Pirates of the Caribbean Online

What if you released a MMORPG and nobody noticed? That is happening to Disney today, they are releasing their free-to-play Pirates of the Caribbean Online and at least the MMO blogosphere didn't even notice. Maybe somewhere out there there is a bunch of kids quite excited about this game, but the internet is strangely silent.

I had the opportunity to play PotCO for a few hours in beta and it isn't absolutely horrible. The graphics are decent enough, controls work okay, and there are lots of references to the movies. You start out in a harbor and the first couple of quests teach you how to move and fight. You fight some zombies and soldiers until you acquire a ship. At which point the game was over for me. For me a pirates game is all about ship-to-ship combat. PotCO does have that, but you can't solo it. You need one player to steer the ship, and other players to man the cannons, which means you basically need a group to do anything ship related. That was the point where I said "Doh!" and proceeded to uninstall the beta. Sorry, but I'm going to wait for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which is not only less of a kids game, but also gives you complete control over your ship without needing a group.

But hey, as I said, PotCO is free to download and play in the basic version, only the full version costs $10 a month. So if you have kids who are big Jack Sparrow fans, they might like to play the game for a while. It's Disney, so you can be sure that it is appropriate for children. I'm just not sure it is appropriate for adults.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:13 AM Permanent Link