A couple of years ago,
Bethesda Softworks published a game from Russian developer Akella
called Sea Dogs.
It was a promising strategy/RPG hybrid about pirates of the Caribbean.
Since then, they’ve been industriously working on the sequel.

Sometime this spring,
after a deal with Disney was struck, Sea Dogs II, was magically
transformed into Pirates of the Caribbean. I admit
here that I have publicly and privately have been critical of this
transformation, but I’ll do my best to set that aside for this
review, even though I think it was a CHEAP AND CYNICAL MOVE on Bethesda’s
part. However, as the cooler-headed Randy Sluganski pointed out to
me (Wow, this is the first time anyone has ever referred to me as ‘cooler-headed’! – Randy),
at least we know Bethesda will take that money and use it to try
and make good games (just not another Morrowind expansion, please!
We’re tired!).

The game bears some similarities
to Bethesda’s gigantic Morrowind,
in that the direction and activities of the game is extremely player-driven.
The story takes place in a tumultuous area of the Caribbean, with
islands controlled by the Dutch, Spanish, English, French and Portuguese.
You can follow the main story, which has you starting off by helping
the British interests, or you can help out any other nationality,
or you can remain a neutral merchant marine, or become a smuggler,
or become a black-hearted pirate. This flexibility is admirable.

Also admirable are the
lovely graphics. Though they could use a bit more variety (every
town and jungle looks exactly the same) what’s
there is extremely attractive. Kudos must also go to Bethesda for
actually having an ATTRACTIVE MALE LEAD CHARACTER. This just doesn’t
happen very often in computer games.

Nice graphical touches include rats and lizards that are dynamic
and react to your presence.

Though it does certainly
contain strategy elements, Sea Dogs II Pirates of the Caribbean feels more like a regular RPG than did Sea
Dogs. There’s an interesting rack of skills and abilities to
invest in when your character levels up. And while the game feels
quite stingy on giving out the points, the payoff is that with every
single point you invest in a skill or ability, you see a noticeable
improvement in your character. For instance, I made the decision
to invest heavily in making my hunky captain a good swordsman. Every
time I bought new points for him in skills and abilities that affected
his sword fighting, I could easily see the improvement in his performance.
This is a nice change from some RPGs in which you find yourself wondering
if your archer is really better at ranged criticals than he was before
you spent that hard-earned skill point on him.

The skills in the game
range from sailing, boarding, melee fighting, commerce, and leadership,
to expertise in guns, swords, bad weather,
cannons, and other specialized skills. This again enriches the “play
the game as you see fit” game model.

The game also has an interesting main quest, with a good story and
varied missions.

However. For every admirable
quality in Sea Dogs II Pirates of the Caribbean, there’s a downer as well. Let’s
get into those.

First of all, what is
it with Russian game developers and game interfaces?! Every Russian
game I’ve played has a GUI that I wouldn’t
wish on the most irritating Volga boatman. Doing even the simplest
tasks in the game requires a ridiculous amount of button-mashing.
For example, to open a door, it takes AT LEAST THREE CLICKS. Sorry,
but this is just bad game design. Plus, many times you’re given
choices, and the obvious choice (what should be the default) is the
LAST choice listed. It’s like a waitress saying, “Stop
me when you hear what topping you’d like you your baked potato:
1) Battery Acid, 2) Sand, 3) Scissors, or 4) Butter and Sour Cream.” I’m
extremely surprised Bethesda put up with this, and didn’t demand
that Akella streamline the mess they made of the interface. It’s
almost impossible to imagine that game testers didn’t howl
with displeasure when exposed to it.

Even worse is the unforgiving
learning curve. This is a complicated game, in that there are several
distinct playing modes: exploring
and conversing on land, shopping, hiring, fighting, sailing, cannon-firing,
boarding, etc. etc. The game has only the flimsiest tutorial, and
that’s only for the land part.

Here’s the worst part. The very first time you put to sea,
you’re immediately beset by a horde of ships that sink you
in about thirty seconds. So instead of giving you a couple of minutes
to learn a completely new (and clunky) interface, you’re frantically
trying to learn it in the few seconds before you’re sunk. Topping
off the horror is that each time you reload, you must sit through
the long (and admittedly beautiful) cut scene again – nope,
no clicking through it is allowed! It’s enough to make you
toss in your captain’s stripes before the game has even begun.
Again, I can’t figure out how this kind of bad game design
decision made it past any responsible test players. Baffling.

In a game this complicated, each aspect of game play needs its own
tutorial!

Which brings me to the
saddest news I have to report. It’s
not rats or lizards or interface issues that bring this game to its
knees, it’s BUGS. Despite the interface, despite getting killed
sunk twenty times before I figured out how to run the hell away and
survive, I began really enjoying this game. Like I mentioned before,
the main quest is quite interesting, and I was enjoying buying bigger
and better ships, becoming a better trader and a more skilled captain,
and becoming absolutely hell on wheels with a dueling sword.

I was even pleasantly surprised that little bits of the plot of
the movie were actually worked into the game! I began hearing rumors
of a ship of cursed pirates, and even had an initial encounter with
them, and with the Black Pearl as well.

A few quests into the
main plot, I hit a quest-killing bug in which two characters were
simultaneous standing in the same spot. This
made them both impossible to speak to, which was a problem, as one
of them was the quest character. Fortunately, I reloaded a save and
it didn’t happen again.

BUT THEN, deep into the main quest, I hit a much more deadly, game-killing
bug. After a particularly difficult encounter at sea, the Quest Log
stopped working. This made it impractical to continue playing, as
the Quest Log was an extremely valuable game tool. It kept track
of important details of what you had to accomplish, and often even
included vital extra information. When quests were completed, you
could see your progress and figure out possible next moves.

Hoping it was a fluke, I painstakingly replayed the difficult battle
again, but the bug happened again in the exact same place.

My repeated requests for
help on the issue have gone unanswered by Bethesda. So I can’t tell you if I’m
the only person in the universe that this has happened to, or if
it happens to everyone,
or if Bethesda is working on a patch for it, or what.

Therefore, I’m going to give this game two grades. One grade
assumes the bug is fixable, the other assumes it’s not. Because
if it’s not, then of course I can’t in good conscience
recommend this game to anyone. But if it is, it’s certainly
worth a look if you can overcome it’s significant problems.

Final Grade (with bug
fix): C+
Final Grade (without bug fix): F

System Requirements:

• Windows 98/98SE/Millenium
  Edition/XP/2000
• Pentium III 800Mhz
• 128MB
  RAM
• Eight-speed CD-ROM
  drive
• DirectX 8.1 3D compliant
  Video Card with 32MB Video RAM
• Sound Card (100% DirectX
  8.1 Compatible)
• Keyboard, Mouse
• Desktop
  Resolution of 800X600 @ 16-bit color depth minimum
• 1.5GB hard-drive
  space for installation

Also available on Xbox

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.