PIRATE HUNTER

Genre: Strategy
Publisher: Encore
Developer: Ascaron
Release Date: November 3, 2003

Buy 'PIRATE HUNTER': PC

It's hard to throw a rock and not hit a pirate game these days. It seems the one-eyed bandits are as hip as Eminem. I have no problem with that as long as the games are good, which most are not. Luckily there's one game that can hold its head high and bellow "Arr matey!" with some pride. Pirate Hunter is that game. It's a simple adventure but its simplicity can be quite addictive.

In Pirate Hunter you play a pirate hunter who acts a lot like a pirate. Go figure. The game's dynamics are established when you ally with one of four nations, England, France, Spain or Holland. By allying with one, you can take assignments from governors from that country around the Caribbean and slowly build a reputation as well as your fleet. But allying with one nation also means the other nations' ships will not take kindly to crossing paths with you as the game progresses, especially if the nations are at war. The high seas are not a friendly place with bickering bucs and pirates all over the place.

Pirate Hunter has 16 scenarios with four historical periods to play in. Maneuvering your ship in the birds-eye-view screen is a piece of cake. Just right-click on where you want to go. The high seas are busy so, from time to time, you'll cross paths with a ship in the busy ports. When you do you have the option of moving on or asking your fellow seamen for news. It's a nice touch that gives you a sense of a larger world. You'll hear about wars between nations, ports that require goods, and warnings about pirates.

Fundamentally, Pirate Hunter is a very basic war/trade game. It gives the player a sense of an open world by providing a good number of wealth and fleet-building options. First, you can trade. Each port in the Caribbean has its own specialties and needs (represented in tiny icons over the port on the navigation map) and you can fill those needs by tracking down goods around the region. Once in port you can buy or trade food and booze (great for morale!), repair or sell your ship after a nasty battle, get assignments from the town's governor and even gamble your fortune away with a game of dice. The dice mini-game is deceptively addictive. It's no more complex than your standard Sevens game but when you are playing with money that you need to keep your finely tuned operation humming the gambling feels like real gambling. The assignments you get start out as errand boy adventures but soon enough you'll be asked to sack towns -- another way to gain experience, wealth and reputation.

Along with trade, there's always the war option to build your wealth. As far as battles are concerned, you can go to head to head with other ships or you can sack towns from just off the coast. Battle on the high seas is also a simple endeavor with three kinds of attacks - hull, sails or crew. If you take out the hull you sink the ship. If you take out the crew you can board, while eliminating the sail makes the ship a sitting duck. There's a certain amount of strategy involved in the battles which is appreciated. Taking a ship means you can add it to your fleet (though you'll never control more than one ship at a time) and a healthy fleet is the key to a good, long game. The battles themselves are just a matter of positioning yourself so your guns are pointed at the enemy. You can take advantage of your speed or the strength of your ships hull as well as the prevailing winds to gain advantage.

As you build a reputation you'll make enemies and some ports will become hostile, cutting them off as a trade route. But that's okay. You can always take the town out and loot it! Sacking a town can be a little more difficult as their defenses vary and get tougher as the game goes on. I found it a little odd to be a single ship taking out a huge town but I can see why controlling multiple ships would have given the game's battle controls a tough time. Once you finish off the final cannon tower the town is all yours for the looting. All in the name of country, of course.

Once you get a grasp of the basics the game is a wide open experience. This is the primary reason I enjoyed myself. You can just wander around and trade, battle or jump into a mission. The missions you're asked to carry out have a good amount of variety including spying, taking out a specific pirate or establishing bloackades. But finishing the task is not required so if you get sidetracked it's no big deal. You need to keep an eye on crew morale by keeping them fed and getting in a good scrap once in awhile. Eventually you'll have to share your fortune and recruit new crew members just to keep things fresh.

Though the AI is a little weak during battle there's enough of a challenge to keep you clicking. Using the wind as your guide you need to find the best way to maneuver your craft so that you can get the ideal shot, depending on your strategy. One complaint I have about the general navigation is that the path-finding of your ship is weak. You have to micromanage your ship to get around the islands since your ship will easily get stuck on a coast somewhere.

The game's overall presentation is really well done. While the game graphics are bland the production value of the port graphics, music and historical accuracy are much appreciated. For instance you get a run-down on the types of ships available to you in the game (14 in all). The presentation of these ships is good enough for you to keep playing in hopes you can have a shot at owning one of those beauties. The characters you come across are well-written and amusing. And the interface is clean enough to not get in the way, always a huge plus.

Pirate Hunter is a mainstream game. The battle graphics are plain vanilla and could have been much better without too much effort. PH also lacks the depth to call it a great game. Everything from trading to battles is straight-forward and streamlined. However, there are enough simple elements gathered together into the game that you can get hours of enjoyment out of it. In other words, anyone can pick it up and just start playing. And for that reason I can heartily recommend this as a great holiday gift for the pirate-loving newbie gamer.

Score : 8.0/10