Bethesda & Ubisoft's Pirates Of The Caribbean Game: Forgotten For A Reason?

The thing that sells the game is the naval combat. While history and reviews of the day may not have been too kind to the feature, it works very well for the limitations of the time. You can quickly and easily switch between different ammo to target enemy ship’s crew, the hull or to rip the sails to shreds depending on the strategy you decide to go for. You can choose which side to fire from by simply turning the camera, and the mini hub shows the range of the cannons.

Should enough damage be inflicted without sinking, the player can board a ship, kill the captain and either take the ship for yourself or loot it for parts and crew. And if the combat’s a bit too slow for you, players can speed up time at the push of a button.

Whilst on the overworld map, which must be used in order to travel to other islands, you may be unlucky enough to encounter a random storm, which can vary between thunderstorms, tornados, and even a maelstrom. If you’re really unlucky you could encounter this as well as enemy ships you can choose to fight off or just let the storm do the job for you.

Nothing in this game is more tense than have 3 or 4 ships on your back while trying to escape a tornado in the dead of night. You can even choose to interrupt naval battles to assist your allies and trade goods with them.

Speaking of which, the game has a great economy system. Each island has goods that it makes, has an abundance of, or needs, and the prices of each item reflects that. So earning extra money through trading is much easier should you have what each island is in need of (e.g. the pirate island always needs rum!). And you’ll need that money to keep the moral of your crew high. If you don’t, you’ll suddenly get a grim cutscene of your bones on an island, signifying the crew has mutinied and left you for dead. But keep them well paid and you should be able to avoid this.

A final major plus of this game is the visuals. Pirates is a beautiful game, especially for the time. The water looks shockingly realistic, the natural environments are very pleasant to look at, even more-so with the day-night cycles. In the settlements themselves there is architecture that reflects the country’s culture, from typical plantation houses to classical French cathedrals.