Pirates of Black Cove is a sea-faring combat and lightweight RPG/RTS game that is likely aimed at more casual sailors than hardened sea-dogs. If you have played the great Sid Meier’s Pirates! and were hoping for a similar modern game, then you will probably be disappointed.
Pirates of Black Cove starts out by putting players in the boots of one of three pirate captains, each with different starting attributes related to their land-based combat prowess. As players progress they will be able to choose upgrades to these captains that either improve aspects of their ship, nautical skills, or combat abilities.
The story is delivered through a combination of piratey dialogue and animated flash cut-scenes. Missions and story are fairly generic pirate fare, so don’t expect to be blown away here. The initial tutorial is acceptable, and should get players going, but it does leave one to figure out a few of the details.
Pirates of Black Cove is presented in an isometric viewpoint. The game is divided into two main gameplay arenas, one taking place at sea, and one taking place on land. The sea-based portion of the game is by far the better experience, although not without its annoyances. The land-based portion has potential that is never fully realised and the gameplay here seems to be poorly implemented, coupled with irksome design choices and buggy AI.
Splice the mainsail!
The best part of Pirates of Black Cove takes place on the Caribbean Sea, where players will sail about completing missions, looking for collectibles (including 1,000 pirate jokes), and engaging in ship-to-ship combat. As players complete missions and generally pirate about, they will be rewarded with gold, blueprints, and experience. The gold is used to purchase new ships and upgrades, the blueprints to unlock ships and upgrades, and the experience goes into the captain’s abilities.
Visually, there is little to complain about. The Caribbean is full of tropical colour, and detailed with wrecked ships and sea and bird life wherever you sail. The water effects are quite good, and a touch of physics is added to the mix.
Missions mostly fall into the mould of fetch quests, capturing or destroying other vessels, and raiding colonies. Occasionally one will come across the sirens, which reside in the middle of a rotating sea fortress that must be battered down to reach the centre and a reward.
Players will be accepting missions from three factions – Pirates, Buccaneers, and Corsairs – with the story culminating in a confrontation with the dreaded Pirates of Black Cove on and around their secret island hideout.
The ship-to-ship combat is a pleasure to engage with, although it is not a particularly deep experience. Simply line up your ship’s cannons with the enemy and blast away until they sink, claiming the floating booty left behind. Repair kits must be carried to keep one in the game, as ships take damage and become less manoeuvrable.
Crashing into enemies or rocky reefs does absolutely nothing, a necessary concession I suppose, otherwise the game would have become immensely more difficult. True to its casual nature, wind speed and direction, and things such as amount of ammo and number crew aren’t even a consideration. Depending on the player’s ship, certain (simple) tactical elements come into play, as the cannon range and special weapon type will differ between vessels.
The fun special weapons on offer include the likes of a slowing harpoon, a catapult that flings a pirate onto the enemy vessel in an attempt to capture it, a powerful large cannon shot, and homing missiles to catch particularly wily foes.
The isometric view does make it difficult to gauge distances for special weapon attacks, and ships with cannons that fire particularly far are hindered by a camera that cannot zoom out far enough. Being able to zoom out further would also have been a nice way to navigate the seas and soak in the scenery.
Sea-battles are good fun, with nice visual and audio effects. Sails shred, smoke plumes from burning ships, masts creak and crack, cannon balls blast off in all directions leaving clouds of powder smoke, and debris litters the sea.
Unfortunately, the sea-faring side of the game does suffer from some humdrum pacing, especially in the early stages of the game while using the beginner ship. It takes quite a while to sail between objectives, which are of course placed a good distance from the starting stronghold.
Weight anchor!
Hitting the shores, players will gradually gain access to faction strongholds where they can construct buildings at which various types pirate crew can be hired for the land combat missions. While the towns and colonies are quite interesting to look around, they also quickly become tedious to navigate, expounded by abysmal AI pathing. I lost count of how many times my crew got stuck behind buildings and other objects in the middle of battle, or when simply trying to get from A to B. This might have been mitigated if the developers included a waypoint system so that the player could dictate how the units move around – sadly this is not present.
Combat consists mainly of swarming enemies until everything is dead, and tactics are barely a consideration. The land missions appear to be designed with the intent of having the player trek across most of the map to reach waypoints, presumably so they can soak in the admittedly nice scenery. This does however become tiresome rather quickly, when all you want to do is level up and make progress in the game, instead of repeating the same rehashed, tired missions again and again.
This is where to true curse of Black Cove rears its head – the game has a tendency to become boring. Whatever fun might have been had by sailing the seas and destroying passing ships is quickly diminished by the sloppy land-based portions of the game. Still, after having quit with frustrated boredom, I found myself willing to return for a bit more sea-faring action at a later point.
Where can a pirate with two wooden legs go? Not very faaaaaaaaarrrrr!
That about sums up the gameplay experience of Pirates of Black Cove. There isn’t much to it other than sailing around, destroying ships, pillaging coastal towns, buying a more powerful ship, and repeating ad nauseam.
One final note on the musical score. It’s suitably piractical in nature, but quickly becomes repetitive and annoying. After the first few hours of play I substituted the game’s soundtrack for the score from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies – this was a vast improvement and I dare say it lent a bit of longevity and a feeling of epic pirate-ness to the game, which it was initially lacking. Of course I can’t blame Nitro Games for not being able to afford Hans Zimmer to score their game… or can I?
The game is also plagued by a number of bugs, many of which have been patched out by the time of this review publication. Still, some remain, including my apparent constant battle with video and audio settings that will not remain as I set them between game sessions. The physics system also goes haywire on accasion, and despite the mammoth patches, the game is still victim of random slow-downs and lag for no apparent reason.
If you can stomach the blandness of the gameplay and simply want a casual pirating experience for the current launch price of US$20 (±R150), Pirates of Black Cove might just temporarily caulk that pirate game hole that has formed in the hull of PC gaming.
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