Full Review Pirates of the Burning Sea

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a MMORPG about... you guessed it, Pirates! Welcome to the New World circa 1720 grab your parrot and a bottle of Tortuga Tea (Rum for the less savvy amongst us) because we're going back to the Golden Age of Piracy!

Like in almost every MMORPG you start with the creation of your character. There are four different nations in the game: England, France, Spain and the unaligned Pirates. You must be a member of the Pirate nation to play a Pirate, but as a member of the other European nations, you can choose from three careers: Freetraders, Naval Officer and Privateer. As a Freetrader you are a merchant and you'll live and die for the business of trade. The Naval Officer fights for his country and as a defender of your nation, you follow your government's orders and protect the citizens. As a Privateer you work for the marque and as a Pirate you work for yourself and live by your own laws.

In PotBS you have alot of options to give your avatar its very own unique look whic can range from an evil pirate to a rich merchant. Once you're satisfied with the looks the only thing left is to name your character. It is possible to test other nations or careers as you have a total of six slots so you can have six different characters at the same time.

After creating your character, you appear in your home port. This is where the story begins, there are around 1,000 quests per nation. Some missions follow a storyline while others are just for experience, there are also group missions in the game for people who like to play in a party.

If you are looking for a huge online consistent Caribbean world then this may not be the game for you. Pirates of the Burning Sea is divided into different playing areas. You have the ?open sea? where you can sail with your ship throughout the world from port to port or fight with other players. When you click on a port, you are loaded in to that town. Here you can find the different quests, traders and skill trainers. I really hate to see that there's also a NPC where you can change the mission level of difficulty! When you start a mission in town, you play in a private area unless it is a group mission. In a group mission the level of difficulty is the same as the party leader. The play areas range from sea battles with single ship or a fleet of ships to a cave where you fight for a treasure. PotBS is actually the sum of alot singular maps. The loading screens between the maps are quite short but in this type of game the feel of reality seriously decreases because of it.

In ports there are skill trainers waiting to teach you all sorts of new tricks. The skills are divided into Swashbuckling skills, Ship skills and Sailing skills. You can choose between three different fighting styles for your Swashbuckling skills, Dirty Fighting, classic Fencing and the dual-wielding Florentine. This way you can choose your own playing style when you board a ship or hunt for treasures.

The further you advance in the game, the more interesting it gets. The missions keep getting better and it's really fun to command your ship to victory using all your different skills whilst trying to balance out the best combination for survival. The sea battles are really the best part of this game!

Besides the fighting you can also make a living out of trading. The economy system is really well balanced and is controlled by the players. You can create your own goods if you create your own structures and recipes to gather resources.

The graphics of the game are pretty good for an MMORPG although not as beautiful as Guild Wars. The water effects are stunning yet the design of the ports looks a bit dull. It's really cool for the first time, almost like the harbor is alive but after a while you get annoyed because all the animations are scripted and they keep doing the same thing.

When you?ve had enough of the quests and you need a break from them there are a number of other things to entertain you. You can play massive PvP battles, or just one on one. You can also join societies. Societies are like guilds in other games. You can gather in a society to help each other on quests or arrange a big party for PvP. Societies have there own private chat channel and leadership structure. In the conquest mode you can fight with your society for the ports in the game which transforms it into PvP battlefields.

Conclusion

Pirates of the Burning Sea is an addictive RPG for everyone who dreams about being the Captain of their own ship. The missions are fun and there is a lot of variety. Though I'm not sure if PotBS is a great MMOG, it sure has some cool feautures but the game feels way to static to pay a monthly fee for. In most MMO's you are encouraged to play together that is the main aspect of an MMOG. This game sometimes feels like a single player RPG tweaked into an MMORPG. If you love the 18 th century and you have a thing for eye patches then this is your game!


Reviewed by Fenn Segers

http://www.zfxgamer.com