User Reviews (1 - 11 of 48)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Sneak preview...shh...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 11
Date: June 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It seems like I'm the first person to get my hands on this wonderful game. I won't go into a lot of detail for obvious security reasons, but I will say this game is EXCELLENT. It took me an hour or two to get used to the gameplay, but once I figured it out, the next 5 hours flew by. I was so upset when I had to give it back! Like I said, for security reasons I can't give any details about unreleased games, but I had to tell someone how awesome this game is!

Pirates of the Carribean

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The XBOX version of this game is completely unplayable. It freezes approximately every eight minutes. The manual is full of typos which indicate a rushed release. The game looks like it would be a fantastic RPG; but only if it worked. Hopefully the PC version is functional.

Do not under any circumstances purchase this from a source that you can't return it to.

needs work

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: July 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

the game is clearly unfinished. It is frustrating to play - just moving around is a chore. Moreover - game freezes quite often for a few seconds. Since it is for Xbox - there's nothing you can do about it.
The ideas for gameplay are great, as well as graphics, but - unless you are unhumanly patient - you will not be able to enjoy the game because of various holes in implementation.
I wish this game was recalled, fixed and re-released - because ideas are really great.
It is so strange that somebody in his righ mind would release game in this condition. $... dolars for unfinished game...

well worth $$ if your patient

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: July 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Okay, first let me say that i returned tomb raider AOD for this game, and i am amazingly happy about. it I would give this game a 4.5 if i could so i guess i will give it 5. The graphics are perfect. from the sail boats to the ports to the dungeons, they all look amazing. The ability to fire cannons at another ship, and they board it is amazing. the controls. between ship and person is eazy, one isnt lacking over the other. Both are well thought out. The fact that i died so much is either do to the fact that [I'm bad] or the game is hard. i will choose the latter. You might think [I'm bad] but try to escape the storm without running away. When you have two pirate boats firing at you, now that is fun, especially when you sink one and the other is running from you. Now the complaints. a little fawly collision detection but nothing major. like walking through people you just cut apart. and not that much, but it is there. controls are a bit annoying. for some reason you cant look 360 without moving your character only up or down. but you can do it with the boat. The convo windows could of added a back option on some parts. And this last piece mayb not be a complaint, just my generall thought. pirates and gold and everything is generaly random, you can go to a spot and find a diamond, then die and go to the same spot and find gold. inside houses are like that two. pirates generally move ambush you in packs of 3 to 6 and they are all better than you. and your single shot pistol, reloads way to slow when there is six blades coming your way. you will die in this game, alot. a real alot. so be sure to save. Have patience, i first i was about to return but i just spent 6 hours playing a game without turning it off. i havent done that since playing the original RE for the first time on ps1. have patience, grasshopper, and when you find you love it, tell your signifact other to have patience, because you will never see them again. unless there is a blackout.

This is not that RPG you've been waiting for...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: July 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Wow, this game has problems. They needed another six months in testing on this one. The big problem is how choppy and headache-inducing the camera is. It is simply way to big a problem to be overlooked. Walking through a town and talking to people will make you cross your eyes in frustration. There is a two-second delay to the buttons you push trying to interact with people, so they walk away while you are attempting to engage them. Going into and out of doors is a real hassle and there are long load times everywhere you turn.
Don't these game designers realize that we have all played Halo?
Popping out of the game experience to a 30 second load screen everytime you take ten steps just WILL NOT FLY.
The animations are bad, the sword-fighting is a lot of bad things but mostly it's just not fun.
In fact, that sums up the whole game-- NOT FUN.

Pretty darn good.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
Graphics - INCREDIBLE. Jaw-dropping water effects, gorgeously rendered sailing ships, beautiful land environments. The characters are also well rendered, although they could use a little more diversity.

Sound - Despite a few bugs (see Cons), the ambient sounds are great. Marketplaces sound like marketplaces; taverns sound like taverns; jungles sound like jungles. The music, although a little repetitive, is well matched to the subject matter.

Character advancement - Familiar RPG-type experience-points-based leveling up, but with the added incentive of a new special ability (chosen from a list of 30 or so) available to you each time you gain a new level. Your officers share in your XP boons and level up themselves, so you can tailor your staff into a well honed fighting (or commerce) machine.

Fun factor - C'mon! You're a privateer, or a merchant, or a pirate! You get to sail around and get into battles, and drink and dice in taverns, and visit gorgeous tropical cities from four hundred years ago! How could that NOT be fun?

Free movie ticket - Included in the package is a voucher for a ticket to the movie version of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Neutrals:
AI - NPCs are often breathtakingly dumb (e.g., your officers will follow you up narrow staircases with locked doors at the end, and will not move out of the way when you turn around and head back down), but sometimes pretty good, which means it's head-and-shoulders above many other AIs out there. Still pretty annoying when you provide all your officers with pistols, and they only want to use their swords.

Plot - I haven't played the game all the way through yet (or maybe even a quarter of the way--who knows?), so I can't say for sure on this one, but so far the plot is rather ho-hum. There are flashes of something more exciting (and I've run across the Black Pearl ghost ship twice, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the Disney-tie-in portion of the plot) but so far it's involved a lot of errand-running for various governors. In comparison with the compelling "You-are-the-messiah" plotline of Bethesda's *Morrowind,* a search for a golden idol that unlocks a palace somewhere is less thrilling.

Combat - A little too oversimplified, and it's often hard to tell, in a big melee, which guys you're supposed to be attacking and which are supposed to be helping you. But better than many other roleplay combat systems nonetheless.

Cons:
Character lock - Every now and again, the game decides that you need to relinquish control of your character, so an NPC can catch up to you and either talk to you or beat you up. When authorities catch you smuggling, for example, your character finishes the transaction, and then just stands there for the next twenty seconds to give the various soldiers and police-types time to surround you thoroughly. Frankly, if I were a 17th century ship captain and were about to be arrested and/or attacked, I'd make a run for my dinghy and get the heck out of Dodge.

Bugs - These range from the minor (characters with mismatched vocal tracks) to the truly annoying (locking your character in place to await an "event" that never occurs). Fortunately, in the case of the latter, the load and save times are relatively quick (~5 seconds for a save, ~20 seconds to load).

Gameplay - Only in comparison with the incredibly open-ended Morrowind is this a con, but since I was hoping for more of that type of gameplay, I've got to list this here. The plot has a tendency to shoehorn you into specific sequences of actions, often placing your ship in battles it's not yet equipped to fight. Maybe I'm just not very good at the game yet, but I'm not enjoying having to do three minutes of sailing, after which my ship gets destroyed half the time and my character gets killed during boarding the other half, over and over and over again. Adding to this, the save feature is unavailable in the main sailing mode. I find this kind of do-it-over-and-over-til-you-manage-to-get-it-right gameplay to be kind of boring, and it's the kind of thing I play games like Morrowind to avoid.

Control scheme - Slightly wonky, and uneditable. This made the already pretty steep learning curve nearly frustrating enough for me to give up early on. I eventually got used to it, but, Bethesda, being able to un-invert the look-stick would sure be nice for those of us who don't use flight simulators all the time.

Quest book - The game relies too much on your journal in some spots, and doesn't put all the relevant information into it in others.

Overall:
Despite the flaws, this game is far better than the average hack-n-slash roleplaying game. While it's hard for anything to equal the depth and playability of Morrowind, Pirates of the Caribbean is still the best X-Box game this year.

Now, if only the movie promised to be anywhere near as good...

Great Pirate Game, But You must be patient!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has the best water effects I've seen (Yes better than Morrowind)! The waves swell and recede on the shorelines and sharks even swim around while you battle on the wavy seas. The sunsets and storms are awesome to behold. Moonlight reflests off the waves at night! Towns are also done very well and each town is looks different. You will have to be patient in order to build up your money and fleet, but it is well worth the effort. Exploring is the key to finding better weapons and treasures to sell for gold. The will let you go anywhere, but that doesnt mean you will survive! I fought my way through a skeletion infested cave and found a nice 4 barrel pistal, but could not fight my way back at this time. Saving is very important in this game, because you will die often at first, but it gets better. There is a main storyline to follow, but you follow as you want. You can borrow money from loan sharks (for a 3% fee of course) or you can loan them money (for a nice little 3% commision) too. To build your reputation you will have to complete quests and deliveries. When traveling on land you will see seagulls, butterflies, lizards, undead monkeys, bandits, waterfalls, beaches, undead skeletons, sweaying grass, trees, ,bushes, and shrubs. At first I wanted to hate this game when I keep dying, but once I got the hang of fighting and battling on the open seas I grown to love this game and cant stop playing (Which Its time to free myself from the English prison so I can sink some pirates matey :-)

Sorry I got the Xbox version

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Found number of problems. Won't mention some already discussed in other reviews. But had problems where character all of a sudden put his sword away and would not take it out unless I could make it to a new scene that seem to reset and let me use the sword again. Also had problems with mate in first town Oxbay. Took mate into underwater cave, but when I tried to leave he would ont follow. Had to go back into the city and the mate reappeared. This game needs to fixed and re-released.

It gets better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have to admit that there are some porblems with the game, but almost all problems are resolved after an hour of game play. After that the game can access the xbox's cache system and this speeds up gameplay. The graphics are amazing though and the sea part of the game is breathtaking. Those of you looking for Morrowind II are going to have to wait becuase you will probably be disappointed. This game is not like Morrowind in any way. Really. It is still a great game and once you get a handle on the controls it plays great. It is not as deep as Morrowind, but it is still open ended and you can play it forever. If you like pirates and ships and all that stuff you will love this game and it is a solid RPG. I would recommend it to anyone, but at the same time this game is not for everyone.

Graphics 10/10
Gameplay 8/10
Learning curve about two hours
Fun factor 9/10
Overall 8.5/10

POTC = Prone Often To Crash

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 39 / 42
Date: July 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If this game was stable, it would easily be 5 stars. The fun of boarding ships and swordfighting is great. The graphics, especially sailing at night, are stunning.

But... the game has major bugs. First, you should spend your first 45 minutes or so simply walking around so the game can cache all of its textures. Otherwise, you will have frequent pauses/stutters.

Second, it's unfinished. There are many typos, and errors in character and place names. Some areas of the game appear to be permanently closed, though it seems obvious that *something* was supposed to go there. (There are several places where large piles of rocks block your way to what appears to be more areas.)

Third, it crashes. A lot. Especially as you get higher up in the game. Every time you board a ship, there is a chance of it freezing your Xbox. Every time you land at a port (especially if you have captured other ships) there is a chance of a lock-up. It seems like the larger your ship is, the more likely the game is to crash.

Fourth, it crashes even more... if you try to save your game, it might crash, especially if it has gotten "confused" about whether or not you have completed your current quest. Something also causes "Bad Save" to appear somewhat frequently above your existing games. We even got a "Cannot load U:\0000000" error at one point.

To try to fix it, we erased the entire game from our Xbox dashboard, loaded several other games (to clear the Xbox cache), then started Pirates of the Caribbean again. As recommended on their website, we completed the whole tutorial... every single step. We know it was re-caching because disk activity and stuttering were pretty constant. It didn't crash again until we were able to upgrade to a Galleon... at about character level twelve. Since then it has been pretty crashy still, but the thing is so addictive that you just deal with it and re-play what you just played. Over and over.

No doubt the programmers are disturbed, even hurt by all this. The thing is 95% complete, but that last 5% is so bad that it makes the game half of what it could be.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 

Actions