My turn <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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Ive been playing AoP now for over 5 hours, and heres what i think.
this game is absolutley Wow! the best pirate game ive played to date.
Basicly, my impression is that they took the best of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the best of Sea Dogs, and mixed in a little spoon of Sid Meier's pirates!.
The boarding scenes are a good example, in Sea Dogs, we fought against the captain and won boardings, in Pirates of the Caribbean we fought against the enemy crew only. Age of Pirates combines all this, first you get to fight the crew, and then you are up for the final showdown with the enemy captain in his quarters.
The battles are very challenging, and the boarding decks well designed, i remember in PoTC there was a narrow set of stairs at boarding where you could go if you were outnumberd and kill the enemy crew one by one. But not here, if your crew are overwhelmed, your more or less finished if you have a large group of enemies standing.
The realism factor is also something very impressive, i like the fact that cannons can explode, just like in the real world cannons could explode in the guncrew's face due to a wide variety of reasons.
And finally, a game set in the caribbean, what more could i ask for? well, i could ask for the whole caribbean, it would be nice to be able to sail all the way to Cuba, Florida keys, Nassau and all the way down to Trinidad. One thing that pleased me but appearantly did not please others was the removal of the jungles. Age of Pirates goes back even more to focusing the action at sea.
The Graphics, very very very impressive, the ships in Pirates of the Caribbean totally sucked. but the Age of Pirate ships are just excellent, they really look like ships should from the era of the great age of sail, ive particularly taken a liking myself to the War galleon. What would have been nice thou is if there existed more skins for the different ships like in Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The upgrades on the other hand are a nice touch, not just functional but visual, if you buy coppar plating for the hull you see the copper plating. Still the game seems to use DirectX8 functions instead of DX9, wich is to bad really, full DirectX9 support would most likley improve performance as well as allow for some even more stunning visuals, Anti Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, HDR, Bumpmapping(yes the water is bumpmapped, but there could be more) Shaders 3.0 ect.
Bugs, well, they can be annoying from time to time, and i shure hope they get fixed, multiplayer in particular seems buggy, i tried a MP game and i lagged like hell even thou my ping was real low.
Sound, very good, some bugs thou but otherwise good, more ambient sounds at sea, you can really hear the wind blow and the hull timbers creak, very very nice.
Overall, Age of Pirates is a great game, but a bit buggy, i shure hope most of the bugs will be cleared up in the upcomming patch <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />Ive been playing AoP now for over 5 hours, and heres what i think.
this game is absolutley Wow! the best pirate game ive played to date.
Basicly, my impression is that they took the best of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the best of Sea Dogs, and mixed in a little spoon of Sid Meier's pirates!.
The boarding scenes are a good example, in Sea Dogs, we fought against the captain and won boardings, in Pirates of the Caribbean we fought against the enemy crew only. Age of Pirates combines all this, first you get to fight the crew, and then you are up for the final showdown with the enemy captain in his quarters.
The battles are very challenging, and the boarding decks well designed, i remember in PoTC there was a narrow set of stairs at boarding where you could go if you were outnumberd and kill the enemy crew one by one. But not here, if your crew are overwhelmed, your more or less finished if you have a large group of enemies standing.
The realism factor is also something very impressive, i like the fact that cannons can explode, just like in the real world cannons could explode in the guncrew's face due to a wide variety of reasons.
And finally, a game set in the caribbean, what more could i ask for? well, i could ask for the whole caribbean, it would be nice to be able to sail all the way to Cuba, Florida keys, Nassau and all the way down to Trinidad. One thing that pleased me but appearantly did not please others was the removal of the jungles. Age of Pirates goes back even more to focusing the action at sea.
The Graphics, very very very impressive, the ships in Pirates of the Caribbean totally sucked. but the Age of Pirate ships are just excellent, they really look like ships should from the era of the great age of sail, ive particularly taken a liking myself to the War galleon. What would have been nice thou is if there existed more skins for the different ships like in Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The upgrades on the other hand are a nice touch, not just functional but visual, if you buy coppar plating for the hull you see the copper plating. Still the game seems to use DirectX8 functions instead of DX9, wich is to bad really, full DirectX9 support would most likley improve performance as well as allow for some even more stunning visuals, Anti Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, HDR, Bumpmapping(yes the water is bumpmapped, but there could be more) Shaders 3.0 ect.
Bugs, well, they can be annoying from time to time, and i shure hope they get fixed, multiplayer in particular seems buggy, i tried a MP game and i lagged like hell even thou my ping was real low.
Sound, very good, some bugs thou but otherwise good, more ambient sounds at sea, you can really hear the wind blow and the hull timbers creak, very very nice.
Overall, Age of Pirates is a great game, but a bit buggy, i shure hope most of the bugs will be cleared up in the upcomming patch <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />