Age of Pirates - Caribbean Tales

[El_Cid]

Ahoy! This game was on the shelf of my local store and poked my interest. It's basicaly a more detailed version of the game that became 'Pirates of the Caribbean' which was based on that first movie when it came out.

As i had not heard anything about its pending release i thought i'd put some info here:

http://www.playlogicinternational.com/games/ageofpirates.php

http://www.ageofpiratesthegame.com/

My initial excitement has cooled a bit after browsing the net for info about it, at this early stage it seems Atari(the publisher) might have shipped it too soon; apparantly it is rather buggy.

Still Akella(the developer) is hard at work on patches and as they have more control over this title than they did with the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' game, i'm keeping up hope that they will be around to fix the issues.

The other downside is the word 'Starforce' - its been used by Atari for the copy protection. Still helpfull fans of the game have provided Starfore removal software for the game which can be found in this thread from the forums from the official site - this is the link for the thread here:

http://www.playlogicgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1033

I'm probably going to get the game, i enjoyed the sailing aspects of Akella's other pirate games in the past; but for the time being i'll wait a while and see on the forums how the patches go.

Still, despite some reservations i have to say i love a good pirate themed game. Ever since Mr.Sid's excellent 'Pirates' i've become a fan of the genre, so fingers crossed this time we have the Pirate game Akella have been trying to release for years now

Avast ye landlubber, splice the mainsail etc (is there a 'pirate' smiley?)

[El_Cid]

Just a quick update - I've been digging around some more and i think the consensus could be that the origonal 'Pirates of the Caribbean' game coupled with the POTC mod is at the moment the better more complete 'Pirate sim'.

more pirate game info and that mod can be found here:

http://www.piratesahoy.com/

Age of Pirates - Caribbean Tales, does indeed seem to be another pc game victim of 'released before it's ready'. And they wonder why PC gaming is struggling?

[Standup]

Just read a review of this in PC Format that managed to say not a lot. It looks like Port Royale with 3D? Is that a fair assessment?

[El_Cid]

Thats a reasonable comparison i think. So far PC Format has given it the best review scrore i've come across(around 80% i think). I've been interested in this series of games since i discovered Pirates of the Carabbean, it showed me they had a great idea that needed to be realised.

This series of games was a brainchild of the russian developer Akella.
They had been making ship-to-ship combat simulators for a number of years, then started to focus on a Pirate theme.

The game idea they came up with was to make a complete pirate sim that would include an crpg combined with their ship-to-ship simulation, all set in a 3D modeled Caribbean. You would develope your pirate character, trade goods, do missions for whomever and engage in full 3D ship combat. Basicaly they were trying to redo Sids Pirates.

The problem was they sold the game they had been working on to Bethesda and Disney, who were looking for a game tie in to the origonal 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie. Akella lost control of the game and it was released in a part finished state which apparantly annoyed them quite abit and caused bad blood between Akella and Bethesda whom had been doing the deal with Disney on Akella's behalf for the american market.

Apart from the intro voice over by Keira Knightly(sp?) and a sligthly lame story, it's obvious the game that was released as 'Pirates of the Caribbean' has little to do with the movie.

The recent new series of Pirates of the Caribbean games have nothing to do with Akella or the origonal game. Those games are just your standard movie tie-in rubbish.

After that people started working on modding POTC to try to make it the game Akella had been hoping to release, and from what i've read they have succeded and its still being worked on by a dedicated group.

'Age of Pirates - Caribbean Tales' is Akella's effort to complete the vision they had had for the game. You can now choose either a female or male character to play , the ship combat has been much improved to include full crew+ship exchanges, the map of the caribbean has been expanded with double the amount of islands to visit compared to POTC. Trade has been improved, you have more ship choices etc.

Still from what i've read at the various forums(official and piratesahoy ones) it seems yet again Akella have lost out in their dealings with the publisher they decided to go with. In this case its Atari for the Age of Pirates game. Its pretty buggy from many peoples accounts, but has potential and Akella are working hard on the first patch.

I think that it will be worth getting once the patches are coming, especialy if your interested in pirate themed games.It's just that at the momment POTC + its great mod is probably the better game overall.

[El_Cid]

A change of tack - i bought Pirates of the Caribbean(the origonal game - not the recent ones!), the Akella/Bethesda release, for a cool £5. Then went to the Pirates Ahoy forum and downloaded the POTC mod, i'll put the link here as it was a little tricky to find(you can get the current beta easy enough!). link to POTCMod v12.1(full):

http://files.filefront.com/POTC_Mod_Build_121_Full/;5387437;;/fileinfo.html

So far it's quite impressive all the extra stuff they have managed to add. Sailing is much more realistic now - it really is like having your own classic wooden boat to sail(I have done the real thing). You can even turn of the hud wind director and use only the wind in your sails and the amount of spray coming of the prow to judge how fast your going and if you have the wind or not - mental!

You can get attacked in town by local drunken thugs - or even end up in a tavern brawl. They have added/fixed so many things with this mod i cant hesitate to recomend it to anyone who either has got the game and played it before, or to people who have yet to try the game.

For now maybe forget 'Age of Pirates', it will take some time to address its issues.
In the mean time Pirates of the Caribbean(Bethesda version)+POTC mod v12.1 IS the definitive pirates game - at worst it ties with Sids origonal Pirates for my affection, and for providing that real pirate
feeling

Edit: error in link to filefront download fixed.

[Guynemer]

Better than the new Sid's Pirates?

[El_Cid]

Yes i find so - it's more 'realistic'. One thing i didn't like about the new Pirates!(Sids) was it's cartoony approach. I still prefer the origonal Sid Pirates over the new one though.

Pirates of the Caribbean was a version of a very promising pirate-sim that Akella had been working on. As a stand alone game, with no-pathces(i dont think it even got official patches?!), it was an average game at best - even if it had great pirate atmosphere and decent graphics, it was definately not a finished complete work. Still if you like the idea of real sailing in 3D set in a pirate themed world, with rpg elements, it was quite good.

With the POTC mod, which is still being worked on, they realised many of the features that never made it into the origonal release of Pirates of the Caribbean, fixed bugs and added some new things.

Some of the additions need a little adjustment imho. e.g in the origonal game you would find items hidden around the landscape while you were running around in the 3rd person on-land view(a bit like morrowind). These things were fairly ordinary - stuff like some gold or a particular gem, healing potions etc - mostly hum-drum trinkets.

In this new mod(v12.1 full) they have added a load of other stuff to the list for these items. In my second game i found the best spy glass you can get in the game, i was still only lvl 1! This was a little too generous - i suspect it might be because i was on the easiest difficulty setting. Still i'm not sure i like this version of that feature, so i might try to mod that a bit, although it only happend the one time.

Another thing is you now have many new indivdual blades/swords to find - some really good, with little histories about who made them and where they come form etc. My main problem with the way its implimented is that they are now in the random loot laying around - its possible in the early stages to end up with a rather too-good selection of these great blades.
Dont get me wrong, i love having them in the game - but seeing as they seem to only be given away in random loot finds, well its too generous again i feel. I would like to see them only for sale in certain shops - and at prices that reflect their quality.

Apart from these few issues the Mod overall is pretty amazing, as good as the better mods that got made for Morrowind as a comparison in what it does for the game. I can just see i have a few things i'd like to tweek a little - so it looks like i'll become involved in the mod project depending on my time constraints.

But yes - i find it a more believable, and enjoyable game of pirates than Sids newest version of his Pirates!. It kind of draws first place with Sids origonal Pirates in my list of pirate games.

[Standup]

There's also this game that looks promising. I'm keener on the trade aspect rather than pirates and the 17th/18th century settings make a good change.

[El_Cid]

http://www.eicgame.com/index.html

Thats the direct link to the games website Standup. It looks and sounds just my cup of tea, so thanks for the headsup on that one

[El_Cid]

hmmm those who like MMORPG's and pirates might be interested in this? :

http://www.flyinglab.com/pirates/index.php

I've never got into the online thing, playing against hordes of pre-teen halo beaters worries me Still some people love em and might like a pirate themed one?

[El_Cid]

And one for Standup

http://www.anno1701.com/launch/index.php?lg=en&l1=info

Anno1701 has gone gold. I was quite into the first game on my amiga back in the day, so its good to see this series still going

Not so good is the system requirements: 2.2Ghz minimum! for a basicaly 2D(ok it is 3D - like the new settlers, but it looks 2D) strat game? Not even Oblivion needed that much horsepower in the processor!!

[Standup]

Is this a continuation of the Patrician series?

Quite a lot of webpages to look through. Looks promising though and I like this style of graphics compared to 3D. Another game on to my shopping list....

[El_Cid]

its part of the 'anno' series:

http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/anno-series

Anno1602 was a favourite amiga game of mine

[Adagio]

Originally posted by El_Cid
Anno1701 has gone gold. I was quite into the first game on my Amiga back in the day, so its good to see this series still going

I just tried the demo, which was ok. I could never get into the first Anno games, so my expectations for this game is very low. Anyone else tried the demo?

[El_Cid]

Sadly i'll have to wait for the english version - still its great seeing companies release a demo, this sounds quite a decent one also - 90 mins of gameplay is ok i think.

What kind of things did you get to do in the demo Adagio?