Pirates of the Burning Sea (PC)

Take one part Sid Meier's Pirates, one part High Seas Trader and one part Eve Online, and you end up with Flying Labs' new MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea.
2/1/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Pirates of the Burning Sea is in a lot of ways like a slightly simplified version of the MMO Eve Online, with wooden ships and iron men in the Caribbean Sea circa 1720 replacing would-be Han Solos zipping around the galaxy. This is just as much an economic game as it is about swashbuckling and letting loose with a round of grapeshot, and while it suffers from a lot of the usual growing pains of a new MMO, it's a refreshing spin on the genre, offering a multitude of ways to play, and let's be honest -- it's got pirates. That never hurts.

The game offers you the chance to play as a member of one of four rival nations: England, France, Spain or the "Pirate" nation. Four classes are included, as well: the Freetrader, who focuses on the economy and master shipbuilding; the Naval Officer, who is best commanding his ship at sea; the Privateer, who is basically a hired gun for a specific nation; and the jolly Pirate, which in this game is a mixed, jack-of-all-trades class with no national allegiance. It is also the only class that can capture ships at sea, then turn around and use them.

Combat is a crucial component of most MMOs, and Pirates of the Burning Sea performs admirably in most respects. Ship combat is thrilling, especially when playing as a member of a grouped fleet and against other players. The NPC ally and enemy artificial intelligence is sorely lacking, but when you toss a lot of humans into the mix, it gets tense -- and deadly. There are a lot of factors that go into ship combat: wind direction, ammo types, an individual ship's strengths and weaknesses, a captain's skill set (is he a great boarder or gunner, or is his forte maneuverability?) just to name a few. The time spent watching your guns slowly reload while your opponent has a clear line of sight to your already battered broadside is as tense as an MMO can get.

Sadly, the sword fighting isn't as polished -- it's a tad clunky and chaotic. The animations are sketchy, and it can be very difficult to get your bearings as the camera whirls in and out of position. This is only an issue during shipboard actions, as land combat isn't as hectic, but this is one of the weaker aspects of the game.

The quests are all private "instances" so there's never any fear of kill-stealing; each quest is launched at the port in which the quest was obtained. The quests are clearly defined and there isn't a "drop quest" in sight, and as a result it doesn't suffer from the boring grind typical of many games of this type.

It's when you hit the open sea that things start to get interesting and potentially frustrating. The Caribbean is peppered with over 70 ports, and you have to travel over open ocean to reach them. This is where the PvP (player vs. player) model kicks in. If you choose to play with your PvP flag turned off you will usually stay immune to player attacks unless you venture in to a marked Pirate PvP Hot Zone, which can open you up for attack from other players.

This is not a game for people that abhor PvP gameplay, because sometimes you are thrown into it whether you like it or not. If a port suffers from unrest or goes into contention, you can be attacked regardless of your PvP setting. This also leads to several high-level players blockading certain ports, waiting for unsuspecting players to leave and come under their attack. Because of this, it is crucial to check the map to see which ports are unstable.