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Pirates of the Caribbean

Disney brings us an eye candy pirate game named Pirates of the Caribbean: Masters of the Seas. First of all, this is a game about economics so for those who are looking for action, cannon shooting and sword fighting, you might want to go search somewhere else. You begin with an entry level ship at your command and it is up to you to upgrade your stats, hire a crew, undertake quests and battle other players along the way. The graphics are very nice, the soundtrack is also pretty good (although there are no songs from the movie). However, there are a few shortcomings too.

Game mechanics

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Let’s start off by explaining explaining exactly how the game works. You have a ship which has an attack rating, a defense rating, a crew and a couple of items (canons, amulets, weapons, etc.). You can carry any number of items, but the ones equipped are limited by your crew. Some quests require certain items, crew count and experience level. There are 2 stats that regenerate in time and allow you to take quests and battle enemy ships, namely energy and stamina. So where do quests come from?

There are 22 islands in a beautiful 3D sea. You will be given access to them as you advance through the game. Each island has a bunch of unique quests that will require energy points and will provide you with experience and gold. There are also houses that can be bought and which will generate money/gems periodically.

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And as you might have guessed it, there are two currencies in the game: gold and gems. Of course, you can buy gems and have a smooth sailing through the rest of the game or you can stay with the gold and take the long way.

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What’s wrong?

The entire game economics are stored online. So no internet, no game. This prevents cheating, but also greatly slows down the game. Almost all the actions (such as attacking ships, repairing, go on a quest, buy an item, etc.) have lag because all the requests must pass through the online servers. You lose the connection for a second or you turn your screen off? Must wait for the whole application to load itself again. And the animation for the ship repair is ridiculously long. Seriously.

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Another thing that seems to have been implemented is to save your progress and continue on another device. I managed to get to the settings page and verify my email address. Then off to the iPad to log in and continue but got a standard busy server, come back later error.

For some reason I kept getting annoying notifications although my settings clearly stated no notifications. I hope this was just a glitch on my device and the app doesn’t have notifications all day.

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Conclusion

An above average game in terms of gameplay. A great game in terms of graphics and music. A below average game in terms of quality assurance. The loading times are very irritating when you delve deeper into the game and just want to get the quest/battle/purchase done ASAP.

If you are a Pirates of the Caribbean fan and like to manage money, items and pirates then you should try this one out.

Summary

QR Code qrcode
Reviewed Version 1.4.1
Device used for testing HTC Nexus One
Price Free
Size 32 MB (plus even more for the
Advertising No
Developer Disney

Other resources

If there is something we missed or you would like other opinions about this app, be sure to check out some of the links below.

Published on: 15 July 2012
Tags: disney economic games

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