[Review] Pirates Of Black Cove

[Warlock-]

 

There is a very fine line between campy and crappy. The way in which the cheerful and cheerful "Yaaaarrr" of Pirates of Black Cove entertains to have fun to be worthy of shrinking is forgivable, but a strong personality does not save this sunken ship from a game of its numerous shortcomings. The slow adventure on the high seas and the boring and simplistic game detract from a presentation that would otherwise be charming and struggling to stay afloat under its own uncomfortable circumference. In a nutshell: the looting through the beautiful, shimmering waters of Black Cove should be much more fun than it is. With the option of three exaggerated pirates protagonists, to overthrow the captain of his ship to undertake a life of piracy makes things have a good start. Lying in the middle of the map of the islands of the ocean, sail from one side to another, performing missions in the sea and land for the three pirate factions of the game. There is a lot of loot to chase, tasks to be tackled, villages to plunder and places to explore. It's an exciting prospect, except that the scope of the game is much more limited than it seems at first, which makes the replay that quickly gets even more disappointing.

 

 

Exploring the tropical island waters offers some gorgeous sightseeing opportunities as you pass by lush islands and gaze deep into the blue depths. Sadly, that's all you can do at times, since getting where you need to go is painfully slow process. Even at top speed, it can take minutes of straight sailing to travel between mission hotspots. Waylaying passing vessels - a prime pirate pursuit - only offers a meager amount of amusement too. Ship-to-ship combat boils down to you and your adversary circling around one another and exchanging cannon fire until your foe hits the sea floor. Most enemy vessels are too easy to beat, and the repetitive ocean battles lack much punch. The going does not get any better on land. A large number of Black Cove missions to send your small band of no-goodnicks on island assaults to destroy specific buildings, capture key characters, and cause mayhem. These plodding affairs play out in a very similar fashion each time.

Starting from the beachhead, you'll send your main hero and any accompanying rabble you've hired on a slow trek inland. Though there are small pockets of opposition along the way, in almost every case I plowed through them with relative ease, reached my objective marker, and battled my way back to the shore. Moving around is slow and tedious, and the trek back to your ship after the mission is done is a real slog. Any traditional real-time strategy elements found in these encounters are sparse at best. Most island battles are overcome by selecting all of your troops and hurling them at a particular foe until it's mauled, and trying to do much else hinders your effectiveness in combat. Instead of being able to select and manage individual units, you can only direct particular groupings of units. And the limited unit types (minor variations on melee, ranged, heavy artillery) do not add much to the gameplay. There's surprisingly little room for strategic variation or direction, which feels like a real misstep in a RTS title.

 

 

A smattering of light RPG elements pop-up subtly throughout the game. Completing missions gains you favor with pirate factions, opening up new tasks to tackle, and you'll also earn experience, letting you pick new skills for your smarmy hero every few levels. These minor nuances add a little extra flavor and purpose to the repetitive task of plodding back and forth across the same islands. You can also unlock a few structures on each pirate factions base area for producing new units, and some buildings allow item crafting when you've foraged the right components.

It's going to be tough, but I promise, at the beginning of this review, to try and resist the urge to blurt out overused, inaccurate, and stereotypical pirate slang. Excuse me-! Avast ye, matey! Shiver me timbers! Up to date! Scrub the poop deck, ye landlubber, or ye'll be walkin 'the plank to Davy Jones's Locker! Arrrrr! YAAARRRRRRRR !!! Okay, I think I'm done. Polly want a cracker? Okay, now I'm REALLY done. Lo prometo. Pirates have always been a po[CENSORED]r group of individuals, especially to children, but thanks in part to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, pirates are not only cool and relevant, but characters like Johnny Depp's role as Captain Jack Sparrow are part of today's pop culture. But you do not have to only get your piratey goodness from the likes of Disney or from Pirates of the Caribbean-themed games and merchandise, or from franchises featuring Secrets and Monkeys.

Say "ahoy" to Pirates of Black Cove. The pirate-themed PC strategy game is published by Paradox and developed by Nitro Games. First off, the game is really pretty. If you have a decent PC, you'll definitely want to pump up the resolution and details. The water effects are particularly well-done. The visual style is reminiscent of a highly detailed Monkey Island game, in that it's cartoonish enough, but not overly so. The characters you'll meet and control have slightly exaggerated caricatures and features. The game's tone is more on the light and whimsical side of piracy (Pirates of the Caribbean and Monkey Island, again) and less on the darker and more serious side of the history book pirates. Pirates of Black Cove is split off into two different modes of gameplay: water and land-based exploration and action.

 

The first mode is ship-based warfare. It's you versus an assortment of ships and be creatures. While Paradox has been known to be involved with some pretty detailed strategy and simulator games, Pirates of Black Cove is lighter on the strategy, and heavier on the action. The boat is controlled using the WASD keys on your keyboard. Special attacks can be used by pressing the space bar, can canons for the sides of the ship by pressing the left and right arrow keys. It does take some time to get adjusted to the controls, so steering to ship take some thinking ahead. Destroying an enemy (or civilian) ship will result in gold or other treasure. The second mode is ground-based combat, represented with an isometric view, and looks reminiscent of rogue games like Dungeon Siege or Torchlight, but the controls are identical to real-time strategy games like StarCraft II.

You left click to select your character (or you can draw a box around multiple character). Right-clicking on the screen will move you to the location or perform an action. The path-finding, choosing where you want your character to go, seemed to work, and I never had to micromanage my character's movement as I walked from the starting point to their destination. If you lose track of your pirate, you can double-click their portrait in the upper-right corner to immediately center them on the screen. There are stores to visit to purchase items, upgrade or buy new ships, and with enough coin you can construct buildings. In both modes, objectives are clearly labeled with arrow markers off-screen to help direct you where to go if you're lost. Items of interest in the world are marked with a trail or sparkles or shimmering rays of light to help identify them. Like most PC games, you can also save and load games at any time by visiting the main menu.

 

As mentioned earlier, the game is rather lighthearted, but sometimes it is silly, ridiculous, and rather stupid. As an example, the pirate characters that you can choose from at the beginning are called "Walker de Planc", "Jolie Roger", and "Longshot Jack". Okay that last one sounded some legit, but the other two were almost too embarrassing for me to select. The game's dialogue is a bit wordy, and conversations can not be skipped past (or at least I was not able to figure out how to after pressing every possible key and mouse button). This is a great deal, as some people enjoy a game and writing work - and Pirates of Black Cove certainly have a good personality - but others may want to just skip to the mission details and get on with the game. I do it in Torchlight and Borderlands all the time, that a game you need without the need to see all of the story's details. In consecutive playthroughs, I can see the inability to skip conversations as being more of a hindrance.

 

The Verdict

Aside from its uninspired combat and limited scope, Pirates of Black Cove is an endearing game at times. I wanted to love it, and kept diving back in hoping that something would click. It didn & # Array; t. The hokey character dialogue and D-list voice acting grew on me, and the vibrant views in the sprawling world map & # Array; s oceanic terrain are beautiful. It & # Array; s too bad so many other areas of the game sputter and flop like a beached whale. This pirating RTS adventure hints at depth and promise but just doesn & # Array; t deliver.

 

 

 

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