Age Of Pirates 2 initial reaction

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Initial reaction :::

 

 

I did a bit of research before buying this one when I spotted it in a Gamestop. I felt like getting a pirate game, and enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean which was released when the first PoTC movie came out... And this game's box art on the back has screenshots that looked a lot like that game, so I figured it was either a really well done clone, or they used the same engine as PoTC and I was praying they had updated things since it IS more than 6 years later....

 

OYE.

 

I know that the only thing that saved the game Pirates of the Caribbean was user mods (the Build Mod in particular which added tons of fixes and new gameplay) ... well the same goes for this game, Age of Pirates 2.

 

On running for the first time, you can clearly see this is the same game engine, but now it is listed as a later version... but despite that, they did NOT upgrade the textures/graphics.

I started as an English adventurer ( you only have 3 choices of who you can play as, and they are all really generic and undesirable looking ) and it seems like the UI is upgraded, but the graphics themselves are actually WORSE than PoTC made years ago!

 

I went to a brothel just to see, and they have all the exact same women, only they look washed out and textureless. They are 2001 graphics in a 2009 video game... Come on!

 

Now, graphics wouldn't mean all that much if the gameplay is good... which leads me to my next gripe... The controls. It refuses to let me map the arrow keys, stating that they are "already in use".... Which they are not being used in the controls themselves, but I think they hard coded them to work with dialog selection, so they refuse to let them be used to walk :\

 

Without being to map the arrow keys, I am forced to use WASD and figure out where different combat keys are... Like to fire a gun is "Q" and I keep having to look back at the control maps in the main menu to figure out how to do what I want to do, rather than just doing it with the keys I'm used to :\

 

So far, those are my only gripes. The interfaces are a bit more complicated so that will take some learning, but if you are considering this game I would actually recommend finding the 2003 game Pirates of the Caribbean and downloading the Build Mod 13 at PiratesAhoy.net for the best pirating game experience... Until then, I must wait till they come out with something equivalent for Age of pirates 2