![]() If an enemy attacks, you’ll need your trusty flintlock pistol. Except here one of you can just whip out an accordion and play tunelessly along to cut the tension. In some ways, the running and fighting moments feel a little like Left 4 Dead, with a densely clustered groups of players working together to spot loot and see off enemies. The mannered visual style makes for a simple yet colourful environment – it’s not the most picturesque game, but again, the fun and immersion is made by just being with people and exploring together – if it’s dark you’ll need one person to carry a lantern, but then if skeletons rise from the sand and attack, you’ll need someone with a cutlass or flintlock pistol (all accessible from the item menu). You can wander about, sloping along the beaches or venturing inland to caves, jungles and steep cliffs. ![]() Once again, navigation is via a map that only gives you basic information about the area, complete with red X marks to show the whereabouts of treasure. If that happens, a mermaid appears in the water nearby, offering to take you to a new boat, so you’re not stranded forever. We anchored way too close to the island we visited, and then swam to the beach just in time to see our boat sink into the brine. When you reach an island, you need to drop the anchor then swim ashore, being careful to ensure that the ship is a safe distance from land – and the sharp rocks that surround it. It’s daft and pointless, but once you’ve watched a pirate being chased around his own ship by a marauding group of squeeze box enthusiasts, you’ll wonder how games have survived for so long without this feature. When you’re not helping to steer or navigate, you can just wander about, perhaps using the items menu on the left bumper to select your accordion for a quick sea shanty, pressing the right trigger to belt out a song. Your boat also has two rows of cannons for ship-to-ship combat, and you’ll find barrels of bananas (for health) and grog (for the opposite of health). ![]() To navigate to an island players must use the large world map in the upper deck, and shout out directions, but there is no live marker on the map displaying your boat’s position – instead, you need to use landmarks and a compass to navigate, accentuating the need for close co-operation and also making the art of finding your way around feel more authentic. This is a game about talking and sharing tasks. ![]() It’s a clever feature, revealing how closely the game has been designed with streaming in mind (throughout the development process, Rare invited dozens of YouTubers and streamers to their offices to test the game and suggest alterations). According to the game’s producer Joe Neate, this element was designed with Twitch/Mixer streams in mind, allowing viewers to get involved in the riddle-solving fun via the live chat window. A menu brought up on the right bumper button shows your current treasure maps, as well as riddles – fiendish puzzle adventures which require you to decode a short verse in order to locate a hidden stash of goodies. Using headphones to chat, you work out everything together, and need to collaborate closely to get moving. While aboard the ship, players can freely wander the deck and below deck areas, but if you want to get anywhere, someone has to raise the sails, someone else must navigate and another player must steer. A half-hour hands-on demo at Microsoft’s pre-E3 showcase provided a very short glimpse of co-operative pirating, but it was a hugely entertainment ride.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |