files, all deleted. I searched forums throughout my play of the game and had read of the trials and tribulations of others, but counted myself one of the lucky few for having experienced only a handful of random problems. The longer I played the game, the more I experienced so many of the bugs that others have and the more it seemed that the game was coming apart at the seams, until it just broke. Word is, there's an icon bug that will say a saved file is bad when it isn't, well, the one I tried was bad, and even if it wasn't, the crash would've taken care of any that might have been alright. That effectively put an end to my swashbuckling
days. Although, even with all of the problems, I still want to go
back. I want to embrace the Bethesda design of non-linearity and
epic-ness. When the game did run smoothly, it was a blast: running
from the law, backstabbing and being backstabbed, taking expeditions
onto rural islands, bombarding ships with all the different artillery,
haggling with merchants, talking with folks at local taverns, and
mixing it up with the locals by being a smartass. Hopefully those
who are having the same problems with the PC version will have a
Daggerfall ending, with a buggy release being patched up so well
that it gets turned into an all-out classic. For Xbox owners, I'm
not seeing that in their future. It's a shame, because it's a blast
while it lasts. Graphics: 8.5/10 Sound: 8/10 Control: 7.5/10 Overall: 4/10 [ top ] |
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