Review NaN of 6
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$0.00 Summary:
Let's be honest, this game is WEAK.
It's another one of those "broken" trade-in-the-old-ages-type games/simulations/whatever, that is designed for people who like...well, I have no idea what kind of people would like this game.
I say this, carefully, however, because there are certain features of the game, which are "nice"...yet, the CORE of the game, the gameplay, is the biggest problem of the game, and in my opinion: FUBAR.
What's the big problem?
It's a "broken" game.
First of all, you choose your profession and start out with a ship and 10,000 or 20,000 or whatever gold, determined by whatever choices you make before the game.
And then, you...do whatever you want.
What do you want to do?
Make money, of course.
Problem#1: Even if you just sit on your hands twiddling your thumbs, you lose money. This is fine, because this is realistic: you have to pay your crew, don't you? But the problem is, acquiring money. How do you do it?
Problem#1, a)You can trade, by simply buying and selling goods. Great! Even greater, is that each colony on the map (colonies you are "aware of"), have icons that show what they need, and this is great, so that you know what to buy: DUH. So, you load up, set sail, sell goods, and make a small profit. Like most games, you keep doing this until you build up more capital to get that bigger ship, that bigger base, that....OH NO, wait, you are still hemorraging money.
The reality is, you have to keep doing this, over and over and over, there is no rest for you, because as soon as you rest, you stop making money and start losing it.
Just like real life: when you're not making money, you're losing money.
What's the big deal?
Well, this is a GAME, not a chore.
But WAIT, you can setup trade routes...BUT:
Problem#1 b) You can set up automated trade routes, by assigning a ship, or ships, and tell them what goods to buy and sell, and at what prices to do this all at. This reminds me of a feature in the game X-Beyond the Frontier, where when you had your space-factory-mining-farm-WHATEVER, you can set what price to sell the stuff at and buy materials at.
It worked very well in X, and in fact, gee, they made an X2.
But it doesn't work in Port Royale, because there is one giant thing X has that Port Royale hasn't:
AI.
Ever play a game where the micromanagement was so much, that it would fry your brain, but you can instead, give control over to the "computer"?
Many games have this feature, or something similar. Some games, may have "governors" (Pax Imperia II: Eminent Domain, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Galactic Civilizations, Capitalism II) who you appoint to "handle it all". Others, you use give whatever control you want to the computer AI (Tzar: Burden of the Crown, Imperium Galactica II: Alliances, Master of Orion II had a simple "Autobuild" feature, Battlezone II). A new game I'm playing now, Europa 1400, has a feature similar to the "governor" feature.
The point is, game developers created these features, so the player doesn't get bogged down in micromanagement.
The sad fact about Port Royale, is that, it seems, that is exactly what that game is trying to do: and rightly so: because the game outside of all that is lacking: zipping around on a 2D like it's "just around the corner"--no real sense of "immersion", or "exploration". Great graphics aside, it would have been nice if they did more to expand on the actual "gameplay" itself, rather than the "chore" of all the trading.
But wait, there is a way to setup automated trade routes right?
NOT QUITE.
Once you conquer the tedious processes, you'll realize, you have no idea what the heck you just did.
First of all, there is no "smart" AI in this game, to be able to judge on its own, where to trade, buy, sell.
You have to hold its hand and set such things, as if you have a great omnipresence mind, all-knowing of all things for sell, where, and when.
You don't.
So, maybe you tell your ship to buy/sell somewhere, only to find, it's going to places with 0 number of a resources you told it to buy from there at, or the price was too high to sell it there at.
You're $^@^$# out of luck, having a ship you're paying to upkeep, going to a bunch of colonies and not being able to use "its brain" to "make a deal".
For example: let's say you send your ship (they have their captains, btw) and you tell it to sell Lumber at 25 gold pieces per unit (for example only--say you boughti t at 10, the game does a good job of reminding you of how much you bought something at), and let's say, a colony is buying for 24. Would you really pass that up?
In the real world, especially if you have a small business trying to work its way up, you can't afford to play "hardball", and need to be flexible at times.
THAT is real life (I know, from personal experience, what I do for a living, the industry I work in). Report this review >>
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