Im quite serten that i will play this game for a wile. This is just my first impressions as i got the game today, so....

User Rating: 7.5 | Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales PC
By knut-am | Review Date:
I just got the game so im not so sure i will agree with my own rewiew after some more hours playing it. being a fan of Sid Meier's Pirates i was looking forward to this game, and after some strange behavour during the instalation, were the install manager did not quit automaticly but had to be turned off manualy, it seemed to be all fine. errrrr,, not quite, after you have installed the game and put it away for then to put the disk in the drive for another go at the game, instead of displaying some kind of normal root disk menu "start the game, options, configuration" etc etc it start the instalation menu directly and ask if you are sure you would like to compleately remove the game and all your saves,, lol. so be aware people on what you click "yes" to. finally in the game main menu i found that the option manu had less then acurate menu options to choose from to what the instruction manual explane, and the read me file did not help it either, though all this are small issues as it is not in the options menu that the game is played. it has only 2 fixed caracters to choose between as your caracter to play with so you do not have any costumisation posibillities to your caracter's aperance, not that it is a big issue. i finally found the menu were you can build your pirate's ability up and that screen seemed to me to be both informative and nicely made exept for one thing, when you upgrade your caracter with your earned exp points it did not seem to let you change your mind once you have altered a point to one ability, in other words once you click to use that point it is spent were you used it so you need to make your mind up carefully as it did not allow any fiddling about. Part from the roleplaying elements this is also an adventure simulation type of game witch are not at all a bad thing. it kind of combine a bit of the Privateer space sim sort of play on sea with sailing ships instead of space ships to fly. though you have the freedom to move about on land as you please and talk to evryone you meat, even if initially all of them tells you to buzz off but still talk to you as if the "get lost " opening never happend, i am quite sure that may get annoying in the long run. all talking that i have come actoss are in text form exept for the opening insult. i find that a bit too "monkey Island" for 2006 as both the storage medium and prosessing ability of modern computers allow full speach in a game like Oblivion as an example.

the game seem to have an open play possibility were you can roam the seas, or take on pasenger transport, escort service, normal trade, bounty hunting or just plane piracy activity. however the cost of passing time at see without a goal or meaning can get very expencive, i became cought up in a storm at see and hardly was able to save my ship, the repair cost in the shipyard after i made land took half my money away,, so,, i cheated a bit and loaded the game from were i set sail on that last trip and made the same sea journey again, the storm never happend then, so the randomising of wether and other sea condissions i know work well. i admit that after so short a play time i have not yet tried it all. you can also do a lot of upgrading on your ships in the ship yards in towns as well as buy new ships to your fleet if your caracter has high enough level so that is a big + versus SId Meier's Pirates were you have just so and so many things to do, the controlls though seem to be a lot more intricate then what you had on that game, witch was too simpliffic for my taste but you can remap your prefered controls to suit your best liking in the option menu and that worked fine for me. The graphics in the game seem very well done for the most part, the ocean look GREAT though what you see on the ship's deck seem to be a bit squerish and edgy (game res : 1600x1200). the towns are very well done but the outskirts could have been more like Oblivion, lol. the storm i encountered was graphically very impressive, though it nearly killed us all. the game has all wether condissions like rain + all hours of the day / eavning / night and dusk made gloriously beautyfull.

I can easlily see a longlivity in the game, and i am sure i will try it out a lot, and hopefully add it as a "worth playing" game also in the future. there are some outcry in the forum about this game craching and not working properly but part from the small little bugs that i have come across and have explaned in the review here, the game seem to be rock stabile on my system no crash at all during 10 hours and 46 minutes of running the game. the game ran flawlessly for about 5 hours non stop, and no problems with stability at all. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFTER i have played the game on and off now for about one and a half month, i have come to the point were i might put it away for a wile. the story ARE as said in the GS review not very easy to grip, the leveling up is very slow, even if you play well. but worst of all, the sword fighting is plane rubbish. it is not a problem to outwith any captain. and at my place in the game they usually give up their ship without any rubbish fight. with a good crew you can with ease take over any ship you come across. and the only real challenge in the game is to make enough money to pay your offisers and crew every month. so im afraid i have to cut down a bit on the score from 8.6 in my first impression review to this 7.5. it is still a game that is somewhat fun to play, but not as mutch after it all become a bit too teedious.

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