Sea Dogs Preview

As you advance through levels and quests, your EXPs and rank will grow. This is very important because going up two levels in rank will make a new class of ships available, and you'll also get some skill points that can be spent on any of the nine skills: Grappling, Fencing, Defense, Coordination, Commerce, Gunlaying, Repair, Reloading, and Sailing. The harder the task you completed, the more points you'll get.

There are altogether 21 ship types divided into 7 classes, according to size and power. The seventh class contains the smallest fishing ships and the first class contains 24-pound guns frigates. Nicolas starts his adventure with a so called Pink ship from the 6th class.

Ship models also look very nice. If we disregard the fact that you will visually be the only character on board, everything else is quite good. The ships are very detailed and you can see if their sails are raised or lowered, you can see the cabins, masts, ropes and a multitude of other details you would expect to see on a XVII century ship. During the fights you'll notice that the damage model has been made to be location-specific, which will let you easily see what part of the ship got damaged.

When you're not on sea, Sea Dogs looks just like your everyday RPG adventure. You'll walk the streets, get quests, look for crewmembers, buy or sell stuff. The only thing you will never be able to do in cities is fight! This may sound silly, but does make some sense if we take it that all the cities by default have governments that keep all city gates under strict control. The same goes for pirate cities where the pirate code strictly prohibits mischief and swordplay. It is yet to be seen how much this is going to restrict freedom of choice. So, if you want to buy or sell resources like tobacco, rum or sugar, you have to go to the store, if you want to buy, sell or upgrade ships, you have to go to the shipyard. Government building houses the colonial governor who is often steeped in intrigue and trying to better his position in any way possible, even by handing you confidential information or giving you quests. You have to pay most heed to what happens around courtyard and tavern, where you can easily hire new crew members or experienced officers, who are the best way to improve your ship's performances ...

As for the graphics, I already stated the game uses a new engine. Whilst navigating a ship you can switch from the first-person to third person view. When you disembark, the camera will automatically turn to third-person view and act like it does in most action games (Heretic, Tomb Raider). Akella paid special attention to visual representation of water. Watching the ocean is a real pleasure for itself, noticing varying water transparency, and the changes that occur with daytime changes. But, once the storm rises, the distant fogs, rain and waves surround your ships... WOW! And you can sure expect your vessel to react to all this realistically, as his movement depends on waves, weather and wind. Winter voyages are much harder, and if you embark on a voyage at the wrong moment you'll have a lot of trouble with your ships rolling, heaving, pitching, and yawing.

The surroundings are lovely, too. I simply loved the skies covered with clouds behind which the sun emerges, only to shine the surroundings with nice and lively colors. The sea gulls flying above you will prey the fishes that swim in the sea around your boat. The same goes for the land. There will be some 20 islands and about 15 cities at your disposal. Each of them has been modeled in detail and each has its own taste and atmosphere. The Spanish cities will have haciendas; the English will have wood-frame, colonial buildings... And in each one you will easily recognize some typical buildings like shops, taverns, shipyards and government buildings in capitals. The game also features a lot of eye-candy like flags flapping according to the direction of the wind and dynamic lighting. Streetlights, candles and oil-lamps produce light, but unfortunately, there are no detailed shadows, which did somewhat thwart my impression.

The large number of NPCs on the streets best presents the Caribbean city atmosphere. There's supposed to be about a two hundreds of them (60 types) in the final version of the game: merchants, captains, pirates, governors, beggars, bartenders, ladies... all of them look quite authentic in their 17th century clothes, and you'll be able to start conversation with almost all of them. You won't be able to tell what characters are really important and who fights for what side at first, but as time passes, you'll get to know them, and they will get to know you. Apart from your relations to NPCs, your reputation will influence your combat: if you are a notorious swordsman, the enemy is more likely to give up the fight.

Ship models also look very nice. If we disregard the fact that you will visually be the only character on board, everything else is quite good. The ships are very detailed and you can see if their sails are raised or lowered, you can see the cabins, masts, ropes and a multitude of other details you would expect to see on a XVII century ship. During the fights you'll notice that the damage model has been made to be location-specific, which will let you easily see what part of the ship got damaged.

Something about the sound... Akella hired Moscow philharmonic orchestra to do the job, so we'll be able to enjoy about 60 minutes of great music. Each super-power has its main theme and battle theme. The sound effects range from the usual explosions, cannon shots, and board squeaking to sound of sails being torn, footsteps, barking, shouts, and city noise...

The fact that the game will be implemented in two versions only goes to prove that this is a well-conceived project. I mostly spoke of the single-player campaign called: "Sea Dogs: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea". The second one will be set in an on-line world, and will completely lack all quests and tasks, it will rather be a team sailing vessels combat simulator where the players will have to join forces and fight for dominance.

So, rise your sails as there isn't much time left... Aye, aye...