14 DAY TRIAL // 
Everybody wants to be a pirate now. And since Johnny Depp proved to be such a jolly fellow as a pirate, the romantic shade of this profession is ever increasing. However, history depicts these characters as cruel blood thirsty sea thieves roaming the waves in search of easy looting. It is believed that the history of piracy dates back more than 3000 years and the first writings about them belong to the Greek historian Plutarch who describes them as the ones attacking without authority not only ships but also maritime forts. But it wasn't until the XVI century that the golden age of piracy began and by the end of the XIX century pirates became more of a legend than a real threat.
Ruthless sea captains made a name for themselves by preying on the careless merchants sailing the Atlantic. Names like Samuel Bellamy, Anne Bonnet, Francis Drake, William Kidd, Henry Morgan, Bartholomew Roberts and Blackbeard Edward Teach remain forever in the history of piracy. Over the years these were a continuous source of inspiration for many artists. And where there is a good story, a good "be a pirate" game can't miss. Developer Akella seems to really have a fascination with this captivating lifestyle of sea thieving and smuggling. They are the proud creators of games such as Sea Dogs, Age of Sail 2, Privateer's Bounty: Age of Sail 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean. Starting from this last title they developed a new pirates' tale in their newest addition to this romantic setting, Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales.
Story and Concept If in Pirates of the Caribbean the story concentrated on your only main character - the captain - in Age of Pirates the story is much more elaborated, although you will only unravel it once you obtain the required rank to get the next piece of the puzzle. In the mean time you can entertain yourself by making a fortune out of completing the various tasks different citizens have in store for you. Unfortunately, these are pretty random and rarely do you get a couple of jobs that have a meaningful back story. These are usually the tasks where you need to get slaves for someone's plantation, escort some merchant to another island or offer someone a passage. There are also missions involving pirate hunting, but that's for later.
As you become a more notorious pirate the main story catches up on you. It turns up that there were once two brothers that lost track of each other - Beatrice and Blaze Shark. In the beginning of the game you need to select one of them to reveal their side of the story, as you play along. The fist thing you come across in this medieval world made up of islands is a letter that your now dead father addressed to you long time ago. That's just a small piece of a map and a mention of your brother's / sister's name. You can't do anything else with it for starters so you can lightheartedly concentrate on gaining in ranks and making a fortune. Armed with a rusty old sword, a short pistol and a lot of confidence you set out to sea in search of rewarding adventures.
The pirate life is basically about buying cheap and selling high, plunder any ship that comes too close to you and getting your reputation up by accomplishing all sort of missions. Four nations and a pirate faction dispute their supremacy over these islands. If you want to play as a good guy you could build up your reputation with any of the nations (England, France, Spain and Holland) or even with all of them and turn into sort of a pirate hunter. You could also target only ships that belong to a certain faction or just the pirates. The battles will take place on the sea - naval battles or on land (and on board the attacked ship) - sword and pistol fighting. But getting close to another ship isn't always about attacking it. You could just trade with it.
While from the land battles there aren't many ways to get out of (just win, die - and this is not really an option - or flee, but the attackers will pursue you and eventually catch up on you), the naval battles can end in various ways. The best thing to do is winning. In order to do that you have to either sink or capture all enemy ships. To capture an enemy ship you need to get close enough to it and board it, taking the naval battle to an onboard sword fighting. First step is for you to fight along with your officers and eliminate the enemy officers. The next and final step is for you to get in a duel with the captain. Once you win you can choose to capture the ship by assigning one of your trustworthy officers to command it or you can just let it drift to the bottom of the seas. Another option during a naval battle is to loose, but in this case your character dies and this is not really desirable. You can also talk to the enemy captain and offer him a small bribe so he leaves your convoy alone. If you're close to a friendly fort and you're battling an enemy of that nation you can steer your ships towards the fort so he can also engage the common enemy.
Gameplay Just like any other sea officer you have a pretty good selection of abilities and skills as well as a generous inventory. Your skills are managed into twelve categories. You have the Leadership to boost your crew's morale, the Navigation to increase your ship's speed and maneuverability and the Tactics that allow your companions to increase their skills more rapidly and for every 2 points added you can get yet another ship to your squadron. More points to the Cannons skill will enable faster cannon loading, while Accuracy will increase the chances of inflicting more damage during a naval combat. On the other hand Defense will boost your chances of receiving less damage during a naval strike and the Repair skill will allow you to make use of the wood and cloth resources on board to repair the damage. The Boarding skill comes very handy once you gain enough experience to successfully face other captains and engage the enemy ship in hand to hand combat. Speaking about melee fighting, the Fencing and Pistols skills are decisive on the battles taken on foot. While Luck influences every action in the game, but none more than other, the Trading skill will boost your managerial qualities. The ability tree is also divided into the same type of categories increasing even more your chances of success in the targeted field.
The best thing about being a captain is that you can get officers to help you in any of the skills needed to sail to glory. The default level of your skills is one. But by employing an experienced navigator your entire crew will benefit from that. If there are more characters with higher level skills the highest level will be taken into account, the points not being cumulative. Aside from their skills and abilities the officers also require a yearly payment and they show a certain amount of loyalty. If you by any chance assign a ship in the squadron an officer that doesn't show much loyalty towards you, you could just have the greatest surprise - he'll turn against you as a pirate ship. Well, try every tavern and select the officers that require the least payment and show a fair amount of loyalty. Try to keep as many officers as possible close to you, as a new ship can not only prove useful in battles, but also worth a small fortune on the ships' market.
Fortunately the game saves during each loading screen which proved to be quite useful when unexpected storms popped out of the blue or I lost a small battle by mistake. Trading proved to be quite profitable especially if buying from a city that exports the desired good and selling it to one that imports it (pretty logical, isn't it?). Just remember that you'll need to right click on the flag of the town to get a quick list of the goods it normally imports / exports. This will also show how many days a voyage to that island requires. This is essential as your food supply get's lower with each day spent on the seas and once you have no food left, your crew turns to cannibalism.
Although a nice RPG like adventure through any city is in order, the only interested objectives in the beginnings (aside from item vendors and later caves and dungeons with dangerous enemies lurking inside) are highlighted in the quick travel menu - the port (get on the boat or search for quick jobs), the store (buy and sell your merchandise), the shipyard (repair ships or buy and sell new ones), the tavern (the place to get a mission, get crew and the latest rumors) and the residence (get jobs done for the governor). The main thing you have to remember in this game is to use the right click to get as much help as possible and be quick on hitting the keys (both on the seas and on foot).
Video Storm Engine 2.5 is used in the game. This is the same engine introduced in the previous title - Pirates of the Caribbean. It still manages to captivate the player with well done water views, extraordinary lighting for both day and night scenes and a pleasant physics for the ships destructive scenes in the game. The third person RPG adventure on the islands is also rather rewarding in terms of visual aspect - the buildings look old and veridical and the vegetation looks acceptable enough for a game that is based more on economical strategies and sea battles than RPG wandering. It is great that you can control your character's every move (slash, thrust, parry, all-round attack, fierce attack and feint during the land fights are all at your disposal), but it is a little annoying that there are a lot of movement blockades (you can't just jump from the top of the stairs to the right, you have to be civilized and climb them down one by one and than head to the right). From this side of view, I was very much more found of the sea travel, as the island shores were my only obstacles.
Sound Just like the rest of the game, the sound doesn't quite impress, yet it manages to be pleasant even after tens of hours of play. The instrumental music creates an appropriate atmosphere for the overall romantic setting of a pirate's tale. Voice acting is no rare jewel, as the characters have a pretty narrowed vocabulary and there isn't much difference between getting a "get the slaves" mission and "kindly take me away from this town". But the cannon firing compensates a little and so does the land fighting sounds where tons of clashing noises and mean roars can be heard.
Multiplayer The multiplayer mode allows up to 16 captains to test their skills against each other. Four different modes are available: Deathmatch (the classic one versus everybody else challenge), Team Deathmatch (team versus team), Defend the Convoy (while everybody attacks) and Capture the Fort (are those towers fast firing or what?). Just like the whole single player experience, the multiplayer also makes up for a few hours of fun and visions about a pirate's life.
Conclusion Right click is for help and the spacebar is for quick use - these are the most important things to remember during gameplay. Although Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales is not much different from its predecessor Pirates of the Caribbean, it does provide a pleasant time for every merchant or pirate soul in the business. There already is a pretty wide choice of titles on about the same subject such as the Port Royale series (but now you don't have to pray not to meet any pirates on the way), Sea Dogs, Sid Meier's Pirates (this had highly cartoon-like graphics so Age of Pirates might appeal to you a little more) or Age of Sail II (there are a little less bugs here). Yet the Pirate Universe can hold all of these stories and usually make you enjoy them all.
Now it's time to unravel the story behind the two brothers' history. The next title in the series promises to put the player in the shoes of the pirate captain Peter Blood, the main character of Rafael Sabatini's novel Captain Blood: His Odyssey. I do hope they'll be able to fix even more of those nasty bugs in the mean time. As I am a pirate fan and Akella seems to be the most productive developer in this field I'll keep my fingers crossed for them.
