(XBLA) Age of Booty
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Age of Booty
The RTS genre suffers from the intimidation that many gamers have about the often all-too complex game-play. Age of Booty is a lighthearted pirate romp that brings the genre to Xbox Live Arcade and is a good way to bring the RTS genre to gamers who typically avoided them on purpose.
Gameplay
Age of Booty makes use of maps that are made up of hexagonal cells which can be clicked on to move your ship and combat is automatically initiated with anything that is within one cell length. The goal of each level depends on one of three difficulty settings but the overall idea is the same; capture more towns that your rival pirate clan. Towns are captured by getting close enough to engage the auto-fire. From there, it’s just a matter of attacking the town faster than they can sink you; many towns are much more powerful than your used and dilapidated ship. Once towns are captured, you will need to keep them out of your enemies hooks.
This is where resources come into play. Each side has a home base, and that base is the only place where repairs and upgrades can be made. Resources like wood, gold and rum can often be found floating in the water and in the ruins of the native villages. Captured towns also create resources of their own and destroyed vessels will drop them as well. A slick but small on-screen diagram indicates the number and types of resources needed to make ship and town upgrades, but don’t get overly concerned about trying to collect these, the only one that is really important is the ship upgrades. There just isn’t enough time within each level to really warrant town upgrades and the chances that you actually get to do them is pretty slim. Once a ship upgrade is available, return to your home base and choose whether you want to improve your speed, cannon or the hull.
Any merchant ships you sink not only drop resources but also abilities that can be held onto and used to your advantage. These power-ups match the goofy nature of the game such as monkeys who will loot your enemies of resources (my favorite!). Just like resources, power-ups can be obtained by your enemies and used against you. Strategy becomes key and Age of Booty demands skillful time management to succeed. Thought and ingenuity will be necessary to find the best way of becoming faster and stronger than your opponent.
One of the more frustrating aspects of Age of Booty is the AI. Your enemies are often formidable as they make use of power-ups to create some strategies of exceptional brilliance. When these same enemies become allies, they are suddenly inclined to enormous acts of stupidity because you have no way to control them. Quite often the enemy outnumbers or is decisively stronger than you ahis does try to force the need for resource collecting but it can all be very frustrating. Especially since your AI allies don’t understand team work and you often have to go where they go which doesn’t always provide a winning solution. When you’re matched against two enemies, trying to finish the level’s requirements is extremely difficult. Your AI allies also don’t seem to understand the concept of upgrading, so they simply keep sailing out to a suicide mission.
The multiplayer is where Age of Booty shines. With the AI frustrating at times, getting friends together to play online can be an intense battle of wits! It’s a good way to get a fun and exciting game moving along since the gameplay lets every player feel as if they are contributing. Multiplayer supports up the eight players and more than thirty official maps of various sizes are available. It also includes a map editor that is easy to use so players can make their own creations. The only difficulty I ran into here is that ship upgrades can be only be obtained at your faction’s base leaving some players hesitant to stray too far away in fear that a teammate might use the shared resources before they are able to.
Graphics & Sound
Age of Booty makes use of colorful visuals and thankfully the developers stopped just short of going overboard on the pirate speak. The menus are crisp and animations are quite entertaining. For instance if you max out your speed, you’ll see flames shooting out of the stern! The character designs are artistic and fun and a map editor that is included ads new dimension with levels that you can create yourself without spending hours to learn how to use it. The soundtrack is upbeat and you’ll quickly be bouncing along to the music. Sound effects are not overpowering but provide a clean balance of sound.
Value
The game can get a little frustrating in the single-player campaign but when paired with friends, you will never experience the same game twice. In single-player mode, each map is full of various solutions making each level, including its various difficulties, a new game every time.
Conclusion
Age of Booty is an addicting RTS that while simple to grasp; it has enough to offer hardcore gamers. The single-player mode is hurt by uncooperative AI teammates but the online multiplayer more than makes up for this. Age of Booty is a winner for anyone who enjoys the RTS genre or always wanted to try it.
Pros
+ Simple to control
+ Easy to learn
+ Ships and Towns are upgradable
+ Resources are available to all parties
+ Power-ups give special abilities
+ Multiplayer is truly exciting and engaging
+ Lots of maps between single-player and Multiplayer modes
+ Map Editor lets you create new levels
Cons
- AI allies are frustratingly stupid
- AI enemies are sometimes overpowered
- Resources in Multiplayer can only be used by one ship at a time
Final Verdict
Here's a small guide to help you understand our evaluation of games.
PRESENTATION GRADE
Can be from the game's box to the contents of the booklet, and even the game introduction. (Intro, menus, options, etc)
GRAPHIC GRADE
Up to what point the graphics have been worked on my the developper. The design type, the effort used for textures and environments, as well as animations and framerate.
AUDIO GRADE
Is the soundtrack a good match to the game's style, he ambient sounds keeping with the gameplay and the sound effects clear and convincing?
GAMEPLAY GRADE
Placement of the controls and the inferface that the player with be using during the game.
REPLAY VALUE GRADE
The most important factor in the evaluation of a game. It identifies the lifespan of the game and the fun of coming back again and again.
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