Pirates of the Caribbean: Legend
of the Black Buccaneer is an adventure horror game set in the Caribbean in the
sixteenth century.
when The Da Vinci Code hit
theaters, there was suddenly an abundance of books like Cracking Da Vinci's
Code? Or how just as the 2005 Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise summer blockbuster
War of the Worlds was hitting theaters, we were also treated to the David Michael
Latt/C. Thomas Howell direct-to-video shelf-filler H.G. Wells' War of the
Worlds? Well, just in time to capitalize on the piratical fervor over Pirates
of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, budget publisher Valcon Games arrives with
Pirates: Legend of the Black Buccaneer, rewarding those looking for another
fun-filled summer romp with an action adventure game that teems with awkward
platforming mechanics, one-note combat, confusing level designs, and simplistic
puzzles.
Legend of the Black Buccaneer is the
Bolex watch of pirate games.
Through some needlessly
longwinded opening narration, you're told the tale of a
slave-turned-demon-goddess who lures greedy sailors to her island lair with the
promise of cursed treasure, which is how the game's protagonist, Francis Blade,
finds himself shipwrecked at the start of the game, on an island populated by
antagonistic monkeys, pirates, and other dastardly enemies. Almost immediately
upon his arrival, Blade discovers a fancy amulet that magically turns this
skinny European into some kind of hulking undead hoodoo spirit version of the
old WWE wrestler Papa Shango. This creature is known as the Black Buccaneer,
and with the ability to transform into this powerful, top hat wearing behemoth
at will, Blade works his way across the island, fighting monkeys, plundering
treasure, and collecting ship parts in order to get off this rotten island.
Once the premise is set, the game doesn't spend much time elaborating any further.
The action in Pirates: Legend of
the Black Buccaneer is a mish-mash of other recent, memorable action adventure
games like Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia, just not anywhere near as good as
in any of them. There's lots of leaping around jungles, caverns, and ancient
tombs. You'll encounter your fair share of puzzles that put the focus on
box-pushing and switch-flipping. The levels are liberally peppered with enemies
that you can take on with either your Francis Blade or Black Buccaneer
personas, both of whom wield a pair of swords that can be put into deadly use
by tapping at random on the square and triangle buttons. Playing as the Black
Buccaneer gives you added strength and the ability to restore your own health
by slaying enemies, but you can only play as him for a short while before
reverting back to Francis Blade. If your enemies threaten to overwhelm you, you
can summon a zombie at special zombie fountains to help turn the tide. In the
hands of a competent developer, all this could've made for a decent knock-off,
but WideScreen Games botches the job pretty thoroughly.
The platforming elements are the
most immediately frustrating, because they make up such a large portion of the
action. Simply jumping looks and feels incredibly awkward, as if your character
is weighed down with lead boots. However, when you're able to wrangle the
camera in order to line up with another platform, your character suddenly
springs to life, leaping much farther than he seems capable of. Damage taken
from falling off platforms seems arbitrary. Fall down one floor and you'll keep
on truckin' like nothing happened; fall down two floors and you'll be scraping
your mangled corpse off the floor. When simply moving your character around
feels like a chore, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the game.
The puzzles, which tie in to the
platforming elements, are less frustrating by virtue that they're all
brick-simple exercises. Still, you'll regularly come upon a box you can't yet
move or a switch you can't yet flip, requiring you to backtrack later on. It's
quite rare, even in a really good game, for backtracking to be fun, and here
it's a source of much frustration. The level designs are relatively small but
extremely dense, usually consisting of multiple floors and exits to other areas,
and it's quite easy to get turned around and lose sight of your next objective.
The simplistic map is of little help either, since it gives you no sense of
vertical space when most of the levels are often vertically oriented.
The game's presentation does
little to compensate for the tired, clunky gameplay in Pirates: Legend of the
Black Buccaneer. The animations are consistently stiff and unnatural looking,
and the character models are mostly just simple and bland, save for the Black
Buccaneer, who just looks ridiculous. The environments, which are consistently
small, are also coated with dreary, washed-out textures that trade mostly in
muddled earth tones. There are the occasional soft-glow effects and a black
halo wraps the screen when you play as the Black Buccaneer, but even when the
game isn't trying to show off with fancy effects, the frame rate is
inexplicably erratic. The sound design actually seems unfinished, with a lot of
repetitive or apparently absent sound effects.
From stem to stern, Pirates:
Legend of the Black Buccaneer is derivative and uninspired. It cribs
shamelessly from some of the best action adventure games of the past few years,
and in the process fumbles the execution of the elements that made games like
Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia so memorable. This game is banking almost
entirely on its flimsy word association with Pirates of the Caribbean, and has
nothing of worth to offer beyond that. Even the most steadfast enthusiasts of
piracy should avoid getting Shanghaied by this one.
SCREEN SHOTS
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Processor= 1.0GHz
RAM= 256MB
Video Memory= 64MB
PROVIDE PASSWORD IN CAPITAL LETTERS
