One of the best games I've ever played.
Play a pirate to its highest potential in Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales. Sail through the Caribbean on a massive War Galleon or a sleek Sloop. Either way you can master the high seas in this fantastic game. Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales starts you off in 1640's just when the pirates were becoming infamous. You begin just as any pirate... with a small crew working for "king and country" or for merchants. You are first given a mysterious piece of a map from your father, which is up to you to find out what its meaning is. The game is totally up to you how it goes. Some of the best features of the game are the graphics and sound, the story (or the lack thereof), and the gameplay.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics in this game are beautiful! The scenes are so real and serene at times you forget that you're supposed to be sailing a ship. The graphics surprised me when I first played the game and they still are. The rich colors that have been used in the game give that extra perk in my book. The sounds are just as cool though maybe not as real as the graphics, though I've never heard a real cannon fire. While playing in a battle or just sailing around you can watch the action up close in 1st person or in the 3rd. Either way the graphics are just marvelous. With chips of wood flying when hit, water rippling from sailing, or explosions from cannons the graphics and sound are so full filling. STORY
The story in a game like this can be time consuming and boring so the open ended story line is just what this game needs. If the story is what you're wanting in this game then don't bother purchasing this game instead buy Sid Meier's Pirates game. This game focuses on the life of a pirate not the story of one pirate. Being a pirate of your own name is what this is more about. Sailing here and there taking whatever you want is this games focus. Of course in a game with open ends you always suffer some type of consequence for your action so this game is no exception. Beware of your enemies is all I have to say.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay in this game is great in the sense that the battles are amazing and the trading is good and the overall play is genuinely good and true to an that era. I thought that I would only be doing sea battles with cannons much like Sid Meier's Pirates but I was very wrong. This game puts more detail in a sea battle. In harder difficulties you have to sail in a battle in real time meaning you must sail from this ship to that ship in the time it would require a actual ship of the day (only in battle mode of course). The beauty of this game is you actual could take the actual 3 days to sail to an island, but I wouldn't suggest it. The battles are very straight forward for the most part but I would warn any one trying to take a colony to make sure you have multiple ships at your disposal. Overall the gameplay is a little hard to get the hang of but once mastered it’s a breeze.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales is a game for those who thought Sid Meier's Pirates was too easy and simple. This game requires some tactics in battles especially in higher difficulties. The game so far has been a wonderful breather from games like World of Warcraft. I have thoroughly enjoyed this game and I'm very glad to have bought it despite what others have written. The game runs very smoothly for me and is very beautiful as I have already mentioned before. The one problem I have with it is it does crash from time to time. With that said I hope for patches in the near future, in the mean time save as much as possible while playing. It’s unfortunate that the game was rushed into stores without being properly fined tuned for the US market. Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales is an awesome game to play and I plan to continue to play it for quite some time. Go out and have fun!