I love the sea and I love sailing vessels from all eras of history, especially from the Napoleonic era when the history of naval tactical warfare was in its true infancy. And ever since I started playing video games I have anxiously awaited a true simulation of these powerful and majestic vessels and unfortunately we have not seen one true simulation, but more arcade powered and other games which could are considered very light on the realism level. Unfortunately for me, Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy is an arcade heavy title and not a simulation, but it is a fun casual title.


Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy takes place in the Caribbean as you command an upgradeable ship of cut throat pirates who are out for blood and plunder. There are several un-lockable ships at your disposal with different speed, firepower and armor settings and yes you can upgrade each ship with more powerful weapons, armor and sails for speed.

Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy from Stickman Studios is a title of averages, average graphics and effects, average music and sound effects, average gameplay and well below average voice acting. But it does not try to be anything it isn’t, so these averages actually make the game enjoyable on a casual level. With some slight variety to the missions you will find that most will take just a few minutes to run through and unless you are asleep at the wheel you should have no problem out turning and out firing the enemy.

I was disappointed with several areas of the game though and first off the most annoying feature was the horrendous voice acting which sounds like it was dubbed from the worst pirate comedy movie of all time. It is so bad it made me stop playing the game with sound after just a few minutes and to imagine what it is like just have your 8 year old nephew drinking pop and main lining sugar taking talk like a pirate day way too seriously.


The graphics are average, but there is this crazy draw in which we have not seen since the days of games like Delta Force with their Voxel Engine and terrain draw in but it is not that bad since almost every map has your target or goal directly in the middle. The graphic effects for smoke and fire are good but the game uses very little and does not even show damage on the ships. One other issue I have with the game is the lack of auto-save and this lack of a feature which has been common in PC gaming for years can actually cost you several hours of play time due to losing a mission and sinking, or the rare time your PC will crash. Hopefully this feature will be added in a patch since it would help the game out by reducing the pure frustration level.

The good in the game is the price and how casual it is for gamers who want just a nice simple arcade title with pirates and while the game could be better on all fronts it is a fun experience in short bursts. In the end I will give the game a 6/10 score and a try before you buy recommendation and lucky for you there is a good demo out there to see if you are a pirate at heart.

Posted by Brian Edey (Falelorn)

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