It seems I have reviewed quite a few pirate themed games during my time here on WingDamage, from ones that fought zombies to ones on monkey related islands. They are a recurring gaming mascot that lends itself well to interesting and colorful character designs.

In Paradox Interactive and Nitro Games’ Pirates of Black Cove, there is certainly not a shortage of wackiness or crazy characters. There is a level of cartoonishness in the writing that lets you know right out of the gate that they were there to have a good time with this RTS/RPG/Navel Combat hybrid (or as the game’s site calls it, “Light Strategy Adventure”).

You start by picking one of three pirate captains, each with their own special talents. I decided to go with the rifle toting guy, mostly because he was the one with the sweet eye patch. You soon find that, while you are captain of your own ship, there are much more important pirates that you will be answering to. As you progress, various pirate leaders will give you quests, the completion of which will gain you monetary rewards, as well as a measure of favor with that faction. Once you have maxed that out, you can get the pirate leader of that faction to join you in your fight as another hero character.

Pirates of Black Cove is broken up into two main parts. They make logical sense from the piratical point of view, as there are the parts where you are traveling/fighting on your ship and the sections where you are on land completing quests and plunderin’.

On land, the game takes on the flavor of an RTS with some light RPG elements for your hero character. You have three slots for units, which can be filled by hiring scallywags and various other undesirables to fight alongside you. Rather than each character taking up a slot each, different unit types allow for a group of that type. So your basic melee units may allow for up to five of them before a slot is full, while the huge cannon toting guy that does massive splash damage takes up a whole slot on his own.

The nice thing is, as you get more hero units on your side by gaining their loyalty, they too will have three slots that can be filled up. The downside is the slow walking speed. While you are progressing through a town and its surrounding landscape you don’t notice it too much, but once an area is cleared of enemy units and you have to walk all the way back to your ship, it is excruciating. There is a button on-screen that will call all your units back to the ship, but all of them have to be back at the dock before you can actually depart. There were a few times where, for the stories sake, I could see not having a quick “back to ship instantly” button, but that shouldn’t have excluded it from the game as a whole.

Missions aren’t the only time the slow walking speed is a problem. When you are navigating a pirate base, you have to physically walk your main character to the building to recruit units. This takes way longer than is necessary and seems like the kind of thing that could have been streamlined into some sort of menu system.

Unfortunately, the slowness doesn’t end there.

While I found the actual ship to ship combat to be pretty entertaining, the travel time between anything happening on the wide blue ocean became boring pretty fast. There are a lot of collectibles around the game world, but the slow travel speed made me never want to veer off course.

Newer ships with better stats can be acquired, but the cost seemed disproportionately high. More ships available for purchase with smaller incremental stat increases for cheaper prices might have helped alleviate this issue. As it played out for me, I was spending so much money on units that I was stuck in the starter ship up until a boss fight where I absolutely could not win without upgrading my ship.

I gave in and started grinding for money. This entailed attacking random ships and collecting money for destroying them. This didn’t get me much money each time, so it was pretty slow going. I decided to try capturing ships, which I had written off earlier because every time I had tried in the past the ship was either way worse than the starting ship, or would immediately kill me if it was actually worth having.

After several tries, I finally acquired a much faster, more powerful ship and suddenly navigation of the world seemed much more manageable. If only it had been easier to get a better ship earlier in the game, I think I would have been a lot more into it as a whole.

While Pirates of Black Cove does have its charm, it unfortunately lost me with its slow pacing. There were no less than three patches while I was playing it for review, so perhaps they can address some of these issues down the road.

This review is based on the retail version of Pirates of Black Cove provided to the reviewer by Paradox Interactive.

I would say I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with strategy games, but I’d be lying to you. We just met. I don’t want to do that. No, I’ve never liked strategy games much. Just couldn’t work ‘em. Too many buttons.

I only started playing Starcraft 2 with any regularity over the past couple of months, and my skills are shaky at best. Some would say that this makes me an awful candidate to review King Arthur: Fallen Champions. I would say it makes me the perfect choice. After all, if I can figure it out and enjoy it, so could anybody!

King Arthur: Fallen Champions is an RPG/RTS and serves as the connecting tissue between King Arthur I and King Arthur II, meant to bridge the story and satiate the appetites of the fans before the later comes out in Q1 next year. The game takes place across three separate campaigns, each three missions long, where the player takes control of one of three distinctly different heroes who all possess their own unique powers. Once all three campaigns are completed, the three heroes join together for a final battle. Those heroes can be upgraded with new skills and outfitted with artifacts found on the battlefield.

"Simple choices like this can have a big impact on the next mission."

In between missions, players work their way through mini text adventures where their choices determine things like how many and what type of units you take into battle. At certain points, those choices even grant or take away power from your character. It’s a really interesting alternative to the standard resource management/unit factory format of most RTS games, and is executed fairly well. Most of the time, however, I couldn’t help but feel that the “correct” choices were all too obvious. I was almost always rewarded for pushing situations or picking whatever seemed like the worst option. If faced with a choice between a dark abandoned hut or a quiet forest path leading into a meadow, of course I would choose the hut. Surprise! There’s an army in there, just waiting for you to lead them. In some cases, making certain choices prevents you from making other choices. For instance, during one sequence I convinced a small group of soldiers to follow me. Some time later, I ran into a rival group of soldiers and was forced to make a choice between the two.

Of course, the real bread and butter of the game takes place on the battlefield. While some missions have you simply pressing onward and taking on every unit in your path, other missions present you with slightly more complicated objectives such as storming a hill where a warlock is summoning an infinite number of ghost warriors, or sneaking past large armies with your outnumbered platoon. Still others have you capturing and holding key locations on a battlefield. On this point, the game does a great job. No mission felt like a cookie cutter copy of the last, and the choices I made in the adventure portion of the game forced me to play each mission a little differently. However, an RTS is only as good as its combat. This is where Fallen Champions stumbles.

As far as units go, the player has access to various types: archers, calvary, and various types of infantry. Each unit type has advantages and disadvantages against other unit types. The problem is that the units are way too small, making it hard to distinguish what type of unit you have selected. On numerous occasions I would accidentally send my archers in to meet an army of spearmen in toe-to-toe combat, or even cast a harmful spell on my own units.

"Hold me closer, tiny soldiers!"

Compounding the problem, the camera was uncooperative more often than not. Sometimes it wouldn’t let me move the camera outside of a certain range of whatever unit I had selected. Other times, it was almost impossible to select the unit I needed because the camera would get caught on the terrain. There were even times where a unit wouldn’t accept a movement command outside of a certain distance, posing a problem when you tried to move particularly large armies as every so often, a squad would just stay behind.

King Arthur: Fallen Champions did grow on me. I’ve always felt that medieval strategy games are only for a very specific hardcore audience, and I still feel that’s true. But the missions are varied, the units are diverse, and there’s quite a bit of customization possible. Also, it’s relatively short. All this comes together to form a game worth playing two or three times, if you can deal with a few interface problems. If you’re a fan of the King Arthur series or you just can’t quit playing strategy games, I would say Fallen Champions is worth checking out. For ten bucks, I can live with its shortcomings.

This review is based on the PC version of King Arthur: Fallen Champions provided to us by Paradox Interactive.

*UPDATE* - Turns out the audio file had a glitch in it where the last twenty minutes were doubled and off time from each other making it a horrible mess. We at WingDamage would like to apologize to anyone who listened to this episode and promise that the next episode, which will release on Tuesday, is much, much better in both quality and content.

On a very special fifty-fifth episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we have to match up all the different sandwiches if we want to stop the flow of incoming sandwiches. Boshi is there to help. Remember Boshi?

Our regular hosts are joined by Geoffio, as well as WingDamage’s newest writer, Anthony. In what we’ve been playing, Geoffio kicks us off with tales from the aerial combat sim, Wings of Prey. Jonah has just started on The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition and Company of Heroes, an RTS he’s actually enjoying. Anthony gives us his thoughts on Resident Evil 5 and Jesse goes in-depth with the new Valkyria Chronicles DLC.

We talk about last week’s entry into “Friday Old Games“, Duke Nukem 64, then in “Let’s Play Together” we give our thoughts on Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing for the Xbox 360.

In the news, we discuss additional RAM being unlocked for PS3 developers, the next Batman game, our hopes for King of Fighters XIII having modes, Monster Hunter Tri’s announcement of being free to play for North America, and much more.

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Middle Song – “Fly Like a Butterfly” by Hideki Naganuma
(Jet Set Radio Future Original Sound Tracks)

Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps

As much as I dislike using the word “metal” as an adjective, I simply cannot think of a better way to describe Brutal Legend. How else do you describe a game set in a fantasy world inspired by classic heavy metal album art? With it’s impressive 107-song soundtrack, cameos from heavy metal icons such as Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister, it’s impossible to describe Brutal Legend as anything but metal.

Being a Tim Schafer game, it’s pretty much a given that the writing is top notch. The metal references and inside jokes are good for a laugh here and there. All of the dialogue is very well written, and expertly preformed. Jack Black is Eddie Riggs. He fits the part perfectly, and his enthusiastic performance is really what makes the character so lovable.

The variety of metal cameos are just great. Lemmy Kilmister plays a badass bass player with a sweet hat (so, he pretty much plays himself), and the dialogue between him and Eddie is some of the funniest in the game. Ozzy Osbourne also does a great job as the “guardian of metal, ” but I would have liked to see a bit more of him.

From the moment you step into the shoes of Eddie Riggs, you are immersed in all things metal. Trapped in an alternate fantasy universe where demons control the earth and most of the human population toils their lives away in slavery, Eddie is tasked with leading Ironheade, the human resistance (the extra “e” so you know they mean business). He recruits the head-bangers, builds the stages, directs the battles, protects the tour bus, and kicks plenty of demon ass. In short, he’s the road crew for the resistance.

The gameplay is a pretty mixed bag. Split between open world exploration, 3rd person action and, most notably real-time strategy, Brutal Legend tries to be a lot of different things all at once which hurts the overall experience. It’s not that any of the specific gameplay styles are bad, but none of them are great, either. It feels like Tim Schafer was trying just a bit too hard to keep Brutal from being pigeonholed.

The main focus of Brutal Legend’s many gameplay styles are the explosive stage battles, the backdrop of which are huge rock concerts. The stage is your base and where all of your units spawn. If your stage is destroyed, it’s game over. Your resources come in the form of fan geysers spread throughout the map. Playing a “fan tribute” solo near one of these creates a “merch booth” on the geyser and directs the fans (resources) to your stage. The more merch booths you have, the faster your fanbase grows.

Ironheade’s metal themed units range from the basic head-bangin’ infantry to the mighty fire breathing Metal Beast. What’s unique about Brutal Legend’s stage battles is the interaction with each individual unit. Each unit has a unique attack that they can preform with Eddie. For example, when Eddie teams up with the Head Bangers, they form a mosh pit around him, knocking enemies out of the way. These “double team” attacks are what make the stage battles really fun.

One of the best things about Brutal Legend is it’s setting. Every area of the game looks like it was ripped from a classic metal album cover. Fire rains from the sky, jagged mountains reach up toward space, and monuments to the great titans of metal are scattered across the land. Everything is on a very over-the-top, epic scale.

While the combat is pretty basic, it still manages to be fun. The “A” button attacks with the battle axe, “B” blocks and “X” attacks with the guitar. The variety comes in the form of the guitar attacks, which electrify or burn enemies from afar. There are a few guitar/battle axe combo moves, which help keep the combat interesting. Sadly, you can only decapitate so many emo kids before things start to feel repetitive.

As I played through, I never really felt like I was doing anything new or original. After a while it feels like the same old hack and slash gameplay that’s been done a thousand times before, but with a heavy metal paint job. Sure, the RTS elements are fun, but with only a handful of stage battles, by the time I really fell into a groove and started to kick some ass, the game was over. It doesn’t make the game any less fun, just a little disappointing.

This brings me to my biggest complaint with Brutal Legend. Even though I completed about a third of the side missions, unlocked most of the hidden songs and searched the land for various other collectibles,  I reached the end credits within roughly 5 hours.  I imagine a 100% play through would take maybe only an hour or two more. Even if there is some after game content, this is simply too short for a single player campaign.

The high point of the game is the music itself. The soundtrack boasts an epic 107 tracks from every sub-genre of metal, (and believe me, there are a lot of sub-genres of metal) everything from Def Leopard to Dethklok.  If you’re a metal head, your favorite band is probably represented in Brutal’s epic soundtrack (unless you’re an Iron Maiden fan, that is.) At the start of the game, about 35% of the songs are unlocked. While most of the tracks are unlocked as you play through the story, there are 23 songs hidden in relics throughout the world known as buried metal.

The best way to experience Brutal’s epic soundtrack is through the “Mouth of Metal,” a playlist-like upgrade for the Deuce that lets you select a specific song, create a custom playlist, and sort the music in a variety of ways, such as genre and alignment. What I really love about the song selection isn’t necessarily the tracks themselves, but how many of the songs tie directly into the theme of the current mission.

As you drive the deuce through a burning arena and meteors fall all around you, “Through the Fire and the Flames”  by Dragonforce blasts from Eddie’s speakers. It really ties the whole experience together. A game about metal, with a great metal soundtrack, and songs that suit the action during every mission.

Brutal Legend is an enjoyable game, if not an entirely unique experience. The writing is wickedly funny, and the inside jokes and metal references make it a must play for any metal head. But at only 5 hours or so, It’s not exactly worth the $60 price tag.