In Pirates, you assume the role of Katarina who's forced to take command of her ship the Wind Dancer, after her father's death. She sets out on a quest to assemble all the pieces of the mystical Chartstone, which her mother once owned, and exact her revenge on her father's killer the infamous Captain Hawke.

Take everything you know about pirates, add a healthy dose of fantasy, and place it all in an arcade style game engine and you have the recipe for Pirates. Gameplay comes in two distinct flavors, marine combat and land exploration. Levels are broken up into a series of island chains that you explore in a somewhat non-linear order. There are several islands that make up a region. You always have the choice of exploring them in any order you choose. However, you almost always have to explore them all before finding the Chartstone piece to unlock a new region.

When you select an island to explore from the overhead map you are transported close to it in the Wind Dancer. Your first goal upon entering an area is secure the shoreline. This requires combat with enemy ships, as well as water to land combat to seize enemy ports. Sea combat is an arcade style affair, with emphasis on using your firepower effectively. By pressing the fire button repeatedly each of your cannons will fire in succession. Maneuvering your ship broadside to the enemy allows the maximum amount of cannons to have a clear line to the target. Battles quickly become a game of positioning, especially when fighting more than one enemy at time. Damage to your ship is displayed in real-time. As you get attacked your sail masts will break, fires will burn, and you'll start taking on water. You will acquire many different items to repair or to attack in combat. The weapons range from fireballs and stink bombs to the more bizarre like harnessing the power of lightning or ice.

Once the waters are safe, it's time to explore the land. Katarina may be an attractive women, but don't let that hide the fact that she's one skilled fighter. Kat yields a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. She can perform a multi-hit combo with consecutive presses of the attack button. You can also use your blades to block oncoming attacks. Hand to hand battle is the typical block, counterattack, and repeat you have played so many times before. Thankfully there are a whole lot of power-up items to offer variety to your fighting arsenal. Kat will find throwing daggers, explosives, magical tikis, poison darts, and even voodoo dolls. The sheer number of different weapons is quite impressive. Even better, the developers have done a great job of presenting them to the player progressively. Even deep into the game you will still discover new weapons.

Of course, the real goal of every pirate is to collect as much treasure as humanly possible. Katarina has the rather strange ability of being able to smell buried treasure. This is translated to the player using force feedback. When you feel the rumbling, make sure you dig in order to find the hidden goods. Yeah it's pretty strange, but it's all in good fun. The loot you find is used at island ports to upgrade to bigger and better ships, capable of being armed with larger number of cannons.

Each island chain has a different theme. You guessed it; the typical ice, jungle, and fire worlds are present once again. Somewhere in each chain there is a boss who not surprisingly is in possession of the Chartstone piece you are looking for. It's a tried and true formula; fortunately the developers have gone to great lengths to assure it doesn't feel stale. First off, there are many different enemies that you'll encounter. Each of them has a different weakness that must to be exploited in order to beat them consistently without taking damage. You'll fight pirates, skeletons, ice breathing wolves, fire mutated frogs, huge gorillas and everything in between. Pirates also features some truly inventive and unique boss fights. The bosses are all very colorfully designed and really are a breath of fresh air. I commend the design team for providing some unique and memorable boss encounters, especially the fire monster, and the rather amazing finale.

Graphically the game is hit and miss. Characters, excluding the bosses, are all modeled rather simply and their animation can be a bit stiff. Environmental textures are mostly nice and clean, although you can see a distinct border as higher resolution textures are swapped in. The story is told through beautiful videos, made to look as if they were hand painted. Where the visuals really shine is in the water. The ocean is truly beautiful in this game. The way the sun and clouds reflect off the transparent water is a sight to be seen. Naval battles are magnificent to watch. Fire, smoke, and wood flies from damaged ships. Water explodes into huge splashes, which sends ripples in all directions. It really is an impressive sight.

Unfortunately the sound is not implemented with nearly the same effect. There is some nice music, which gives the game a grand adventurous soundtrack. The problem is that the music simply isn't played enough. Most of the time you are exploring the land there is no music to speak of. That leaves you with only the basic environmental sound effects to listen to, none of which are very impressive.

The Legend of Black Kat has some magnificent moments; it's too bad there is so much filler in between. I really believe this game is too long. A more streamlined version would better serve the design. The fighting and treasure hunting tends to get a bit repetitive after a while. You'll also realize after sinking the umpteenth ship that the naval combat offers little reward beyond replenishing the supplies you wasted in the battle.

It may not be the ultimate pirate game, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. The game lags at points, but the moments where it shines are worth waiting for. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Kat's adventures.

· · · PBMaX