Pirates of the Caribbean

"Arr, tis a great concept but be poorly executed, arr!"

Well, after being immersed in Morrowind I noticed Bethesda Softworks was releasing the long awaited Sea Dogs 2 (Later changed to Pirates of the Caribbean)and at first news of this I was very happy, however after renting the game I was so disappointed, the game was mediocre at best, and with the huge array of bugs and glitches in the game it was impossible to enjoy. Even with the revolutionary ship battles at sea, the game still lacked so much everywhere else that it was very hard to get into the game.

Graphics: Probably the best aspect of the game, the ocean and the islands (While offshore) looked incredible, I think the most gratifying moment was sailing through my first storm with the beautiful lightning bolts in the background. The game everywhere else was really just, OK, really nothing to brag about, though it had a distinct Morrowind feel, the graphics stood nowhere near as close as that game did. The player skins looked nice but would never really dazzle you as most characters in the game are very plainly dressed. The towns are well drawn but again lack the detail that many other XBox titles have, don't get me wrong the graphics are still good, but nothing worthy of any great praise.

Sound: Now onto one of the worst aspects of the game, first off the music is the only decent thing in terms of sound, the nice little tropical and Caribbean styles are a cool addition getting you into the feel of the game, but the music really starts to decline anywhere other than a city, the sailing music is pretty standard and boring, nothing of any interest, and just a little better than that is the battle music which is very repetitive and sometimes feels like it's trying to put you to sleep rather than ready you for battle. The sound effects (with exception to weapons are pretty poor) the talking is nice but is so sparse in this game you forget about it until a barkeep says ''Aye Gov'ner?'' The storms and sailing noises are OK but again like everything else in the game is just par. The gunfire and sword fighting sounds are the only good sounds in the game, but it feels like too little too late after experiencing the games other shortcomings.

Control: Now this is where the game really got aggravating. Your movement on land is just terrible, it feels so awkward that maneuvering to even so of the most simple places is a task in and of itself. The sword battles against other people is some of the worst I have ever played, first of all your movement is very awkward which makes it difficult to start with, but you only have like 4 different sword moves. Block, and 3 types of attack which makes for very lame and repetitive battles. The ship battles are no more fun that land battles as maneuvering ships takes forever and by the time you actually line up with a ship it is already out of range or has sunk you.

Fun Factor/Replay: The learning curve in this game is way too high, if you are an inexperienced game then you will be tossing down your controller after you venture into the seas for the first few times. The game is fun for the first few hours, but after that it gets really repetitive, especially if you aren't doing the main story quest. Also this deserves a mention, there is a huge array of bugs in this game, everything from corrupt game saves, to random crashing, to graphical glitches. And it was for this reason that I gave this game such a low rating, because even if the game is fun, playing an hour then losing your game to a random crash can really kill the fun. Also there are a lot of spelling errors in the game like for example ''God evening sir.'' when it is supposed to be ''Good evening'' little things like that take the game down a peg.

The bottom line: Don't buy this game expecting a great Pirate RPG, I would wait to see if patches will be released on XBox Live, before I even think about playing it again. You probably will see more of this type of game soon enough, so I wouldn't be worried that this is the only one for long. My advice wait for a better pirate style RPG, because this one isn't worth the money.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/16/03