Double Whammy – God of War (PS2) and Sid Meier’s Pirates (Xbox)
Well, continuing with God of War – I’ve complet0r4ted the bottom levels of Pandora’s temple. I had to navigate an extremely annoying section whereby I had to wander about aimlessly on some very narrow beams very high in the air, and jump over nasty spinny blade things. I think I died about forty times (at the very least) and was getting very close to flinging the gamepad away in a fit of pique, when I finally managed to do it.
Fortunately, I was rewarded by an awesome boss battle involving a somewhat large mechanical Minotaur. Equal to Zelda at it’s best, that one was. So, a bit more of Kratos’s story has unfolded and I think I’m getting pretty close to Pandora’s box. We’ll see.
Sticking a couple of images below – words can’t describe the stunning looks of this game – I’ve no idea how the developer managed to wrest imagery of this quality out of the PS2 – it’s at least the equal of the Xbox at its very best. Maybe all other developers have just been lazy 🙂
So, without further ado, on to that nice Mr Meier’s latest title. Pirates was an awesome game back in the day, ranking alongside Elite in the sheer-open-endedness states. Basically, you take the part of a , well, pirate. If you like. Or a trader, warrior, adventurer, explorer, pretty much anything you like. If you’ve a mind to, you can carry out a quest to avenge your parents, or you can become rich, or powerful, or feared, or all of the above or none of the above. The fact is, you don’t actually have to do anything (except retire when you get too old). You can play the game any way you like.
The game has quite a few different modes. There’s a naval battle system, complete with upgradeable ships; once boarded, there are some timed mini games for reducing the enemies troops, then sword fighting. There’s a deep trading system, a land combat system not unlike advance wars, treasure hunts, and even ballroom dancing. And you can sneak about. The various game types are stuck together with an easy to navigate menu system. Once you’ve built up a fleet (by nicking other peoples ships) you can flog the boats off for a huge price. However you choose to raise your cash, you can divvy it up between the crew. All of this stuff gives you experience and helps you progress through the ranks. Did I mention the politics system? Yup, you can be a double agent, get preferential rates from your allies, convince the indigenous populace to invade enemy cities – it just keeps going on.
All this might sound bewildering (the manual is pretty weighty) but, as with all of Sid Meier’s games, it takes less than half an hour to pick it all up. Unlike most console games, the aim isn’t to finish the game cos you can do that in five seconds by creating a player then retiring him. It’s more like Civ in that the “aim” of the game is to enjoy the challenge and try different things.
On top of all this, my 6 year old and 9 year old picked it up rapidly and enjoyed playing it as much as I did. Something for everyone, methinks.
