Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy is a pleasantly surprising title. When I first saw the announcement about the game, I expected it to be a simple one-afternoon-and-it’s-uninstalled-forever experience, which, unfortunately, many independently developed games these days are. Here I am now, sitting here writing this review a week later, wishing I could just hit the big X in the corner and get back to my plundering.
On the surface, the game looks like a rather typical naval combat title, based on Caribbean pirates. If you’ve been asleep the last five years or so, Caribbean pirates are the in thing these days. Surprisingly (or not, if you’ve seen the PotC movies) many pirate-themed games out in the last half decade have revolved around A) the film franchise, or B) glorified, over-the-top sea dogs who can somehow fight like they were taught by Yuen Wo Ping. Buccaneer ignores that quickly growing gaming cliché, by focusing on what pirates were really about: their ships. Now I know what you’re thinking: even if it has pirates, a naval combat game really can’t be that different from the other ones on the market. That’s where you’re wrong, because you didn’t let me mention one thing: Buccaneer is an arcade naval combat game. Or, as Simon and Harvey from Stickman Studios describe it, an epic arcade naval combat game.
The problem most people have with games taking place in the ocean? They’re too slow. And controlling ships in fights is way too cumbersome, and often boring. In Buccaneer, ships are sped up, arcadeified (you can pull off three point turns with ships if you’d like, and wind doesn’t exist), and generally control more like land vehicles than sail using ones. Steering your pirate ship is as simple as WASD, and firing your starboard and port cannons take only a click of the left or right mouse button. The result is a game that anyone can play the minute it loads, and that can even keep the attention of ADD Gamers. Your goal in Buccaneer mirrors the simplistic, straightforward nature of the controls: become the most infamous pirate in the Caribbean by completing missions, sinking ships, and plundering gold. (And, yes, Captain Jack Sparrow does top the infamy chart.)
Arcade gameplay, simple controls and a Jack Sparrow high score aren’t the only things that set Buccaneer apart from other games, indie or big-budget. The missions you need to attempt to increase your infamy are non-linear, allowing you to pick and choose which ones to undertake at any given time. Like bombarding buildings on the coast more than chasing down Freeport navy ships or escorting slower vessels to safety? Then just look through the missions list for the type you’re looking for, and set sail. As long as a group of islands has been unlocked (by completing X missions), any mission within is available, and can be completed in any order. You can even skip ahead to more difficult ones and bypass some of the easier ones if you want a bit of a challenge, or want to test your skills against the computer.
Missions include a variety of objectives, such as sinking all enemy ships in an area, rescuing pirates from lifeboats, investigating coastal areas, bombarding the dirty landlubber’s buildings, and ransacking merchant vessels and stealing their gold. As you complete missions, you’ll earn gold that you can use to either upgrade your current ship, or purchase a new model. Ships unlock through regular play, and through investigating in-port ships while in missions. And, to add to the game, no ships have a clear advantage over others; some provide better speed, some sacrifice firing power to add a front cannon and rear explosives, etc. Of course, each type of ship has upgrades throughout that offer better fully upgraded stats, but between the various types of ship, none is officially superior to others.
The game also features a fully realized multiplayer mode, which is usually unheard of in an indie title. Part deathmatch and part RTS, multiplayer pits players on two sides—Golden Buccaneers and The Crown—against one another in an epic oceanic battle. Drain your opponent’s score to zero (by sinking ships or destroying their buildings/port) and you win. Each side has a home port where they can repair/rebuild ships, and each side has a variety of ships to use, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. To balance it out, the better ships are worth more points, so using them is a constant weighing of risk vs reward. On one hand, the better ships often give you an advantage; on the other, should the enemies sink it, you'll lose more points and suffer a harsher penalty.
Toss in items such as shipwrecks which will allow you to repair your ship in deep ocean and various ways to boost or drain scores, and it’s quite a unique take on the standard deathmatch. Even though the pace is a bit slower than in FPS titles, the multiplayer in Buccaneer is very engaging, and a load of fun if you have the people to play with. That is the big problem, though: your number of opponents may be limited at certain times of the day, or during certain days of the week. It's not terribly unexpected given it's a brand new indie release, but it is a disappointment that you can't just jump on against people whenever you want, which is the standard for most of the quality multiplayer-enabled games on Steam.
It’s a testament to the game’s gameplay and how fun it is that I’ve gone this far without once mentioning the graphics. If I had to describe them in one word, it would be "stunning." Then again, when the two guys making the game worked as video game artists before they learned coding and became indie developers, what would you expect?
The ships themselves don’t look quite as up-to-date as they do in other titles, and the land has a few grainy looking trees and shrubbery here and there on some maps, but the water and oceanic atmosphere are fantastic. Ships glide through the waves, water changes color the closer you get to shore, and as enemy boats sink you can see them descend into the darkness, often times surrounded by newly arrived sharks, seemingly anxious to feed on the poor souls who got sucked down to Davy Jones' locker. There are also plenty of missions taking place in deep fog, rain, or other environmental hazards, and watching your ship sail through a fogbank as you keep an eye open for enemies is quite the experience.
Complimenting the graphics nicely is the game’s score, which features some fantastic piratey music that could have come straight from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Had someone told me that these songs were some random epic tunes from one of the many action scenes in the three movies, I probably would have believed them. Unfortunately, the voice acting can be a little over the top and cheesy at times, and the limited number of voices in the tavern and other non-combat menus gets a little old, but it is a game developed by two guys so it’s safe to assume that they didn’t have a big name voice actor on board for the project. Consider it a testament to the game’s quality that such small nuances—things that I would normally never complain about in any indie game—were readily noticed.
I’m fully convinced that, if gamers give it a chance, Buccaneer may very well change the way many view independent games. It seems like a lot of people think that indie games need to employ some unique or odd concept and look a generation or two behind in terms of visuals—or, if the visuals are up to par, be a short, less-than-four-hours experience. Meanwhile, here comes an independent game made with one of the cheapest engines out there, featuring water graphics some big name studios could only dream of, incredibly addicting gameplay anyone can understand, and hours upon hours of single player missions and multiplayer mayhem. Hopefully, Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy will end up being the first in a long line of superb Stickman Studios titles and, years from now, people will look back at it with fond memories and a pleasant sense of nostalgia.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Funny, the things you like about the game make it utter shite to me. No wind, the ships drive like cars (to the point where you have to hold down an 'accelerator' key, basic tactics like raking fire don't work...
But damn, it sure is a beautiful game and the mission structure is pretty interesting. I just can't get past the landlubber ships!!
Glad you enjoyed it, though.