Captain Firebeard and the Bay of Crows
This pirate game (long title, can’t be bothered to write it all down) is a charming kinetic novel with a pac-man style minigame. They really should have just written that on the blurb instead but I understand that such a concise description isn’t great for marketing so you’ll have to get your gospel truths from me!
In my usual style I will rattle through my categories:
Story, Writing & Characters
The plot is interesting and has a splash of real history, which I like a lot. Too many times have I seen things set in the Golden Age of Piracy where certain elements are taken from completely different centuries and then smashed together into one, ignoring historical accuracy. I can tell that everything here is really well researched and correct. The writing was sharp, witty and period accurate. The characters feel realistic and consistent and you do feel that you are on an exciting adventure, which is essential in a pirate tale. I liked the jokes a lot, especially those surrounding the hapless captain and his unlucky crew. My favorite character was probably Lady Wendy; something about powerful, calculating women just does it for me… mmmm Teresa May…. I also enjoyed that a fellow Frenchman was shown as being a bad-ass pirate hunter! That was maybe the best bit for me! Vive La France!
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pirates Story Rich Games.
Captain Firebeard And The Bay Of Crows is an adventure visual novel both developed and published by Sapphire Dragon Productions. This title follows the adventures of the swashbuckling Captain Firebeard and his band of pirates as they attempt to pull off one of the biggest heists in all of history. Prepare to set sails for a thrilling escapade ripe with dangerous combat, dubious encounters and bountiful riches to be accquired as you attempt to make Captain Firebeard the king of all pirates…Blackbeard be darned!!!
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler
When I first backed Duke Grabowski on Kickstarter, it was after reading Bill Tiller’s response to questions about the game’s apparent focus on “seducing wenches,” which could (fairly) lead to the assumption that the game might put forward messaging that promoted the objectification of women and promotion of relationships as being extrinsically valuable rather than intrinsically valuable. I feel like it’s not uncommon to see “We’re doing it ironically,” as some sort of all-purpose foil for criticisms of objectionable content, but this message was slightly different, and talked about wanting to put a character in a situation where they were surrounded by these kinds of narratives and pressures and showing how that character could cultivate perspective and reject them.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pirates Story Rich Games.
Very funny and short classical point-and-click adventure game from the people who have brought us ‘The Curse of Monkey Island’.
Now, that was a masterpiece even if it was created without Ron Gilbert, but… most of the later works by Bill Tiller and Larry Ahern turned out to be, well, not so good. ‘A Vampyre Story’ and ‘Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island’, in spite of their similar humor and visual style, were not successful and, to tell the truth, rather boring.
Luckily, ‘Duke Grabowsky’ falls almost in the same league as ‘Monkey Island’! Something just like earlier Telltale projects, before they fired Dave Grossman and switched to gameplayless visual novels.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
HoD: On open seas
I know it’s less than a dollar, but this is an unfinished alpha that should be in Early Access or—since it’s been unfinished for 3 years now—delisted from the Steam Store.
There’s a lot of ambition and work here—far better than I could currently do on my own—but it’s tough to get though. I’m a huge pirate fan, so I’m constantly searching for good pirate games. This unfortunately isn’t one of them. Sadly, it could have been, if finished and polished.
3/10
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pirates Strategy Games.
Initially, I managed to play the first level of this game, and that was as far as I got before I received the message, “Unfortunately, this is how far you’ll get for now.. However, you are now a part of something that we believe in and we won’t stop until this game has reached it’s full potential. We are going to release a new chapter every Sunday”. I waited for a few weeks and went back to the game. I was able to get a tiny bit further on the next attempt but ran into another roadblock. I’ve done every quest, walked around every square foot of the game area, and I can’t find anyway to continue on. I was wiling to forgive the poor controls and bad user interface, but it’s extremely frustrating that the game is unfinished. Do not waste your time with this game. It has promise but not in it’s current state.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Uncharted Tides: Port Royal
I played Uncharted Tides: Port Royal on Windows. An enjoyable game with differing types of HOP’s and a reasonable storyline. The minigames were good at a decent difficulty level. I have played many many HOPA’s and though this isn’t up with Lost Lands, (understandably as that is a huge tale over many episodes,) it’s good in its own right. On first playthrough I missed one Achievement, Sea Shanty, (which i’m still at a loss as to how I missed it),
I didn’t use a walkthrough though there are ones available,
! https://www.bigfishgames.com/content/bf-blog/en/walkthroughs/uncharted-tides-port-royal.html#5 or video walkthroughs such as
! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcGn0er7GDM .
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
I got this game as part of a bundle. Decent hidden object puzzles. Most of the puzzles were intuitive and whenever it is not you can use hints which are infinite (casual difficulty).
The hints recharge fairly quickly and I never felt completely stuck with the puzzles.
Talking about the story, I found it to be… okayy. I didn’t like the game’s music in most places. It could have been a more piratey theme.
Characters don’t have any depth. For example, Jane’s father / Ben and all other characters are completely useless because they don’t help us in anyway. They merely command us to do something because they are unable to do it. But at the end Ben gets thanked which was odd.
– Real player with 10.1 hrs in game
Space Pirate Trainer
I Cant get enough of this game, No matter what I play for vr I always come back to this game. However I have played this game enough to know its faults;
~ On hardcore mode at least I have noticed after wave 25 the game looses its coding on enemy fire. The droids will fire randomly without a warning sound, as well enemies that have died do not officially die, their firing script is still active, I have been shot by dozens of random lazers that had no drone attached to them and i had just killed them in the same location of the mystery shot.
– Real player with 267.1 hrs in game
As a Top 30 Global score holder, with 5 Top 10 scores, I have to say this is my FAVORITE VR game, hands down!
It’s got everything you could want as a single serving VR game to demo to friends and family, but it’s so incredibly deep with its weapon mechanics that you always have improvements to make.
I have a whole youtube series for this game!
I play this game so much and it’s been my absolute favorite game to try and master as well as to show off to VR newbies.
If you wanna learn how to get better at this game, check out my Way of the Laser series on Youtube, with new training runs every Thursday!
– Real player with 244.6 hrs in game
Tales of Monkey Island: Complete Season
I cannot really say 100% if this game was worth it or not. I’ve played all the other Monkey Islands in the past, and besides Monkey Island 4, I enjoyed all of them.
I will review this game from different points of view:
- CHARACTERS: Guybrush never gets boring, he is still able to make you laugh and give some funny commentaries on what is happening to him even if the situation seems hopeless. His wife Elaine is even more annoying than she ever was, and also this time she’s one of the main causes of Guybrush’s trouble. Le Chuck is seen for the first time as a human, and the Vodoo Lady has some nice corpse paint on her face. Even some old acquaintances have found their place in the game. There are a couple of good characters which worked well, like De Singe and Morgan, and the side characters also were well thought and hilarious (like the sailors belonging to De Cava’s troupe). All characters were well thought and well designed.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
**(Review for all five chapters)
A game made by new developers and released almost a decade after the previous episode. Many people thought that “Tales of Monkey Island” wouldn’t be an authentic “Monkey Island” experience. Indeed, some things have changed but this game couldn’t be a better fit for the series. Cool 3d aesthetics, fresh cinematic approach and a new fantastic story meet the well known, awesome humor, imaginative puzzles, beloved characters (along with their original voices) and iconic music. “Tales of Monkey Island” not only met the expectations, but it is also one of the best episodes of this thrilling series. What else do you need to join Guybrush to his new adventures?**
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
The classic of all classics.
It’s hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t played The Secret of Monkey Island or heard a name Guybrush Threepwood in adventure gaming. Following pirate wannabe on his quest to rescue governor Elaine Marley from the clutches of evil G.P. Le Chuck doesn’t get old even on the umpteenth re-play. Rediscovering old favorites became even easier with an ability to seamlessly switch from 1990s version to a remastered one in-game, at any moment it pleases you. Whether you prefer to look at updated visuals or nostalgically go through the original – you’re guaranteed hours of swashbuckling fun.
– Real player with 22.6 hrs in game
The Secret of Monkey Island is one of the finest games ever created. Impeccably designed, incredibly funny, wonderfully charming. While some areas have aged better than others, I still firmly believe that Ron Gilbert understood the adventure game genre better than anyone else.
I do have a few reservations about this Special Edition however - while I admire the effort put in to update all the art assets, the new style leaves a lot to be desired. It’s reminiscient of the art direction from the Curse of Monkey Island onwards, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but I don’t think it works as well for this game. After Ron Gilbert ceased to be the lead on the series, it took a slightly different approach, which warranted a cartoony style.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
Unearned Bounty
This is a fun multiplayer game, with fast paced battles/matches. The game has so far perfomed well on my resource-humble pc, with no lag/latency/BS emcountered except in one game only! props!
So far this ombination of simple, fun, fast paced action with the ease of picking up matches is what keeps me playing,
Notes:
- matchmaking: I tried the matchmaking option once, which was also the last time. That was the firt time I played. The timer kept going but I was not connected to any match.
SInce then, I’ve used the custom game option. Custom game presents me with 1 to 4 rooms, along with the player count in each. occasionally I will have to wait 1 to 3 mins ad refresh the list of custom games
– Real player with 32.3 hrs in game
This game shows some real promise. At the moment there are a few bugs and not alot of content but the devs seem active and if they can flesh out the objectives in the battle then this could become a really great moba ship brawler. If they can add cross play PS4 / X360 to help with the population then thatd be even better!
Matchmaking has a few issues at the moment, becasue it’s currently based in NA you may not have the best ping, you can get a group of mates together and host a server though if you want to play on local ping, join the Discord too, it’s slowly starting to grow!
– Real player with 14.6 hrs in game
Escape from Monkey Island™
They tried to take the pointing & clicking out of a point ‘n click…
Wew this is easily the worst Monkey Island. Which saddens me as it is the only one I played as a kid so I’m pretty nostalgic for it.
The game does not use the mouse at all despite being a point ‘n click..the way the controls work is you control Guybrush with the arrow keys by turning left & right & pressing up to walk forward, Resident Evil style. Instead of highlighting items it shows three options on screen you can select with Page Up/Down depending on Guybrush’s view, so you will have to wrestle with the horrible movement to try and get him to look at whatever thing you want.
– Real player with 18.7 hrs in game
This game has certainly received a lot of negativity which i feel in many areas is highly warranted. Indeed the controls them self were so awkward compared to previous titles, that I was tempted to fall into the same camp as many before me and write this game off as the miss that sank the series. However persevere and you can uncover a rough gemstone of a game that has stepped its problem solving dilemma’s back up to a standard on par with the best of the series.
Pro’s
- Maintains theme and humour of previous games.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD
Alistair Beckett King is a delight to the senses and an artist of experiences. Excellent comedy styles of wit, word play and niche novelty soaks through into the games humor and cleverness. Excellent point and click, good difficulty level without feeling lead by the nose or frustrated with clues. I love the characters which you get a feel from first interaction - concise and memorable. I loved Nelly Cootalot The Fowl Fleet so much I got it on PC and Android - so when I heard this was coming to Steam it was immediately on my wishlist and thoroughly requested.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Short Answer:
A short but sweet labor of love that hearkens back to the pirate-themed point & click puzzle games of the past. Not too easy but not too hard, with just enough of that “point & click” logic to make puzzles interesting but not impossible to solve. The campy voice acting adds a good bit of charm to the equally campy British humor, though not every joke is guaranteed to land (fair warning, not all are age-appropriate despite its kid-friendly look). Only takes a few hours to beat, but the price tag is low enough to justify the short experience–and revenue is donated to a bird conservation charity to help sweeten the deal.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game