Combat

The Boatniks at battle

But the main reason pirating isn't very gratifying is the combat system. Suddenly, the game stops and drops you into a half-assed real time tactical module. Sea battles are pretty disappointing, playing out as a befuddled real time bumper car ho-down with sailing ships. You don't have much control over the movement of your ships, which will loop and turn and sail straight into the wind with only a minimal concern for banging into other ships. There’s no sense of massive slow vessels carefully jockeying for position. It’s more like a bunch of drunken clowns are at the wheel. Your choice of ammo is the main tactical consideration, since you certainly don’t have much say in how your ships maneuver. Pick you cannon load, click to fire, and repeat until the whole sloppy thing is done. The bigger the fleets on either side, the crazier it gets.

Riddle me this

St. Lucian shopping

Achtung, German crash!

At least the game looks as good as you can expect from a 2D engine this modest. Combat looks fairly dramatic, with ships getting beat up and knocked apart. The ships look great when you zoom in on them, complete with little men on their decks. The strategic map of the Caribbean is colorful and interesting. The ports themselves are lively and attractive, although the view is almost entirely cosmetic; Port Royale might be a bit smoother if you weren't trying to remember what the inn looks like, how to find the market, and whether those plantations belong to you or someone else. Attractive is nice, but informative is ultimately better. The interface has some oddities, like the ‘cancel’ button being the same as the ‘done’ button. There are parts of the game that are far too unforgiving; it’s easy to accidentally blow a significant chunk of change if you’re not paying close attention.

Welcome to Port-au-Prince

This brig can be yours

The Governor is not pleased

The longer you stick with Port Royale, the better it gets. This is definitely one of those slow growers that doesn't reveal all its charms until long after most people have given up in frustration. Attacking towns can be pretty gratifying. You can even build up your own town once you’ve found enough treasure maps. Eventually, you'll start to learn the differences among the various ports, which vary not only by the goods for sale, but also by the facilities available, whether they're colonies or governor towns with direct links to the Old World, and what kinds of ships they'll sell you. One of the best things about Port Royale is how much it bring the Caribbean to life, even if it does it with so much detail that gameplay is sometimes overwhelmed by tedium.