July 15th, 2009

Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships

When Akella and Playlogic have released Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales, it was displayed as an exciting RPG adventure with various situations where players were involved in an exciting journey as pirates to swordfight, trade goods, take over cities and forts and so on. Being recently released, its sequel made the object of IGN reviewing in order to check the novelty introduced by the reteamed Akella and Playlogic. Compared to the first game, this new one players can make their own life on the sea performing one the characters they choose: merchant, corsair or adventurer. The characters are ruled by a P.I.R.A.T.E.S. system that dictates the way you can pull out the sword, or how much loot you can carry and how much health you are entitled to. The same system is present in the ship’s behavior ruling over the way you navigate and the way of fighting in combats using your vessels.

The good thing with this system is that you can improve your skills this leading to a specialization in certain abilities, for instance if you prove good handling with your blade, then you are allowed to become an expert fencer and make additional damage on foes. Next to this feature you are able to build your reputation as a captain by performing several things, such as sailing into ports, getting goods for your crew, hiring new mates on board of your ship. You are allowed to disembark and run different activities on the shore including exploration of different dungeons where buried gold might be found.

The fact that the game doesn’t come with any tutorial at all makes the discovery of all these facets very difficult to approach. And Age of Pirates 2 has ten separate difficulty levels, but even if you set the game on the level of a beginner you don’t get any information regarding what you need for instance to control the ship, or to access menus. This is very frustrating since you are left with the feeling of making your way through the game sensing that you don’t know how to do a thing. Not to mention that beside the fact that it lacks the tutorial it is also lacking information about certain elements of gameplay. For instance, while being onshore, you have different conversations with others in which you are supposed to answer in specific terminology regarding ships and in case you don’t have an internet browser opened you are left with the desire to have these features already developed in your gameplay. Maps are also the object of complaining as you find it hard to understand their directions when you are supposed to maneuver through the jungles of a certain location.

The point is that the game implies so many nautical elements that a player probably should be previously familiar with especially that the voyages and situations are everything but peaceful and common. While being reviewed, all in one the game presented itself with controls that are unintuitive, lack of instructions and for these issues Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships rated a mediocre IGN score of 5.7, hoping at the same time for a better sequel.