Thoughts: Occasionally a huge treat, but lengthy downtimes. (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Thursday, January 25, 2018, 14:26 (2273 days ago) @ Korny
edited by Korny, Thursday, January 25, 2018, 14:31

So I put quite a bit of time into the game last night, and I give what I’ve played a thumb’s up.

You are part of a crew of four, sailing a ship across the seas, running fetch quests for island outposts. A pretty weak premise, but it’s carried by the rest of the game. The ship must be manned by the whole crew, with someone at the helm, someone handling the sails, and the other two managing the ship and it’s resources, charting the course, or keeping an eye out for danger. If you’re playing with a full team, the sense of adventure is real.

And it must be said that the waters are gorgeous. From underwater effects to the glistening reflection of the sun in the evenings, the water in this game was completely nailed.

So what do you do on these waters? The game’s pretty massive map is littered with small islands. Some are the size of your ship, and some are big enough that two crews could be on the same island and not encounter each other. I say that, because it’s a shared-world sailer... Resources are scarce, and different player groups often have to loot the same island for ammo, gunpowder, cannonballs, and... bananas.
So you often come to blows with other teams for their resources, or to protect your own.
Encounters with other players can often be lengthy affairs, since the sinking of one ship isn’t exactly the end. When our ship sunk during one encounter, we swam the shark-infested waters over to a nearby island, where we armed the cannons and continued to fire on the enemy ship as they tried to loot our sunken ship. Eventually, the enemy lost their ship, and came after us. I made my way to the very top of the island, where a peak loomed over the waters below. My teammate’s got our ship back somehow, and before the enemy could corner me, I leapt off the top of the peak all the way to the water, climbed aboard the ship, and we escaped with the loot that we had come for, leaving the enemy stranded.

... Then we spent over half an hour just turning in the quest, gathering loot, and picking up a different island quest... it was a tad dull, since there’s not much to do while you wait for your teammates to handle their business and such. The next island we went to was tiny, so we picked up the chest with no trouble, then had to sail aaaaall the way back to the outpost to pick up what would hopefully be a more exciting island.

Combat is somewhat wonky, but it’s tough to get killed, so fights against the AI and other players tends to feel very forgiving. Death itself doesn’t seem very punishing, as you’re just taken to a neat ghostly ship while you wait to respawn (I was eaten by a shark once!).

Anyway, the game can be really fun and unique, so I recommend giving it a shot. I’ll try to work on some of my footage to share later.