Strategy games have a lot of various designs these days, from taking over and expanding Roman empires to hitting the dunes of a faraway planet and annihilating aliens creatures, and it’s no surprise that with the success of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean more titles emphasizing seafaring adventures or piracy on the high seas are beginning to pop up on store shelves. The newest edition to this line of direction is Port Royale 2 by Ascaron Entertainment, and I can say as someone who really hasn’t had a lot of desire to play these kinds of games before … it worked out pretty good for me in the end.

Port Royale 2 starts off and gives you the option to go through a group of scenarios to start that are designed to teach you all of the ins and outs of the game. Afterwards, or if you decide not to do them … your call … you then can play a free design mode that pretty much allows you to do and be whatever you desire to do or be. In the game, you can go from port to port on your explorations buying products like grain or rum at low prices and trying to sell high in ports that are experiencing shortage to amass wealth and move your rank up, buy land and warehouses and become a wealthy merchant, or you can also earn cash by deciding to turn to a life of piracy (or pirate nabbing) to grab ships, treasure, or eventually even towns either by sea or embarking onto land to try and take over on foot.

Fortunately, everything in the game was covered rather well in a pretty simple point and click format, since having a lot of different options like putting together convoys, trading, taking on missions, and / or boarding ships and fighting with cutlasses can seem a little overwhelming. In the game, you will primarily have two different viewpoints, one being of a town view while docked or one at sea while navigating to various destinations. While at port, the screen gives you an animated and detailed view of the city, including all buildings and even people moving about on their day to day activities. Each building represented can be accessed and interacted with, so you can head to the market to buy items, head over to the Governor to see if he has any missions for you to take on, or even head to the local hangout to play a gambling game and try to win a little cash if you wish. You can also use the ports to recruit crew, buy goods, or even buy new ships to add into your nifty little sea group which also helps carry more goods or give you the edge when trying to take over a town or win a battle at sea.

The overhead sea map that you will also encounter basically is a zoom out of the world and will show you other vessels sailing in the water (including pirates in the area) as they pass into your vicinity, and it will also show you the different ports and will give information on products that they are in need of or are in short supply of at the time to help you determine where you might be better off turning a buck by selling your cargo. This is also where you can set up ship to ship attacks if you are running a government mission or if you have decided to turn to a life or piracy, and here’s where things can get a little interesting for you folks who are a bit more action minded.

When two ships or a town get into a fighting situation, the screen will change to a view of the water and will give you an opportunity to select which ship in your group you wish to select. Once you have done that, the battle commences. The ship is steered by using the right mouse button, and things have to be taken into consideration like positioning the side of your ship in a proper angle to hit the opponent, and you also have selection of different types of cannon ammo to use. Want to take out the hull? Use straight cannonballs. Want to shred the sails and render them unable to move? Use grapeshot. It gives you a decent opportunity to try a little strategy out, and also to help get a leg up in a fight with an opponent who may be a little stronger than you. If two ships meet and are boarded, a fight can also ensure between the captains which has you facing an opponent outlined by a tic tac toe looking grid, and you then select which area you would like to strike in based on timing. This also is good for helping to keep your crew alive, since when the captains fight it out, crew does not battle and this can be very important if you are low on men or haven’t fully recovered from a previous engagement.

Now, the above info on ship to ship combat may sound pretty neat, but there are a couple of flaws with it that tend to really stick out and can lead to some irritation (I know it did for me a few times). See, no mater how many ships are in your group, you can only use one at the time … so when going up against a fleet bigger than you it can quickly turn into an overpowering causing you a lost ship. Would anyone in their right mind send a sloop up against three other sloops and a couple of galleons? Well, I don’t speak for anyone but myself … but I’d guess the answer would be “no”.  Also, the captain battle is all based around timing and clicking, and once you get the hang of it, it really won’t pose much of a challenge to anyone after the first couple of times, thus making a potentially exciting fight one that just becomes hum drum after a couple of tries.

One really neat idea that was placed into the game (with some less than stellar results unfortunately) was the ability to take towns, or attempt to do so, by getting out on foot rather than fighting strictly by ship versus city cannon defenses. When you opt to do this, the screen goes to a more RTS style of viewpoint, and you move your men around by clicking to tell them where you want them to move or engage in combat with. The problem here though is that everyone moves as a unit versus being able to really set them up in separate groups to flank or whatnot, so if you happen to be outnumbered you will pretty much be assured to lose your crew. Cool idea, but a little better thought into this area would have made it a lot better.

Another issue that really got frustrating to me personally was the fact that the tutorial information seemed really quirky and turned out to be more of a hindrance than a positive thing. The tutorials are laid out so that you will get a text message telling you what to do, and then it is supposed to change to the next statement after you have completed it … but this wasn’t the case a lot of the time. For example, one scenario told me to open the dock information. OK, done. Next, I had to buy cannons and ammo. Done. Next, I was supposed to recruit as many sailors as I could … which I did … but then the messages stopped. Now I’m stuck trying to figure out what to do next, so I backed up into the world map, then back to the port, then re-opened the dock window, then back to the world map, then back to the port, and then finally the message changed to tell me to go to the Governor’s mansion. This was only one example of this happening, and it did pop up more than I would have liked to. I even tried re-booting and re-installing, but still to no avail.

Graphically, the overall look to the game was done pretty well, but was overall very simplistic. The colors are vivid and look nice, and while towns are static with animated characters moving around them, a zoom in with the mouse wheel caused them to get somewhat blurred and pixelled which really caused me to stay at more of a non-zoom level. The ship battles looked pretty good though, and some little extra effects like sea creatures swimming by or some of the best water reflections that I’ve seen in a while, while in port were added in for effect.

The sounds to PR2 were also done decent, with some good music in the background to kind of set the tone for the game. The environmental sounds while at port also did a good job of what they needed to do, and at times you can hear your crew yelling and whatnot while locked down in a battle at sea.

Overall, I have to say that Port Royale 2 was a fun game despite some issues, and there is definitely something to be said for being that open ended that you can pretty much do whatever you want and take whatever actions you feel necessary to do to ultimately write your own ending. Gamers who enjoy a little more action or fast paced gameplay may find this to be too slow for their tastes, but gamers who like to try their hand at running a business, trading, or being a little more slow and steady who also enjoy stories and games about life on the high seas should get a kick out of it if they can look past the problems mentioned. It’s definitely a game that can be played and replayed over again since the story will never really come out the same at the end, provided that you can look past a couple of deficiencies.  

Gameplay: 7.5
On a bright note, the game is set up in a simple point and click format to easily navigate and do many different things. Unfortunately, you may have to figure some of these out on your own if you have the same problem with the tutorials that I had. Also, the ship to ship combat was neat if going one on one, but attacking a group is a bad idea since you can only control one ship at the time and many times you may find yourself outnumbered.

Graphics: 7.4 
Everything in the game is brightly colored and it contains some animations against static landscapes, but zooming can also cause blurriness and pixellation which makes it better to stay at a distance. There were some neat effects added in though, like birds flying and some cool water reflections.

Sound: 7.5
The music turned out well, and I personally thought that it added to the game. The sound effects were decent overall, and ship firing will boom out cannon sounds or you may hear some shouting of crews engage in battle.

Difficulty: Hard
It definitely has a learning curve, and there will probably be mistakes made by the new player when starting due to overbuying and taking losses in the pocketbook while trading, or going up against a fleet and getting smacked due to insufficient weaponry to mount a decent offensive.  

Concept: 7.5 
There were some good ideas implemented into the series here in the second installment, but there was definitely some room for improvement in areas of combat that could have made it a lot better.

Overall: 7.4
Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the game personally even with its technicalities. It’s detailed, and you can see where there was a lot of thought put into trying to give players an open ended game to play. Unfortunately the issues may tend to be more frustrating for some than fun, but players who want to take to the sea and try their hand at becoming a wealthy merchant, mercenary, or pirate should find it enjoyable and something that definitely can’t be beat in a day.