Pirates of the Burning Sea Review

[Ralsu]

"The" Big Pirate Game?

Fans have waited a long time for Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Flying Lab Software and Sony Online Entertainment delivered on January 22. But is their game a great catch, or should you throw it back? Read Ralsu's review and enjoy 5 streaming videos with action from the game!

Flying Lab Software knows it's important for gamers to feel unique in the virtual world. To that end, Pirates of the Burning Sea allows an impressive number of character customization options.

• PotBS Review
• Discuss it

[Ralsu]

Please note that the videos are available to Premium Members only through February 4th!

[Xeon]

Potbs is a 1720's Caribbean sea combat game with a player driven economy that has been compared to Eve...

You can choose to play British, French, Spanish or a Pirate.
The nationals have 3 classes to choose from:
Navy
Privateer
Freetrader

The aim is to win control of enemy ports; disrupt or sink their shipping & win ultimate control of the map for your nation.

Potbs will likely be successful but will probably not appeal to masses.

Good points:
Character Customisation
The economy & shipbuilding
Ship vs Ship combat
FLS dev participation

Average points:
Swashbuckling combat (not the usual melee type) but can be fun.
Graphics are variable (ships look great)

Bad points:
Instancing is overdone
Repetative gameplay & missions
PVP rewards to not match risk. (currently under a fair policy review)

To be fair Flying Labs appear to be passionate about their game & are working on future raid content, player initiated events & other improvements which will ensure the game has a dedicated following.

[Ralsu]

The videos are now open for all to see. Here's the press release:

Narrated by Ralsu

For a week now, Ten Ton Hammer Premium Members have enjoyed viewing 5 exclusive Pirates of the Burning Sea review videos. Today, we make them public for everyone. So, read the review again, and check out the videos:

• Pirates of the Burning Sea Review
• Video; Character Customization
• Video: Swashbuckling
• Video: Ship Combat Basics
• Video: Fleeing
• Video: Sailing (Graphics)

[Ralsu]

In IGN's review (8.2/10), the chief criticism of PotBS is thus:

The real problem though is that the game does an absolutely terrible job of directing players towards this [rewarding] content and then helping them to put it into an appropriate context. Sure, we like to discover things for ourselves from time to time, but there's a real lack of explanation here once you get beyond the most basic game features. What makes that particularly disappointing is that some players may give up on the game before they discover just how original and enjoyable it can be.

For those who have/do play PotBS, what do you think of the IGN review?

[B. de la Durantaye]

I'm one of those players IGN describes there. I played the game here and there but never found the drive to keep running with it. The first few ship-to-ship battles were fun. I found the avatar adventures a bit dull though. I'm SURE there's better content in the game than I saw, but after a while I just lost the interest to keep going with it.

[TheRake]

The IGN review is not an unfair review. Many of the good points and critcisms are correct.

It would be nice to see a review written by someone who had spent more than a few hours in the game though, as he hasn't figured out how to alter his UI, or gotten out of the new player area yet, (judging by his screen shots).
I would like to have heard more detail about the large scale PvP battles and how the economy works in more detail, as this game has a player based economy and heavy PvP focus.
There are some problems that he hasn't noted, that are quite upsetting for some players regarding ship performance, but he would have had to have leveled up a bit to learn about that. Most of the ship troubles are not going to be hard to fix, but it isn't fun to grab a very expensive ship only to notice it's doing less damage than your mid 30s ships did

I don't disagree strongly with what he wrote, but I wish he'd spent more than a few hours in his month of playing the game before he wrote a final review as I covered most of what he's described in my first days play.

There's a lot more to this game than you see at first glance. And this review is nothing more than a first glance.