As said in the game itself, this byproduct of human activity barely floats on the surface...
Come on people, its a topic that has romance, history, violence, everything necessary for a hit. And then, Akela enters the picture, with its two creations, Age of Pirates and Age Of Pirates 2: COS.
Well, I guess I don't have to say anything about the first iteration of Age of Pirates, we all know what a disaster that was. Unplayable, bug-ridden piece of software, that should have never seen a release date. Still, the graphics engine showed promise, the sea looked awesome, it was all there, just not quite!
So, naturally, I expected Playlogic / Akela to iron out the bugs, add a decent storyline, simplify the convoluted controls, generally make a playable game. And then, the disapointment.
The bugs that were present in the first of the series, are mostly still there. Graphics engine crashes, quests are failed by default, because the dialogue that would lead to completion is broken or completely missing and so on. During my 20 or so hours of play, I had to reinstall at least three times, because the game would just stop working.
Controls have gone from bad to much worse. Try trading with a vessel. It was a simple task of "Sail to" and pick the trading option. Now, launch a boat, go to the ship in question, search for the captain (who has absolutely nothing on him to make him stand out) only to find out that he has no space for your merchandise. I agree, it does add a small amount of realism to the whole affair, but after a few attempts like this, it gets old really fast.
The highpoint of the whole affair was the one night stand my character had with a bar maid. After some wooing in the dialogue, the bar maid agreed to meet me in my room. And then, a big red CENSORED sign appeared on the screen, while in the background there were the sounds of the associated activity, taken from some cheap adult flick. There and then, I decided that the developers of this game should walk the plank.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude, but this was something I considered to be of extreme bad taste.
All in all, it is a disapointment. Bugs abound, controls are awful, bad taste in development. Another issue, is the total lack of task switching support, which is badly needed in a game where everything just takes such a long time to do. A simple Alt-Tab, something we take for granted in most other games is more than enough to sink this one. Just like the first one, this too is better off in Davy Jones locker that on our hard drives.